By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 2 Aug: The Doon Police have made the first arrest in the case of forgery of sale deeds and the case of missing land records from the Registrar’s Office in Dehradun.
A 70 year old Makkhan Singh has been arrested from Bareilly. The accused is originally from Pilibhit and is alleged to have tried to grab over 70 bighas of land in village Rainapur Grant under Rishikesh Tehsil belonging to one Prem Lal on the basis of forged documents. This is the first arrest in the case.
Interestingly, however, the land in question belongs to Prem Lal, a retired IAS officer, who naturally holds a lot of influence in the system. Makkhan Singh is accused of making the original land record disappear and then replacing the missing documents with fake letters and documents.
The action comes after a case in this regard was filed with the Police on the complaint of Devendra Sundriyal from the office of land records.
The investigation revealed that the accused, Makhan Singh, a resident of Pilibhit, along with other persons had made the original documents disappear from the office and replaced them with fake land records. The fake land records claimed that he had been given power of attorney by Prem Lal to sell his land, which was not found to be true. Singh had been absconding after the investigations began into the complaint.
SP, City, Sarita Dobal has indicated that more arrests are likely to be made soon on the basis of the inquiry. Makhan Singh was initially questioned but he has so far refused to divulge anything related to the case. He is now in judicial custody and the Police are trying to ascertain which officials in the registry office connived with him in order to steal the original documents and getting them replaced with fake ones.
The case of tampering with the registries is also under investigation in the registrar’s office. In this case, a case has been registered against unknown persons at the complaint of the Assistant Inspector General, Registration, in the city police station in Dehradun.
Some registry office employees have been suspended while some others transferred but the larger questions remain. The arrangements of making the original registry documents disappear and replacing them with fake registry documents has been going on for past several years which proves that not one or a handful, a large number of the officials are responsible for the continued crime. The case of Prem Lal’s land has been handled with priority since he happens to be an influential person, but what about the hundreds of people who may continue to run from pillar to post to get their land records rectified and to take back possession of the land grabbed by the land mafia? Will the current investigation ensure that such large scale crime – not possible without active connivance of the revenue and registry officials – will end? While the Police do claim to be investigating the role of the Sub Registrar and the clerks posted in the Registry office, also, and in the first and the second Sub Registrar’s offices, it is alarming that this has been going on for years without the system ever realising the massive rigging of the records all this while.
