Haryana Deletes ‘Agriculture Class’ &‘Area Limit’ In New Registration System

The Haryana government has made sweeping changes in the process of registration of property/land sale deeds to plug the loopholes misused in the alleged registries scam, which occurred during the lockdown and covers over 30,000 sale deeds executed without the mandatory no-objection certificates (NoCs). These land sale deeds were executed without taking NoCs from the town and country planning and urban local bodies departments. The state’s revenue department has now decided to delete the words ‘agriculture class’ and ‘area limit’ in the new registration system for land within control area or within the limits of urban local bodies. Also, the urban local bodies will allot UID numbers to all properties within their jurisdiction and the seller shall have to clear all liabilities of civic bodies before transfer of plot or property. Most importantly, the registration of sale deeds would be subject to final approval by the deputy commissioners (DCs), who will be held responsible for any misuse or loopholes. The DCs will approve the sale deeds after verifying the process as well the NOCs. In 2017, the Haryana government had made a provision that agricultural land, measuring two kanals and above, would not require any kind of NoC from any department. This rule was misused when groups of people collaborated to purchase chunks of land and developed colonies. The same kind of misuse happened during the lockdown. According to the new rules, only the land with revenue number would be identified and the process would be completed only after the buyer or seller get clearance from the concerned departments. Haryana will be the first state in the country to create a centralized system for its land records and plans to implement the new system of property registration by early next year. The project to digitize the land records of the entire state is going on at present and is expected to be completed by the year-end.