Monday 18 May 2015

CORRUPTION AT SUB-REGISTERS OFFICE


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.

Harassment to public
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.   

Administrative corruption level: 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.

Corruption according to 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. 

Retail corruption: 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.

Key figures in the corruption levels:
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:

  1. Officials.
  2. Non-Officials including volunteers.
  3. 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.

This category mainly consists of:
The Stamp Vendors;
Deed-writers; and

Besides these 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.   

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