Govt mulls amending Registration Act

​Hyderabad: Taken aback by the major land scam that surfaced on Sunday, the State government is now contemplating bringing in amendments to the Land Registration Act 1908 and make foolproof security system in the registration process.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekar on Monday told the Deputy Chief Minister, who holds Revenue portfolio, Mohd Mahmood Ali to review the situation with the officials, including MROs and RDOs, and take firm action against all guilty in the case.

Following this, Mahmood Ali held a meeting with officials and constituted a three member committee headed by Commissioner and Inspector General (Registration and Stamps) Ahmed Nadeem to study the loopholes in the Registration Act and make recommendations to ensure that land scam do not recur.

During the meeting the officials are learnt to have told the Deputy Chief Minister that land-grabbers had taken advantage of loopholes in the Act and got the government lands registered in their names. This, however, would not have been possible unless there was collusion between the realtors and the local officials, they felt.

The government also took a serious note of the evasion of stamp duty by the realtors who purchasd land by obtaining General Power of Authority *GPA). The officials felt that some clauses in the existing Stamp Act of 1899 were not relevant in the present situation and they need to be amended. Lack of stringent rules in curbing evasion of stamp duty was resulting in the land purchasers causing loss to the exchequer.

The sources said once the three member committee submits its report, government would come up with necessary amendments in the Stamps and Registration Act.

It may be mentioned here that the Chief Minister had already called for a high level meeting with the officials to discuss the pending cases pertaining to multiple land registration and encroachment of government land encroachments during first week of June.