PIL against online property registration dismissed

The High Court has dismissed a PIL petition challenging the government notifications dated July 19 and November 4, 2011, which had enabled the registration of properties online.

A division bench comprising Justice K L Manjunath and Justice P B Bajanthri, while dismissing the petition, imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 on the petitioner to be paid to the High Court registrar within four weeks. The petitioner, A Rajashekhar, had contended that the online registration of properties would cause duplication. The petitioner said that it would cause loss to the government’s exchequer. 

Defending the government’s notification, principal government advocate R Devdas said that the online registration of property was introduced to facilitate the public and to give liberty to register the property from anywhere. He said that there was no law which made it mandatory to have a public opinion before implementing the online facility.

Jaya case

The High Court has rejected the plea to defer hearing the arguments of Bhavani Singh, the Special Public Prosecutor (SPP), in the appeals filed by former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalitha and others against their conviction in the disproportionate assets case.
A special bench of Justice C R Kumaraswamy declined to postpone hearing in a memo filed by DMK secretary K Anbazhagan.

He had sought to defer hearing Singh’s arguments as the special leave petition challenging Singh’s appointment as SPP is pending before the apex court. The petition challenging Singh’s appointment will be heard in the Supreme Court on March 9.