 "Registration Act to be taken up by Cabinet tomorrow")
The Registration Act, 1908, which governs not just the legal superstructure of property transactions in India, but is also an input in determining the value of land, is set to be amended. The amendment, to be taken up by the Cabinet on Thursday, would be an important supporting legislation for the Land Acquisition Bill, likely to be taken up in the monsoon session of Parliament.
Former law minister Ashwani Kumar had been sitting on the amended Registration Act for eight months; Kapil Sibal, the new law minister, took just an hour to read and clear it.
The amended Act would enable farmers to get market value for their land by updating land rates and ensuring compulsory registration of power of attorney, among other steps. Government sources said the Act was being amended to “update and record” the market value of the land in the changed scenario, so that farmers whose land would be acquired for various projects would be assured “real market value” under the proposed Land Acquisition Bill.
The amendment also proposes to define the term “lease” more comprehensively “so as to make leases for periods below one year (but above a specified amount) compulsory registerable”. Autonomy would be given to states to specify the floor amount for such registrations. Currently, leases for periods less than a year don’t have to be registered; this provision has been exploited repeatedly, particularly in the case of disputes.
The government is also introducing amendments to the adoption clause. According to the current Act, the document for adoption of sons has to be compulsorily registered; the new measure suggests Section 17 (3) be amended to include daughters. It also proposes to empower the sub-registrar officer to use Unique Identity Numbers to verify the identity of those registering a property. It has also been proposed all documents related to land transactions be digitised.
To ensure there’s no scope for alteration, deletion or manipulation of land records.
Former law minister Ashwani Kumar had been sitting on the amended Registration Act for eight months; Kapil Sibal, the new law minister, took just an hour to read and clear it.
The amended Act would enable farmers to get market value for their land by updating land rates and ensuring compulsory registration of power of attorney, among other steps. Government sources said the Act was being amended to “update and record” the market value of the land in the changed scenario, so that farmers whose land would be acquired for various projects would be assured “real market value” under the proposed Land Acquisition Bill.
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According to the legislation’s objective, “All manner of agreements relating to land or property need to be registered, if they are to be considered as evidence in a court of law.” The new measure proposes compulsory registration of power of attorney. This was because according to the Act of 1908, it wasn’t mandatory to register power of attorney, something that was exploited by many who used power of attorney to transfer property without getting it registered. This led to huge losses to the state exchequer.
The amendment also proposes to define the term “lease” more comprehensively “so as to make leases for periods below one year (but above a specified amount) compulsory registerable”. Autonomy would be given to states to specify the floor amount for such registrations. Currently, leases for periods less than a year don’t have to be registered; this provision has been exploited repeatedly, particularly in the case of disputes.
The government is also introducing amendments to the adoption clause. According to the current Act, the document for adoption of sons has to be compulsorily registered; the new measure suggests Section 17 (3) be amended to include daughters. It also proposes to empower the sub-registrar officer to use Unique Identity Numbers to verify the identity of those registering a property. It has also been proposed all documents related to land transactions be digitised.
To ensure there’s no scope for alteration, deletion or manipulation of land records.