ONGOLE: The fake registration stamp duty challans scam that took place in Stamps and Registration department offices in several districts of the State also had its impact in Prakasam district.So far, the authorities have found that a total of Rs 31 lakh worth of stamp duty fee was defrauded by fraudsters by submitting fake registration stamp duty challans drawn for the immovable assets registration at various sub-registrar offices of the district.
According to the authorities, a private document writer played a key role in this scam and recovered was Rs 26.74 lakh from the accused. In this regard, the Stamps and Registration department authorities also lodged a complaint with the Ongole-1 Town PS and an investigation has been initiated.
According to official sources, the scam first came to light when the Stamps and Registration authorities found that 71 document registrations were completed with 77 fake stamp duty challans in the Ongole joint sub-registrar-1 and 2 offices and one similar document registration was also found in the Kandukur sub-registrar limits from the Singarayakonda sub-registrar’s office through the ‘Anywhere Registration’ mode.
Further, recently the inspection teams found 12 more fake stamp fee challans submitted for the property document registrations in the Ongole-1 and 2 joint sub-registrar offices. The fraudsters had cheated the government to a tune of Rs 5 lakh. After this, the district Stamps and Registration department DIG Vijayalakshmi directed the teams to continue the thorough inspection of all the document registrations done in these two offices.
“We found that a document writer named K Pavan Kumar played the key role in stamp duty challan scam and we have made him repay Rs 26.74 lakh to the department. We have already submitted an internal inquiry report to our higher officials in this regard,” joint sub-registrar-2 SK Jaffer explained.This scam first came to light on August 16 while the district Stamps and Registration authorities inspected all property registration documents from April and May.
Now, the special inspection teams of the department are thoroughly inspecting all property registration documents and their related stamp duty fee challans related to June, July and August months. The teams will also inspect the registration documents from 2018,2019,2020.