Files, applications pile up as revenue officials continue stir

Our Correspondent

Mandi Ahmedgarh/ Raikot / Payal, December 6

People visiting registrar and sub-registrar offices in the region are a harried lot. Files and applications for various revenue and public-related services have piled up at offices of deed writers and Suvidha Centres.

Aspirants of government jobs, students applying for fresh admissions, NRIs and their relatives are the worst sufferers as deadlines for submission or registration of documents is time bound.

Routine work has remained suspended at sub-registrar and joint sub-registrar offices at Raikot, Payal, Jagraon and Ahmedgarh subdivisions for a fortnight following a call given by the Punjab Revenue Officers Association, led by its president Gurdev Singh Dham, and DC Office Employees Union, led by Gurnam Singh Virk.

The protest was launched to express anguish over alleged false implication and arrest of Mahilpur Naib Tehsildar Sandeep Kumar and registry clerk Manjit Singh by the Vigilance preceding the agitation.

Deed writers led by Advocate Munish Sharma said their clients were upset over government’s unconcern about virtual paralysis of work at offices manned by activists of the Punjab Revenue Officers Association.

Their clients had to return disappointed every day after knowing that there had been no headway on union’s demand to withdraw cases registered against Sandeep and Manjit, Sharma added.

“We have to cut a sorry face before regular clients when our assurances to get the work done soon prove futile,” Sharma said while maintaining that residents seeking registration of transfer deeds, beneficiaries of various official services, students requiring domicile, income and caste certificates, NRIs and their relatives were among worst sufferers.

Expressing concern about inconvenience caused to the public, revenue officers led by Manmohan Kaushik and Vishavjit Singh alleged that the government’s adamant attitude towards their genuine demand to probe into the incident of harassment of officials at the hands of the Vigilance Department had resulted in present unsavoury situation.

“Now, when it has been made clear that Sandeep and Manjit had neither demanded any bribe nor any illegal money was recovered from them by Vigilance officials, the government should conduct an inquiry into sequence of events through an agency and do the needful to withdraw the fake case,” they said while adding that a delegate of the union would meet the Punjab Revenue Minister tomorrow to seek action in the matter.

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