Registration authorities have been told to initiate criminal proceedings against persons involved in fraudulent registration of documents in Tamil Nadu.
Taking a serious view of the authorities not making an entry on record and launching criminal action against the suspects, Minister for Commercial Taxes and Registrations P. Moorthy directed the District Registrars to review all cases where documents were found to have been registered by fraudulent means and report compliance within 15 days.
According to official sources, Section 68(2) of the Registration Act, 1908, empowers the District Registrars to conduct an enquiry on complaints regarding fraudulent registrations. If such an offence was made out, the enquiry officer would have to pass orders directing the registering officer to lodge a police complaint against the fraudsters.
Also, there were instructions that where fraudulent registration was proved, the registering officers should make an entry in the relevant indexes and also mark the same in the copy of the registered document.
Norms violated
During a review meeting convened by Mr. Moorthy a fortnight ago, it came to light that some registering authorities had not made index entries on fraudulent documents. They had also not initiated criminal action under Section 83 of the Act against the parties as well as erring registering officials whose criminal misconduct in the case was established.
The sources said there were hundreds of documents found to be registered by fraudulent means across Tamil Nadu in the recent years. A majority of such frauds happened in Chennai region comprising Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram and Chengalpattu areas. Dozens of complaints alleging registrations of fraudulent documents were pending enquiry, the sources added.
