Fake land docus: HC moved against conferring powers to registrars

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court ordered notice to the Tamil Nadu government in a petition filed against the amendments brought by the State government to confer the powers upon the district registrars to cancel the fake and fraudulent land documents and registrations.

A division bench of Justice GR Swaminathan and Justice N Mala passed the direction on hearing the writ petition filed by advocate T Arockia Dass.

The petitioner sought direction to declare that sections 22B and 77A of Registration Act, 1908 conferring powers to the registrars IG registration to decide over the genuineness of the land document was suffering from arbitrariness, capricious, unreasonable, and violating article 14 of the Constitution of India. It is noted that the state has recently notified the amendments in the Registration Act.

“With the new sections, the District Registrar and registration department IG is conferred upon the power and authority to cancel the documents which are tainted with forgery. By the exercise of such authority, the District Registrars and registration department IG could decide the validity of the document. This power and authority of the registration authority could be termed as an encroachment upon the field of judiciary. This goes against the mandate of the Constitution of India in the separation of power between executive and judiciary,” the petitioner said in his affidavit.

The judges ordered notice to the State to file its response and adjourned the matter for four weeks.