Hyderabad: Corrupt babus investing outside the state are escaping the Anti Corruption Bureau dragnet as the agency has no direct access to property details in other states.
Apart from inaccessibility to the records of other states after bifurcation and as a fall out of the cash-for-vote scam, AP and TS ACB officials can’t access each other’s state records in the servers of Stamps and Registration departments.
A top official of TS ACB said, “The properties registered in the name of suspected corrupt officials can be immediately checked on the server of the Stamps and Registration department by name. Even the names of family members of the suspected corrupt officials can be searched to know the lands, houses and buildings registered in their name. Simultaneously the babus’ income sources can be verified. Based on the data, we come to a conclusion that there is a prima facie case of assets disproportionate to the known sources of income. Then searches will be conducted. But we have access only to the central server of TS. Even AP and TS servers are separated now. Unless we know specifically in which state the suspected official owns properties we can’t give a requisition to the officials and check them,”
According to the officials of the Stamps and Registration department of TS, only five states like AP, Telangana, Maharashtra and Karnataka have central servers; in other states the data is available at either registration offices or are not digitised.
ACB officials are now seeking access to the servers of all the digitised states as it is widely believed that officials of certain departments like Excise have purchased lands in cities like Bengaluru. Access to each other’s servers – of AP and TS – is a must they say as there is all likelihood of officials investing in both the Telugu speaking states.
Telangana Sub Registrars Sangham president K. Vijay Bhaskar Rao said, “Registration of property is done to inform the public that a person has bought a property. So it is an open document and not a secret one. Whoever applies can get certified copies of documents except for Wills. What is wrong if investigating agencies seek access?”
