Registration of property hit

Registration of property hit

The Hindu

Ambiguity in Ordinance promulgated on December 11 cited as the reason

BANGALORE: The ambiguity in the Karnataka Land Revenue (Amendment) Ordinance promulgated on December 11 has sharply brought down the registration of property in Bangalore and other parts of the State in the last two days.

This is because of the refusal of the sub-registrars to register the property fearing that they could be prosecuted if the documents presented are fake.

The Ordinance has identified various types of offences that could be committed while registering a property, though knowingly or unknowingly, and has prescribed a fine as well imprisonment of officers found guilty.

The fine ranges between Rs. 5,000 and Rs. 25,000 besides imprisonment up to three years.

While the decline has been drastic in the revenue belt around Bangalore with many sub-registrar offices reporting a decline by nearly 70 per cent, the registration of property has come down by 30 to 40 per cent in the rest of the State.

Sources in the district registrar's office told The Hindu that it was impossible for them to verify the genuineness of documents issued by various agencies, including the Bangalore Development Authority, Bangalore Mahanagara Palike(BMP), CMCs and the Revenue Department.

The sources said, "We are not registering the property, as we do not know whether the documents are genuine. When there have been instances of BDA documents being forged, how can we blindly register them?"

On Friday and Saturday, the sub-registrars while refusing to register the documents were showing the Ordinance copies to those who came to the office for registration.

An official said that to verify the genuineness of the documents, it had to be sent to the agency that had issued them, and all these process might take a couple of months before the property could be registered.

Following the Ordinance, it is learnt that the registration of revenue sites had almost come to a standstill.

Further, the sources pointed out that the Ordinance had not specified registration of property that fall under gram thana, BMP or CMCs.