Corruption in property tax branch of Panipat, Samalkha MCs
Mukesh Tandon
Panipat, November 26
The Chief Minister’s Flying Squad (CMFS) has unearthed corruption in the property tax branch of the Municipal Corporation (MC) of Panipat and the Municipal Committee (MC) of Samalkha.
Cases have been registered against three persons in Samalkha, including two employees, and four persons in Panipat, including three employees, for allegedly making fake documents for property IDs, on the complaint of Sub Inspector (SI) Raj Singh of the CMFS.
He stated that he received information that employees in the property tax branch of the MC, Panipat, had issued no dues certificates (NDCs) without signature of the competent officers, by preparing fake site reports by using unauthorised IDs in April, May and June in connivance with agents and property owners, making huge revenue losses for the MC.
A team of CMFS also visited the MC office on November 15 and informed about the files to DMC Jitender Singh and zonal tax officer (ZTO) Samay Pal Singh. In a surprise inspection, the files were checked by officials who found that the applicants had already deposited their development charges and property taxes but it was not updated in the MC records. The property owners have filed applications for correction but these files have been corrected without signatures of the appropriate authority. Besides, in one file, the team found that an applicant, Savitri Devi, had filed for correction of the area and name of her property from 110 sq m to 88.50 sq m. But, it was found only 41 square metres in the record. But, it has been changed from 41 to 88 sq m by tampering with the record and even the programmer had updated the file without the sign of any appropriate officer. After that, Savitri Devi had filed an application for the NDC and without a report of the JE and by ignoring the objections on the file, the process of level-1 and level-2 has been completed. After getting the NDC, the property owner had sold her property which made a revenue loss to the government.
A case was registered against three MC employees — Pawan Kumar, tax clerk, Dharambir Singh, Junior programmer, Shiv Kumar, the then Assistant District Attorney and property owner Savitri Devi of Mahadev Colony.
In another case, the SI told the Samalkha police that Ramesh Chand Aggarwal was the owner of a property of 620 sq m on the Gulati Road in the town while his brother Suresh Kumar Aggarwal was the owner of a 64-sq m land. But, he managed to get a fake property ID and NDC from the MC and sold this land to Manju Devi and Manita of Samalkha. It was found that property tax clerk Vikas Bajad and JE Gaurav Bhardwaj, without getting signatures from the MC secretary, completed the process of level-1 and level-2 from their user ID. They generated the property ID online fraudulently and it was found fake as the ID was already allotted to Sachin of Parao Mohalla of the town. After getting the property ID and NDC, owner Suresh sold this property.
JE Gaurav Bhardwaj, property tax clerk Vikas Bajad and Suresh Kumar Goyal and began a probe.
Seven booked
Separate cases have been registered against three persons in Samalkha and four in Panipat for allegedly making fake documents for property IDs.
