In a bid to prevent fraudulent transactions, the State government has made personal identification document mandatory for registering land, with immediate effect. The public have been asked to provide one of the three - Aadhaar-based authentication, passport or PAN - during the registration.
“Fraudulent transactions are taking place on a daily basis and it is a systemic fraud where fake individual IDs are being created to claim ownership over land or to prove ancestry. Starting Monday, submission of one of the three documents has been made mandatory,” Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda told presspersons here.
“There had been widespread complaints in several districts, including Bengaluru, of land being sold by fraudsters eventually leading the genuine land-owner to long-drawn court battles,” he added.
The public have been asked to provide one of the three - Aadhaar-based authentication, passport or PAN - during the registration. | Photo Credit: File Photo
Mr. Byre Gowda said that though Aadhaar card alone could be used as a document for personal identification, the Central legislation does not permit it. “The mandatory personal identification is now being implemented across the State after a successful pilot in three taluks. This had been in discussion for sometime and in one of the Cabinet meetings, the Chief Minister sought to know if Aadhaar card could be used to prevent frauds.” While fake Aadhar number were being used in fraudulent transactions, the government will run query in UIDAI system to match the individual details, he said.
Mr. Byre Gowda said that precautions have been taken to safeguard the Aadhaar card data provided by the public, and that only the last four digits would be displayed while fingerprints will be masked. “We have corrected the problems and taken preventive steps to protect data,” the Minister said when asked about an earlier instance of misuse of Aadhaar data from the Stamps and Registration Department website.
The State government is working on a system to prevent multiple registration of the same property. “Of about 4.5 crore RTCs (Record of Rights, Tenancy and Crops), about 50 lakh have problems where the land is noted as agriculture land whereas layouts have come up. This is leading to multiple fraudulent transactions as land character in RTC is agriculture and is also shown as a residential site in municipal records. There are unauthorised layouts that have been developed over 30 years. We are working on to control this menace,” Mr. Byre Gowda said.
Governor criticised for returning Bill
The Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda on Monday slammed the Governor for returning the amendment to Registration Act that provides for faceless or remote registration of properties, which was passed by the legislature in February.
The amendment provides for remote registration of properties in offices of organisation such as BDA, KHB or RERA registered projects. According to the Minister, while about 30% of applications in sub-registrar offices pertain to mortgage and pledge, banks would be able to handle such applications after the amendment thus reducing the burden on the office and providing convenience to the public.
“The Governor returned the Bill seeking clarification and we have given a 40-page clarification. Such a system exists in Maharashtra and Governor’s home State Madhya Pradesh. The Government of India has incentivised this scheme and has also sought compliance report. The system is ready for implementation but await Governor’s clearance,” he said, accusing the Governor of withholding consent to paralyse the government.
