Chetan Prabhakar
A long-drawn suspension of work has been carried out by the lawyers of Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association, Chapter Jammu, on the issue of transferring of powers of registration of documents form Judicial Officers to Revenue Officers.
The Government is going ahead with the constitution of offices of Registrars and Sub-registrars without heeding to the demand of Lawyers. Is it important for the Government to keep that inflexible approach of going ahead with the change and ignoring the demand of lawyers?It doesn’t seems to be right approach, in a scenario, where registration of documents before the Judicial officers had worked very well for a long time in the past and was also very convenient to the public at large, which has also been affirmed by the representatives of the Civil Society in a meeting held at the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir, at Jammu.
What lawyers of Jammu province are demanding is power of registration to remain with Judicial officers and let us evaluate;looking at the provisions of law;if this demand of lawyers is so unjust that Government has turned a deaf ear to it.
The Indian Registration Act, 1908 which had been made applicable to the UT of J&K provides that ‘the (State Government) may appoint such persons, whether public offices or not, as it thinks proper, to be Registrars of several districts, and to be the sub-Registrars of several Sub -Districts…
The J&K Registration Act, Svt. 1977 which has been repealed after abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India provides that ‘[The Government] may appoint such public officers as it thinks proper to be District Registrars and may appoint Sub-Registrars……’
Both the aforesaid provisions spell out that the State Government may appoint Public Officers to be Registrar and Sub-Registrars under the provisions of both the repealed and applicable Registration Acts. In view of this, it is also pertinent to note the definition of Public Officers which provide that every Judgeis a Public Officer.
In view of the aforesaid, if every Judge is a Public Officer and as per Registration Act, 1908, a Public Officer is to be appointed as Registrar, then, why in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir, it becomes so urgent and important to transfer the power of registration form the Judges to newly appointed Sub-Registrars who are Tehsildars/Executive Magistrates and in view of the same, we may also note the working of tehsildars/Executive Magistrates which is as follows:
‘A Tehsildar is a Tax Officer accompanied with Revenue inspectors. They are in charge of obtaining taxes from a tehsil with regard to Land Revenue. A Tahsildar also known as Executive Magistrate of the tehsil concerned, and the main job of the Tehsildar is “revenue collection”.
In view of the same, the immediate step of the government to appoint Tehsildars as Sub-Registrar who are inexperience since registration of documents is a new work for them and establishing separate offices of Sub-Registrar in a rush by taking away of such powers from the Judicial Officer who are experienced for such work, does not seem to be a prudent decision though this practise may be prevalent across India.
As also stated by the President of J&K Bar Association that in the UT of J&K, the newly appointed revenue officials would not be able to spot legal gaps in land transfer documents. Judicial officers who have been doing registration of documents in erstwhile state of J&K are experienced in puncturing holes in the transferring documents such as lease, sale, mortgage because these are purely legal documents. The Judges have been throwing away wrongly-drafted deeds and they are also very particular about every single detail or clause in the deed and it is still a surprise if a revenue official shall be able to maintain the same level of scrutiny.
It is also not a good step to be implemented in the beginning of the UT of J&K by ignoring the genuine demand of lawyers who have been doing this work for a very long time. This step of the Government is also against the lawyer fraternity of Jammu and Kashmir at a juncture where there will be a lot of investments from across India into the UT of J&K and the work of registration of documents will increase and, in a way, this may also be a loss of work opportunity for the lawyers.
In view that the lawyers have now gone on hunger strike and legal work in courts is being halted, due to which the public at large is immensely suffering. Considering this now, the Government may not hesitate to restore the power back to Judicial Officers who have been registering the documents for a long time in the state of J&K, have experience and are well aware of practices, lacunas and malpractices which may be prevalent in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, and which may continue and/or increase in the newly created UT of Jammu and Kashmir, or in the alternate, looking at the current situation wherein the legal system in UT of J&K has come to a complete halt, the Government may consider to restore the power back to the Judicial Officers for atleast some time in order to end the currently prevailing situation which is affecting the public at large.
(The author is Advocate J&K High Court)
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