Maharashtra CIC orders early return of property papers

Ashutosh Shukla / DNAWednesday, May 26, 2010 1:51 IST

Mumbai: Residents of Maharashtra who registered their properties before 2002 and have been struggling ever since to get the original papers can now look forward to some relief.

In a decision that is likely to benefit lakhs of householders in the state, state chief information commissioner Suresh Joshi has directed the additional chief secretary (revenue and rehabilitation) and the inspector general of registrations to publish details of all registration documents with current status and invite people to take their original papers, duly registered, back.

Joshi issued the order at a hearing on May 15 of an application filed under the Right to Information Act by Deepak Furia, who was tired of running from pillar to post to find out the procedure for getting back his original documents submitted at the registration office.

Prior to 2002, people who wanted to get property deeds registered had to send all the relevant documents to the local sub-registrar's office. The sub-registrar's office would first verify the value of the property and then register the property.

Thereafter, registration documents from all over Maharashtra would be sent to the Pune office of the government photo registry for microfilming. As a result there was a huge backlog at the photo registry and original documents were not received back from Pune for as long as 15 years.

“A lot of people had to go through mental agony and pay bribes when it came to transferring their houses, selling their property, or going in for redevelopment," Rajendra Dharod of the Tarun Mitra Mandal, a non-governmental organization with nine centres across the country that takes up RTI-related issues, said.

"Though the RTI Act helped in some cases, this order should help a larger section of society provided it is implemented in the right spirit," Dharod said.

When contacted, Ramesh Kumar, additional chief secretary (revenue), said, "I do not have the figures of pending documents on my fingertips. I will have to check that and the order to comment on this."