Re: Register your property without paying a bribe

[REJIMON C K]

On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 3:02 PM, I Paid a Bribe <ip...@janaagraha.org> wrote:

Register your property without paying a bribe   When you register your property, there is an unspoken invisible number hanging in the air, waiting to be acknowledged. The bribe amount.   At ipaidabribe, while ascertaining how the market chain for corruption functions, we discovered that the registration department of the government of Karnataka is extremely corrupt.   Our reports indicated that Rs 4.5 crore was paid through 763 bribes in the Department of Registration and Stampsacross the country, out of which 479 reports were from Bangalore alone.   Clearly, Bangalore is a good place to be posted to!   On filing an RTI, we received details of all transfers since 2004 to date. In all, there have been 223 transfers of sub registrars in Bangalore alone, to 56 sub-registrar offices plus the head office.   A flourishing transfer industry indeed!   It is really important we find our way around this. So in case you’re planning to visit a registrar’s office in the near future, there are a couple of aspects you must know, and act upon.   Click here to know more

The Registration Department – Not ready to stamp out corruption!

Submitted by admin on 20/06/2011

Buying a house or a car should be a happy moment. After all, your hard earned money is being put to good use in providing you with security and all the material comforts of life. However, in most cases, it is a well- known fact that along with the price you pay for your new acquisition, there is also an unspoken, invisible number hanging in the air, waiting to be acknowledged. The bribe amount. In most cases, this is one area where getting away without paying a bribe is extremely difficult as the registration fee and the bribe amount are usually mentioned in the same breath. Obviously you are anxious to get the process over with, and there doesn’t seem to be any help in sight, or anyone you can refer this to; so in most cases, bribes are paid and the job is done.

In our earlier post about the prevailing Bribe Nexus, we had explained how this complex arrangement is deeply entrenched in our system. In order to ascertain how the market chain for corruption functions, ipaidabribe.com zeroed in on the registration department of the government of Karnataka, which is widely recognized as being extremely corrupt. The statistics on the website immediately supported this view by confirming that a cumulative amount of more than Rs 4.5 crore was paid through 763 bribes in the Department of Registration and Stamps across the country. Out of this number, 479 reports are reported from the city of Bangalore alone.

 

Unfortunately, out of these, only in 12 cases, citizens were able to resist the payment of bribes successfully, and in one case alone was the citizen helped by an honest government officer.

This dismal account was further reinforced when ipadiabribe.com undertook an analysis of the first 333 reports out of the 466 cases, where bribes were extracted. Here’s what the study threw up:

 

• Bribes asked for directly in the registration offices: 198 reports
• Builder- Registration office nexus: 58 reports
• Lawyer- Registration office nexus: 22 reports
• Bribes paid through touts/agents: 33 reports
• Reason not mentioned: 42 reports

 

This brought up information on a few facts that received the popular vote:

• Location: Overall 198 bribe cases were located where money was demanded in the registration office itself.
• Perpetrators: Some of the reports said that bribes are distributed to everyone involved in the process of registration from the clerk to the sub-registrar.
• Methods: Included innovative ways of demanding bribes where the sub-registrar keys his expected amount into his calculator or leaves his drawer open for the bribes to be ‘dropped’ in it.

 

So what should you expect?

Here is the modus operandi. Bribes are typically asked for directly for the ‘smooth functioning of the processes’. If not, they are tagged under the bracket of ‘facilitation fees’ or ‘mandatory amount’. With a lawyer/builder-registrar nexus in place, this process is more standardized! The lawyer or the builder gives you a letter with the break-up of the amount to be paid for the registration. There is a column titled ‘Miscellaneous’ under which the bribe amount is openly accepted.

Additionally, there are pre-fixed amounts which the buyer is directly asked for as the registration amount. When there is a lawyer involved in the process, bribes are even accepted under the column of ‘advocate fees’ or ‘legal fees’ (Box 3).
Regardless of the trend, the sub registrar never accepts bribes openly. The transaction takes place through office boys, clerks or a pre-decided settlement between the lawyers/ builders and registrars.

 

Sharing the booty –The transfer industry:
But then, how are the profits of this flourishing industry distributed amongst its shareholders? For one thing, the profits are specific to offices, with the most lucrative profits being drawn from city offices. Bangalore is evidently a good place to be posted to!
We then filed an RTI application seeking details of transfers in the department as follows:

• The details of all transfers in the department since 2004-05 to date
• The details of all recommendations made by MLAs, MPs, ministers recommending the transfers of officials.

 

We received the details of all transfers since 2004-05 after which we analysed it. The department, however, did not provide the details of recommendations made by politicians.

 

Here are the results of our analysis :

Year-wise transfers:

Year	No of Transfers
04-05	186
05-06	177
06-07	326
07-08	148
08-09	182
09-10	276
10-11	167
Total number of transfers	1462

 
Post-wise transfers:

Post	No of transfers
District Registrar	46
Senior sub registrar	96
Sub registrar	704
HQA	25
Superintendent	18
First Division Assistant	362
Second Division Assistant	170
Typist	11
Group D	8
Others	22
Total	1462

 
223 transfers of sub registrars in Bangalore alone, to 56 sub-registrar offices plus the head office:

Most highly contested sub-registrar’s postings in Bangalore city are:

Kengeri	12
Basavanagudi	10
Jayanagar	10
Nelamangala	10
Yelahanka	10
Anekal	8
Dasanapura	8
Devanahalli	8
K.R. Puram	8
Hoskote	7
Dodballapur	6
Gandhinagar	6
Kanakpura	6
Shivajinagar	6

How do we work around this?

This is really important information in case you are planning to visit a registrar’s office in the near future. Please note that technically, there is no need for payment of any bribes in the registration department.

In the past, there was a lot of scope for corruption because the buyer would pay some part of the sale amount in unaccounted money. But now, what you need to do is:

 

• First check the fixed area wise guidance values.
• Pay the stamp duty as per the guidance value regardless of the value on your sale deed, (or the sale deed value, whichever is higher). With this change the registrar’s office has no discretion now to refuse registration.
• Visit the Registration Departments website, at http://www.karigr.org/citizen/default.htm and read the Citizens Charter under which the department commits to complete registration in 2 hours 20 minutes!
• If you print out the Citizens Charter and carry it along with you, officials cannot refuse to follow the commitment of their own department.

 

However, the department officials still continue to take bribes by making the citizen wait indefinitely. Therefore, Ipaidabribe.com recommends the following:

 

• There should be no discretion given to the department to make citizens wait.
• Every day, each office should make available clear time slots for registration of properties.
• Citizens should be able to go on to the website and choose time slots on their own.
• Once the time slot is chosen by the citizen, and he/she arrives at the given time in the sub-registrar’s office, they must have no discretion. They must register the property.
• If there is any hurry for some reason, then there should be a Tatkal system by which citizens can jump the queue (like in the Passports and railway ticketing systems).

Regarding transfers, it is clear that a large number of transfers are not in the public interest.

• The government must therefore make the transfer list public, along with who has recommended the transfer.

 

After all, if MLAs are making recommendations in the public interest, then letting the public know what is behind the transfer recommendation is only logical, isn’t it ?

[Mahendra Kumar Gupta]

For such instance, there is big anger in the public against bribe and corruption.  In some offices, staff earning of one day may be more than the pay of one month. 

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