Karnataka passes new Bill to prevent illegal layouts in urban areas

Bengaluru: Aiming to prevent illegal registration of properties in urban areas in the state, the Karnataka Assembly on Wednesday passed a Bill which will replace the present system of 'paper or handwritten khata' with electronic documents. 

Piloting the Registration (Karnataka Amendment) Bill in the House, Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda said the legislation also aims to simplify the registration of documents such as mortgage deeds and pledge deeds without the physical presence of both parties at sub-registrar offices. 

"Presenting documents electronically will first be tried with scheduled and nationalised banks besides with state government agencies and public sector undertakings to enable e-registration and remote registration of some compulsory registrable documents without the physical presence of either party in the sub-registrar’s offices," he explained.

He added that the state government has taken cue from Maharashtra's successful model to simplify the registration of select documents. "Once it is successfully implemented by banks, the state may perhaps even think of extending the same facility to the Real Estate Regulatory Authority-Karnataka approved projects as well," Gowda claimed. 

Underlining that property software will be integrated to prevent illegal registration of properties in urban areas, the minister conceded that the state had been facing the menace of unauthorised layouts for a long and the finance department had written to the revenue department on December 22, 2023, citing in detail about how the paper khatas were being misused to register properties illegally.

"In our previous tenure, Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah had ordered an inquiry on 28 sub-registrar officers for registering properties illegally which resulted in losses of Rs 400 crore to state exchequer but they were acquitted when (Leader of the Opposition) R Ashoka was Revenue minister. As revenue minister I had to close the inquiry file recently. The system needs to be rectified from the within and this Bill exactly aims to do just that,” he said.

He added that E-Asthi registration would be mandatory and the department was also planning to do away with the option of “Other” in the property registration software in order to prevent misuse. "Whether paper khata is issued from agencies like Bengaluru Development Authority, Karnataka Housing Board, Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board or any such agencies, they will not be accepted to register the properties across urban areas in the state,” he explained.

He further said the state government had taken up the scanning of deeds as old 100 years in a war-footing and planned to accomplish the project in an year. "Once all old deeds are converted into electronic format,  the state government will completely stop accepting any paper document,” he explained. 

In a related development, the Assembly also passed the Karnataka Stamp (Amendment) Bill, which prohibits the stamps and registration department from collecting stamp duty charges through demand draft or pay order to prevent pilferage of collection. "The state government will now permit the department to collect the stamp duty through UPI payment system," he said.