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:
- 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.
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.
More,
No comments:
Post a Comment