Instances abound of same flat or piece of land being sold to multiple individuals; land registry department to blame.
Export firm executive Sitanshu Mahadik* was all set to shift house to a flat he bought at Airoli. But, on a routine visit, he got the shock of his life.
He found a family already living in his flat. When they named the builder from whom they had bought the flat, Mahadik realised the chap had sold the flat twice.
On visiting the builder’s office, he found three more individuals arguing with him over the same flat.
What took the cake in the dispute was that the sub-registrar’s office had registered the sale deed of the flat sold by the builder to five people.
In a similar case, businessman Parvez Suratwala bought a 50,000 sq metre plot at Andheri for Rs30 crore.
He made the purchase after verifying not only the power of attorney authorising the agent to sell the land, owned by a non-resident Indian, but also records at the sub-registrar’s office.
But two months later, he found other claimants of the land.
Upon investigating, he learnt the agent, using the same power of attorney, had sold the land to four people, before fleeing.
These two cases are merely illustrative of a ’90s practice once again becoming widespread in the city.
“The blame lies solely with the sub-registrar’s office,” says a lawyer.
As per rules, the department is supposed to maintain records of every land transaction by survey number, month-wise, in every territorial office. The rules were framed to ensure no duplication in land sale.
“But the records are not maintained properly by the department. We have found documents detailing transactions worth crores torn and spoiled. The records have not been updated for years on end.”
This helps dishonest dealers in the multiple sale of the same property, says Anand Patwardhan, lawyer and former president of the Consumer Guidance Society of India. “And, if such a property is financed by different banks on the basis of inadequate records, ultimately, it is public money which is at stake.”
The state revenue department was expected to computerise manually-written records, but despite the department’s computerisation, nothing has been done. Now, a few advocates have filed a PIL so that the government gets its act together on land records.
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