Hyderabad: Taking a serious note of the happenings at the Kukutpally Sub-Registrar office involving a huge land registration scam running into several hundred crores, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Tuesday ordered the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) Director General to form special squads and conduct raids across the 141 Sub-Registrar offices in the State to unearth various misdeeds in the land transactions. He has instructed the ACB officials to seize all those registered documents from the offices which have not been uploaded into the system.
Chief Minister pointed out around 20 to 25 per cent of the land registrations are not being uploaded by the Sub-Registrars, which give rise to suspicion of illegalities. Mr Rao had held a high-level review meeting at Pragathi Bhavan on Tuesday and in the meeting he himself read out various provisions in both State and Central Acts concerning the Registration Department and the power enshrined in the Sub-Registrars, including discretionary powers. Chief Minister announced immediate removal of Section 41 (A) of the Stamps and Registration Act which give powers to the Sub-Registrar to reduce the land registration value from what Government had notified as its value.
He also ordered department officials to only go for registration value only and remove all clauses giving special powers to Sub-Registrar to make registrations under valuing the rate fixed by the Government. He also ordered abolition of ‘anywhere registration’ system immediately. Referring to the land scam unearthed in Kukutpally Sub-Registrar office, Chief Minister also asked officials to identify culprits other than the Sub-Registrar and suspend them immediately. Balanagar Sub Registrar Mohammed Yousuf, Medchel Sub Registrar Ramesh Chandra Reddy are suspended while Kukatpally Sub Registrar Srinivas Rao has already been suspended.
Police have registered Criminal cases against the three accused who are facing corruption and irregularities charges. Srinivas Rao has already been arrested and sent to the remand. However Chief Minister declared in the meeting that there is no truth in certain media reports that Government land has gone into the hands of private persons. ‘not even a square of government land in Miyapur changed hands in the scam, to get loans from banks and other financial institutions, certain persons put government survey numbers and registered the lands some officials have also colluded in this. The matter came to the notice of the government recently and on May 25 the registration was cancelled.
Action is taken against the guilty and further action will also be taken against all those involved’ Chief Minister said. Registering government lands is illegal and such registrations are not accepted. The government land in Miyapur though registered there is no legality to it. The land is not transferred. The government land is very much under the government’s possession. Private persons used the Survey Numbers for registration to get loans. The land is not alienated and hence people should not worry. There is no truth in reports that government land is in the hands of the private persons,” the Chief Minister clarified.
