New land laws likely to help fraudsters

In what could be a classic example of 'putting the cart before the horse', the state government introduced a new scheme of land registration - 'anywhere document' - on November 1 without creating necessary infrastructure, and this may just encourage fraudulant land deals.

Before this scheme, anyone having a property in Dadar could register sale, mortgage or leasing of the property at a sub-registrar's office, jurisdiction of which included Dadar.

However, under the new scheme, if you have a property in Dadar you can get the transaction on your property registered even in Malad.

Doesn't it sound wonderfully convenient!

But hold on, if you have any plan to buy or attain property on lease now "� under the new scheme "� there are possibilities that you would be taken for a ride by fraudsters. Because, for the implementation of such a scheme, one critical prerequisite could be that all sub-registrar offices must be interconnected, which the government has not yet looked into.

O P Gupta, inspector general of land registration and stamp duties, told Business Standard, "Within one month, the facility would be made available at joint district registrar (JDR) offices in Mumbai, Pune and Nashik for one to check transaction on any property in the jurisdiction of these JDRs. Soon this facility would be extended to all JDR offices in the state.''

Member of Maharashtra and Goa Bar Council (MGBC) Sadanand Phadke said, "What authorities are saying is fine, but who is going to take the responsibility if any fraudulent transaction happens in the meantime."

Phadke also pointed out that under the earlier scheme, if a property was in some kind of dispute, injunction could be obtained from courts on any transactions made on that disputed property and a copy could be served to the particular sub-registrar's office so that any further transaction was not registered.

But with the implementation of the 'anywhere document' without the necessary infrastructure in place, serving such a copy to the concerned sub-registrar would be meaningless.

He also said under the new scheme lawyers are not able to give 'title search report', which is a prerequisite to getting a loan from a bank or a financial institution.