In a move to protect the rights of property owners by checking fraudulent transfers, the Haryana government has amended the Haryana Registration Manual to empower registering officers to cancel the sale deeds registered fraudulently.

While stating this on Tuesday, additional chief secretary and financial commissioner, revenue and disaster management department, Sanjeev Kaushal said the amendment, by inserting Para 159- A in the Haryana Registration Manual, had been made to ensure that persons with valid titles would not have to seek legal recourse to get the deed of the fraudulent sale cancelled.

As per the notification issued on 23 December, the amendment would empower registering officers to accept and register cancellation deeds cancelling the sale deeds earlier registered fraudulently by a person who is not entitled to transfer such property.

If a person has a right in the property and someone else transfers it without his consent, the right in that property still continues to subsist in true owner and the transfer has no effect on such title.

According to the amendment, if a document is registered at the instance of a person not duly empowered to present the same, any person claiming under the document, may, within four months from the date of knowledge that such document is invalid, present such document in such event.

The registering officer, after following the same procedure contemplated under the Registration Act, 1908, can re-register the document, that is, cancellation deed, as if it has not been registered previously.

If a document relating to transfer by way of sale, gift, mortgage, exchange, lease or otherwise, is registered of ‘Shamilat Deh’ land vested or deemed to have vested in the Panchayat Deh under the Punjab Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1961, or in Municipalities, including Municipal Corporations, under the Haryana Municipal Act, 1973, and the Haryana Municipal Corporation Act, 1994, the Block Development Panchayat Officer, Secretary or Executive Officer or Commissioner, Municipal Corporation or District Municipal Commissioner, would get the cancellation deed registered after seeking approval of the Deputy Commissioner or other superior authority.

This parameter would be applicable for ‘Shamilat Deh’ lands illegally partitioned and alienated in the past without getting the title adjudicated under the relevant statute by the competent authority or court, as applicable.

In addition, there could be an unimaginable number of circumstances when the executant himself of his own volition comes before the registering officer and desires to cancel the earlier document.

In such cases, the registering officer could re-register, that is, cancel the document, totally ignoring the earlier registration, under Section 23A of the Registration Act, 1908. The amendment also mentions that as per Schedule 1A, Article 17, as applicable to Haryana, of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 and the Indian Stamp (Haryana Amendment) Act, 2018, cancellation deed, with a stamp fee of Rs. 500, is recognised as a legal document in law and a transaction for transfer of immovable property is no exception.