‘Blank space’ way of defrauding the govt

Agreements for sale registered in Anekal have blank spaces where the transaction value should be mentioned. A piffling Rs 200 has been paid as stamp duty.

In a new species of land scam, in which sub-registrars and real estate middlemen are the key players, instance of registered agreements for sale without any mention of the land value have come to light.

Documents accessed by Bangalore Mirror show that a sub-registrar has registered sale agreements which have blank spaces where the value of the transaction should be mentioned. In other words, it is like a blank cheque that the people involved in the racket can fill up later, to their advantage and to the detriment of the public exchequer.

Apart from the loss to the government, what is significant is that in virtually every such case the land will end up with a house building co-operative society (HBCS), a majority of which face allegations of having cheated their investors.

In one instance, an agreement to sell by Ramanjaneya in favour of CR Manohar was registered on June 3, 2006 by the sub-registrar of Anekal. The land (survey No. 190/2) measures 31 guntas and is situated at Doddathimmasandra village, Sarjapura hobli, Anekal. The space for land value is blank.

In another agreement between C Rajkumar and CR Manohar, 20 guntas (survey No. 220) and 12 guntas (survey No. 185) in the same village were sold on August 17, 2006. Here too, the space for the transaction value is blank.

Yet another agreement to sell is between Rukkamma and four others in favour of CR Manohar, five different patches of land on survey Nos. 190/1, 190/3,191/1,191/2 and 191/3, measuring a total of four acres, seven guntas. In this transaction, the value of all five pieces of land is mentioned as Rs 44,27,500, leaving the spaces for the value of each property blank. The agreement states that Rs 40 lakh has already been paid.

A retired revenue official who checked the documents said, “It is the duty of the sub-registrar to verify the encumbrance certificates before registration of the absolute sale deeds. The deeds are to be registered only for the agreement value (which in the mentioned cases have been left blank). This is a clear irregularity in the registration process and has caused a huge revenue loss to the government.”

Each of these transactions was registered with a stamp duty of Rs 200 (the agreements say the possession of land is not transferred, and in such cases stamp duty is only Rs 200). Otherwise, the actual revenue accruing to the government would have been nine per cent (eight per cent stamp duty and one per cent registration charge) of the value of the transaction. In effect, in all three instances, the government coffers have been enriched by a total of just Rs 600.

ANOTHER FRAUD
The sub-registrar concerned has not only ignored the blank spaces in these agreements but also the overwriting in other agreements.

In one case, lands at survey No. 129, measuring one acre and ten guntas, are registered through an agreement of sale by Ramanjinaiah and others in favour of CR Manohar. The value mentioned is Rs 40,00,000 and the document states that Rs 39,99,000 has been paid and only Rs 1,000 is pending. The typed statement that possession has been handed over has been overwritten by hand to say that the land will be transferred at the time of execution of the sale deed.

Again, only Rs 200 has been paid as stamp duty. Besides, the hand-made correction does not have the counter-signature of the authorities.

The revenue official said, “There appears to be a clear and deliberate collusion between officials and middlemen in the evasion of stamp duty and registration fees, resulting in a heavy loss to the government .”

When BM contacted Shankar Lingaiah, the district registrar of Anekal, about these transactions where the space for mentioning the value is left blank, he said, “The sub-registrar concerned will have to answer for these. I am very busy and will not be able to check it immediately.”

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