Rs 12 cr stamp duty ‘scam’ in Panipat

Mukesh Tandon
Tribune News Service
Panipat, November 18

An alleged scam of evasion of Rs 12 crore stamp duty in registration of properties in the district has come to fore. As many as 557 registration deeds were found, in which stamp duty was found less than the actual value of the registered land, during the special audit of financial years 2018-19 and 2019-20.

The District Revenue Officer (DRO) denied the allegations and said there was no scam in stamp duty in the district.

In reply to an RTI inquiry, 409 registration deeds were found in Panipat registrar office, 95 in Samalkha sub-registrar office, 24 each in Bapoli and Madlauda sub-registrar office and five in Israna sub-registrar office.

Sandeep Rathi of Manana village in Samalkha on Wednesday filed a complaint at the CM window against the alleged corrupt practices in the registration of properties in all registration offices of the district.

He said during the audit of the registered documents, stamp duty of Rs 10.22 crore was found less in 409 registered documents in Panipat registrar office in 2018-19, 2019-20. In Samalkha, stamp duty of Rs 92.83 lakh was found less in 95 registered documents. Stamp duty of Rs 22.55 lakh was found less in 24 registered documents in Bapoli sub-registrar office, Rs 43.53 lakh less in 24 registered documents in Madlauda sub-registrar office and Rs 2.91 lakh less in five registered documents in 2018-19, while the audit of 2019-2020 was not done so far.

Rathi demanded that criminal cases should be registered against the officials involved in corruption.

Chander Mohan, DRO, denied the allegations and said it was a routine process of the department.

“There is no scam or corruption in registration of the land in the district. The property registration process is completely online. The software accepted the registration at the collector rate,” said the DRO.

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