It is a
known fact that the rampant corruption prevail in registration department. In terms of the news published in various
leading news papers, the modus operandi of corruption and the people involved
in corruption, is attributed to the following:
It is a
common knowledge that the Sub Registrars’ Offices in the State have become
notorious as dens of corruption. The corruption which occurs in Sub Registrars’Offices is mostly collusive corruption, where the giver of bribe as well as
taker of the bribe would not be ready to complain against each other. In many cases the Officers and the staff in
Sub Registrars’ Offices involve outsiders to help the bribe giver and the bribe
taker in relation to their bribing transactions, as such it would not be that
easy to secure evidence in relation to such activity.
Corruption
has become an inevitable proposition in the Department. General public believe
that nothing moves without greasing the Officials in the department. In
addition to that, there is a lot of secrecy that is surrounded around the
property valuations though they are more of an open issue.
The
confidence level of the public about the Registration department is very low
and they do not feel comfortable to approach the Sub Registrar on their own
without the help of the middle-men. The behavior of most of the Sub Registrars
is highly objectionable as neither they are courteous nor helpful in dealing
with the public.
Their attitude is only making money irrespective of any customer
and they treat every customer as equal irrespective of whether he is rich or
people, influential or otherwise. There
are instances wherein the Sub Registrars behave in such a blatant manner in
demanding money and they even demand money from reputed journalists and police
officers despite disclosing their identities.
Some of the Sub Registrars even
go to the extent of stating that they need to pay to all the higher ups and
other masters as such, they demand money. It is felt that, once the Officers sit
in the chair, they loose their senses and the private business approach dawns
in their minds.
The level
of corruption in the department mainly falls into this category of
administrative corruption. The last but not the least is the category of Deed
writer, stamp vendors and typists who wait and watch the innocent citizens.
This level
of corruption is further classified in to two categories viz., Corruption -
according to Rule; and Corruption – against the Rule.
This category is a smaller phenomenon, where the bribes are
collected despite all the papers being in order. This is an amount demanded
directly and even the public pays this, as a token of safety, as they do not
like to face any problems in the future.
Most of the corruption in this category relate to the Search and
issuance of Encumbrance Certificates. In
this category, the corruption starts at the level of peon, who takes the thumb
impression of the customer. There are
many instances, wherein the peon does not leave the thumb, until his bribe
ranging between Rs.50/- to Rs.100/- is paid.
Corruption against the Rule: In fact, this category is the predominant
and major problematic area. The Sub Registrars and the District Registrars
enjoy discretionary powers which are almost misused in majority of the
cases. The areas covered in this
category, range from interpretation of the Acts, Circulars issued and raising
objections on the documents presented. Besides this, the other area is on
‘guidance value’ which is major source of massive corruption. This category
includes cases like allowing registrations where they are prohibited under the
law in the light of public policy and non-insistence of IT clearances etc., and
buildings being shown as vacant sites, etc.
The
corruption is also sometimes classified into wholesale and retail corruption.
The corruption what is seen in the department is retail corruption, as it is
mainly focused at each sub registry and local phenomenon. The most
disadvantageous feature of this kind of
retail corruption is bad public image and public at large try to avoid
the contact with the sub registries and they have an allergic feeling and
negative attitude.
A close
look at the corruption levels, it can be identified that the key figures in the
process of corruption process consist the following groups:
Officials.
Non-Officials
including volunteers.
Retired
employees.
One can understand the role of Officials, but what
about these Non-Officials including volunteers and retired employees. A close look at these two categories reveal
that – the Non-Officials and Volunteers category is considered to be the most
important category which plays an important and vital role in the collusive
corruption in the department. The department had more or less been entertaining
officially the volunteers in the department and they have become the sources of
corruption and are responsible for converting the entire offices as the dens of
corruption. In fact they are the real harassers of the public, since they have
no official accountability or any sort of liability whatsoever.
non-official and volunteers, the Retired employees of
the department also play an important role in the collusive corruption. Some of
the retired employees are so much dedicated and committed to the department
though they are retired they do not want to leave the department.
It is open
secret that the corruption is prevalent in sub registrars’ office and people
are aware that the registration and corruption are SIAMI twines and they cannot
be separated.
The common
man reluctantly bribes the Sub Registrars to get his document registered.
Having paid considerable amount to the Vendor to achieve his life dream of
owning a house, the Purchaser fixes an auspicious day for registration and
house warming.
His family members would be anxiously waiting to get the
property registered and commence the house warming function. At that stage, if the documents are not
registered on that particular day, the Purchaser would also be worried as to
whether the Vendor who has taken considerable portion of the sale consideration
may not turn up to Sub Registrar’s Office on another day for completing the
registration. As such, the common man
would be reluctantly constrained to pay the bribe and ensure that the
transaction of registration is completed.
For More..........:
No comments:
Post a Comment