Escalating land prices in city leading to rise in frauds

The escalation of land prices in Pune district has led to an increase in land-related frauds and consequently on the number of second appeals under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, against the revenue department officials.Invariably, the second appeals relate to the mutation entries done on land records without proper documentation.The second appeals are filed with the office of the state information commissioner (SIC) Pune. Every month the SIC office receives between 100 and 150 second appeals, of which 40% are against the revenue department. Majority of the appeals are against the department for not answering RTI queries about mutation entries of land.Mutation entries are the entries made in the 7/12 extract of the land denoting change in ownership of the land. These entries are crucial to determine the current ownership of the land in the revenue department.A scrutiny of the appeals reveals a common trend of denial of information by the revenue officials. The initial application is with the offices of the talathis and naib tehsildars, asking for documents based on which the mutation entries are made by the revenue department.In most cases, the department has responded to such applications by stating that the documents are not found. On appealing against this reply to the appellate authority, revenue officers have given the same reply, upon which, the applicant is forced to knock at the door of the SIC.A senior revenue officer, on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that irregularities were taking place within the department with systematic regularity in the past few years. According to him, the escalation of the land prices has activated the land mafia, who works hand in glove with the junior level revenue officials to grab land albeit in a surreptitious manner.The modus operandi for such land grabs is simple. The talathi changes the ownership of the land in the records in pencil and lets it lie dormant for two-three years. In case there are no objections to this mutation entry, it is made permanent, thereby changing the ownership of the land permanently.When the original land owner wishes to sell the land only then the change in land ownership is brought to light.Escalation of such cases in the recent years has also resulted in penalisation of many revenue officials by the SIC, yet such cases continue to grow unabated.RTI activist Vijay Kumbhar has advocated strict compliance of the RTI by the revenue department as a measure to stop the rise in such cases of land grab. "Sadly, the revenue department needs to do a lot in means of being RTI friendly," he said.