The curtailed monsoon session of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha Wednesday witnessed an exchange of sharp words between Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala and Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda when latter raised the issue of the alleged scam in land deed registries and demanded a inquiry by the CBI, a sitting high court judge or a House committee. The issue came up during a discussion on the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas (Second Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2020, which primarily proposes to make express statutory provisions to clarify certain provisions of the Haryana Development and Regulations of Urban Areas Act, 1975. Raising objections to provisions of bill, Congress MLA BB Batra said the government gave a “vague definition of vacant land” and demanded that it be referred to a select committee and a comprehensive legislation be brought after that. Causing embarrassment to his own coalition government, JJP MLA Ram Kumar Gautam said it is well known that officials “take money” due to which unauthorised colonies come up and later the ones who are unable to bribe, bulldozers are used to raze their structures. He alleged that the rate of bribe has jumped from Rs 5,000-10,000 to Rs 50,000- 1 lakh. Defending the bill, Dushyant said comprehensive amendments were aimed at ensuring that illegal colonies do not come up in the state. However, raising the issue of the alleged scam in land deed registries detected recently, Hooda sought to know which agency would Dushyant fall upon to get the scam probed. As Hooda insisted on a reply, Dushyant said, “Hooda is demanding a CBI inquiry. Many CBI inquiries are already going on in the state. In our government, it is not the case of 'damad ji',” he said. He said the state government has taken a strong action in the registry issues and filed FIR against the negligent officials. He said the Congress party, which is questioning illegal colonies, has an MLA whose bungalow has come under objections. “When we have to take action; we strongly take action wherever irregularities are detected. Did you take action during your 10 years of rule when wrong change of land use (CLUs) were issued,” Dushyant said and asked if Hooda would inform the House about the number of CLUs wrongly issued and cancelled during his 10-year tenure. Earlier, INLD leader Abhay Chautala said that “there are reports of 30,000 wrong land registries in 32 cities and towns” of the state. “In Gurgaon alone, 1,199 registries took place without taking no objection certificate (from the competent authority) in between April 24 and June 30 this year. Illegal transaction of thousands of crores has taken place,” he said. However, Dushyant insisted that “no loss of stamp duty or registration fees has occurred” and claimed that there was no truth in the allegation that the deeds registered in 32 cities were illegal. “Some sub-registrars and joint sub-registrars did not comply with the provision of section 7A of the Haryana Development and Regulation Area (amendment) Act, 2017 at the time of registration of instruments of sale and lease of immovable property during the period,” he added. According to Dushyant, one sub-registrar and five joint sub-registrars in Gurgaon have been suspended and being chargesheeted under rule-7 of the Haryana Civil Services (Punishment and Appeal Rules), 2016. Disciplinary action has been initiated against officials in Narnaul, Karnal, Sonipat, Rewari, Panchkula, Bhiwani, Faridabad and Kaithal, who registered 1,555 instruments of sale during June 2013 to May 2020 violating the provisions. He said that an enquiry has been ordered into the land registries that took place from April 3, 2017 to December 31, 2019.
