Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Oct 28: BJP State president, Ravinder Raina has urged the Governor Satya Pal Malik that registration powers should continue to vest with judicial authorities instead of Revenue authorities as the revenue authorities should not be burdened with this additional responsibility which requires great legal knowledge.
In a letter to Governor, Satya Pal Malik, BJP State president, Raina said that the proposed change in registration authority for registration of various documents will have adverse effect and also add to the sufferings of the masses.
The letter said the decision to divest the judicial courts of their powers to register the various documents and vest the same to concerned tehsildars is going to result in great hardships and cause prejudice to the general public.
It said the registration of various documents requires sound knowledge of various provisions of civil law and its intricacies. The judicial courts and authorities are adequately equipped with the requisite legal expertise to ensure that registration of documents does not suffer from any legal lacuna which otherwise would result in avoidable litigation.
The letter further said already public is having a very unpleasant experience in respect of the land revenue records which are being maintained by the revenue authorities. The enormous volume of public interest litigation and normal litigation between the people concerning the land is direct result of highly defective and poor quality of the land records being maintained by the revenue authorities. Most of the Government land and forest land has been grabbed by land mafia and this has been possible only because of the poor quality of land records. It said conferring the revenue authorities with the powers of registration of documents is going to jeopardize entire registration work and cause agony and hardship to the public.
It further said the steps would also deprive the public of the services of competent advocates whose expertise is utilized by the public for drafting and registering of the documents. The advocates are also going to be deprived of this work and cause hardships to them. Hence the proposed change is not in public interest.
The letter said the Registration Act prescribes the Government as the competent authority to appoint Registrar General, Registrars and Sub registrars for registration of documents. There is also no legal compulsion to take the registration powers from judicial authority and vest it with revenue authorities and as such the proposed change of registration authority can be cancelled, the letter added.
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