Senior political leaders, former mayors and retired government servants are among those whose lands have been sold off illegally using fake sale deeds and registration documents.
With speculations on location of a capital region around Guntur and Krishna districts setting off a frenzy in real estate sector, a few realtors and middlemen have been eyeing vacant private lands abutting the national highway. Land prices which have been seeing an upward surge in recent months have hit the sky in recent months. On Tuesday, a former Mayor met Superintendent of Police, Guntur Urban, Gopinath Jatty and urged him to restore her 1,000 sq. feet plot at Namburu sold off without her knowledge.
“If this is the plight of senior leaders who have been in public life for many years, imagine the plight of ordinary citizens. The government should act on this immediately,’’ said the senior leader, who was also former chairman of VGTM UDA.
Recently, a former journalist who bought a plot at Nallapadu abutting the National Highway came up with a similar request and after a great deal of effort, the police could restore the land to him.
“Most of the land sales are taking place by agreements. Real estate brokers give token advance to take possession of land and sell off land to the third party. As a result, land registrations have come down drastically. The transaction is taking place only on paper resulting in loss of crores of revenue to the government,’ said a senior police official.
The Urban Police said they were being flooded with complaints over illegal sale of land, encroachment and other civil disputes.
The Superintendent of Policetold The Hindu that proposals for setting up of pre-litigation cell were being made and would sent shortly.
“Most of the complaints being received over the last few months related to land. The police do not have the competence and legal domain knowledge to handle these issues. So I am proposing to set up a pre-litigation cell to handle issues related to land and other civic disputes,’’ said Mr. Gopinath.
The pre-litigation cell will consist of legal advisors and would act as arbitration centre. It should have the prior permission of the district judge.
