Thanks to the land scams of Miyapur and Balanagar, the Telangana government has stepped up measures to consider the grievances of people against inclusion of any property in the prohibitory list of properties for registration under Section 22-A of Indian Registration Act.
The government has issued an order appointing Syed Latheef-ur-Rehman, a retired district judge, as a member of the committee constituted to consider grievances of people affected by notifications under the Act. A three-member committee with the Chief Commissioner of Land Administration as chairman and Commissioner and Director of Survey, Settlement and Land Records as member-convenor was actually constituted in July last year, but there was no headway in its work in the absence of the third member who was supposed to be a retired judicial officer of the rank of a District Judge.
The committee was constituted on the orders of a three-judge bench of the High Court on December 23, 2015, on writ petitions challenging the inaction of registering authorities in registering documents of prohibited lands under the Act. But, the committee was so far not functional and left the registration authorities without any list of prohibited lands.
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Then Chief Commissioner of Land Administration (CCLA) J. Raymond Peter had mandated the Revenue and Registration Departments to prepare the list of prohibited wakf, minority welfare, endowments and government properties and furnish it to the committee but he retired in the meantime. The Miyapur and Balanagar episodes were a fallout of the lack of follow-up work on the constitution of the committee.
The lapse was so grave that the lands of RTC and Metro Rail were also registered in the names of private persons, sources said.
In districts, the identification of prohibited lands was the responsibility of Tahsildars who will furnish the list to Collectors for notification. The lands will be barred from registration if anyone approached authorities for the purpose. The identification of prohibited lands ever since Telangana was formed had not taken place. In fact, the post of CCLA was vacant for nearly ten months.
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The Miyapur and Balanagar land scam had thrown up a new challenge to revenue authorities as it showed that registration took place not for lands, but raising bank loans on the basis of documents.
Documents pertaining to valuable lands were prepared by unscrupulous elements in connivance with registration authorities and submitted to banks. They passed off without notice to government. The role of document writers who are private persons and unlicensed has come to light in the murky dealings at the offices of sub-registrars.