GOA’S CORRUPT SUB-REGISTRIES
By Valmiki Faleiro
This Feb 12, I had a date with the Bardez Sub-Registrar. As attorney-holder of
some
cousins, gifting their house-property at Carona-Aldona to the Society of Pilar,
I had to
sign their Gift Deed. Two of them are now American nationals, the third, also
in the US,
is Indian. Their spouses are American nationals. The three are children of a
Goan-Indian
father. They were parties to the Deed by virtue of their rights of inheritance
to the estate
of their recently deceased mother, also Goan, and Indian National.
Sub-Registries were almost second home to me, like Town Planning and a host of
departments one must deal with when in the business of developing and selling
house
sites. I’ve lost count of the number of deeds I’ve executed in the
Sub-Registries of
Salcete, Quepem, Sanguem, Ponda, Mormugao and Canacona, in the hundreds surely.
That Sub-Registries in Goa’s eleven talukas are dens of corruption is an open
secret.
They were not always so. I once named, here, instances of past living saints
who also
were Sub-Registrars. The mess crept in from the 1980s, reflecting the political
times.
Bribery always starts from the top.
Under-valuation of deeds was the biggest cause of bribery then. Sub-Registrars
would
routinely threaten to “impound” sale deeds (meaning, refer them to the District
Collector
for suspected evasion of Stamp Duty.) The naive instantly paid up, for fear of
losing their
deed – and their money. One Sub-Registrar even tucked in his pocket his own
list of
“market values” in the areas under his jurisdiction. Moment a deed came up
before him,
he would promptly produce his ready reckoner – and abracadabra! – out would
flow the
bribe from the other (and under) side of his table.
Manohar Parrikar, when CM, put a stop to this nonsense. He notified land values
for the
purpose of Stamp Duty. One would think corruption on this count would end.
There was this newly posted Sub-Registrar in Quepem. I was selling plots in
Curchorem.
Some two dozen Deeds in the project would have been executed by then, before two
preceding incumbents. The rate was compliant with the notified rates. “Under
valued!”
the new man declared. I told him about the Sale Deeds already registered. “Two
wrongs
don’t make a right,” he said. I pointed to the proviso under which the rate was
calculated.
“I go by the basic rate,” he said, ignoring the proviso. In that case, I said,
register the
deed and refer it to the Collector.
I waited until he recorded the remark to refer the deed to the Collector. I
assuaged the
fears of the purchaser, widow of a policeman who, on humanitarian grounds,
worked in a
Class-III job at Margao’s Hospicio. She had been ordered to vacate the police
quarters
in Sanguem she then occupied. I returned to Margao and dashed off a complaint
to the
District Registrar, explaining the Sub-Registrar’s malfeasance. Instead of a
suspension
pending inquiry, the man was, within a week, transferred to Vasco. Heaven knows
how
many he harassed there.
There is this latest spin in the hands of Goa’s Sub-Registrars. In the face of
alarming
purchase of land by foreigners, government issued a caution circular to
Sub-Registrars.
Even if a foreigner of Indian origin is party to a deed, as was the case of my
two cousins,
Sub-Registrars now ask for a copy of the PIO (Person of Indian Origin) Card.
This is patently bad. PIOs from only a few select countries are entitled to PIO
Cards.
What happens to PIOs from the bulk of the balance countries not covered under
the PIO
scheme? What happens if you are entitled to a PIO Card but never found the need
to
apply for one? When the recitals in the deed (explaining how the land title
flowed to the
transferors) clearly establish that the “foreigner” is a PIO and the rights
being conveyed
arose from inheritance, why should any further fatuous proof be needed? And
why, as in
my case, when “foreigners” were not buying, but gifting land – to Goa’s only
surviving
religious / charitable order of Catholic priests?
Bardez Sub-Registrar Ramdas Pednekar was, of course, very courteous to me.
Perhaps
because of a friend and his colleague in Margao, and my influential businessman
friend
from Mapusa, the deed, in that terribly understaffed office, was done in a few
minutes.
More the regulations, dear Chief Minister, more the corruption. If you really
mean to
spare the ‘Aam Aadmi’ from the scalpel of official greed, streamline the
procedures.
(ENDS)
The Valmiki Faleiro weekly column at:
http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=330
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The above article appeared in the February 17, 2008 edition of the Herald, Goa
