BENGALURU: Two sub-registrars of the department of stamps and registration in Bengaluru have been placed under suspension for not adhering to the rules laid down by the state government in connection with property registration.
The duo, in different offices, continued to carry out registrations using physical khatas that had been banned by the government for the last two months.
Kumari Roopa, sub-registrar at Kacharakanahalli office in Nagawara, and N Manjunath, senior sub-registrar at Hessaraghatta in Bengaluru North taluk, were placed under suspension on December 24 for illegal registrations, said multiple sources in the registration department.
To ensure transparency in registrations across the state, the chief secretary had on October 7, 2024, issued an order mandating that only e-khata certificates need to be used as a valid document to complete any property registration. The order was to come into effect from October 28, 2024.
TNIE has one of the orders by the Inspector General of Stamps and Registration K A Dayananda to the secretary, revenue department and all the district registrars notifying them about the suspension of Kumari Roopa. The orders stated that between October 7,2024, and November 26, 2024, she had carried out 157 “illegal registrations” by accepting the manual khata certificate.
It questioned as to how it was done and wanted to know how many people were involved in facilitating it. A team had been constituted to probe the issue, it added. The letter also questioned if there were loopholes in the Kaveri 2.0 software which allowed this to take place.
Manjunath too was suspended for the same reason. It is not clear how many properties he had registered using the physical khata.
A senior official in the registration department said work was not impacted in both the offices as on date since Thursday was a closed holiday due to Christmas and Friday was declared a holiday due to the passing away of former PM Manmohan Singh.