Coming down heavily on the presence of middlemen in the stamp duty and registration offices in the state,the public accounts committee (PAC) of the Maharashtra legislature has recommended strict action against employees who are found to be hand in glove with such elements. .it has come to the notice of the committee that middlemen are present in the stamp duty and registration offices and they are hand in glove with the office employees. The department must take necessary preventive steps and the committee recommends that the agents and employees who are in cahoots with them must be located and strict action must be taken against them, the PAC said in its latest report. The committee is headed by senior BJP MLA from Kasba Peth (Pune) Girish Bapat. The PAC report said while the registration fee for every document was fixed,a lesser fee was charged from a person utilising the services of an agent. Some sub- registrars do not allow access to middlemen. That is why these agents make false complaints against these officials (and) such a case had occurred recently in the Pune office, it said. Despite computerisation of stam duty offices in the state,around three lakh documents are still pending registration in these offices and they have to be returned to the parties concerned. These documents are lying there for years without registration (and) in order to take this work to the logical end,the government must undertake a fast track programme. The PAC report said employees should be appointed on contract basis for this work. It noted that from 1996- 97,the accounts of the inspector general of stamps and the department of financial accounts were at variance that led to a difference in accounts of Rs 459.06 crore from 1997- 98 to 2002- 03,which was a serious issue. It recommended that the officials responsible for not tallying the accounts should be summoned for an inquiry even it they had retired and criminal action be taken against them. Pointing to the huge revenues to the state government generated by stamp duty,the committee said henceforth officials and employees with a complete information of this issue be appointed in these offices. It said the old practices should be replaced with new computer-based ones and the aid of expert consultants should be taken for the purpose.
