Reforms proposed in century-old Registration Act, 1908

A bill to amend the century-old Registration Act, 1908 has been recently introduced by the Government in the Rajya Sabha. The bill seeks to introduce various reforms to make land registration process more transparent, to protect people against document forgery and to assist in evaluation of fair compensation in case of land acquisition, making it compliant with Land Acquisition, Resettlement and Rehabilitation Act 2012.

Transparency

The bill mandates that “Book 4”, i.e. the ‘Miscellaneous Register’ which has details about all registered documents (except Wills), will be made open to public scrutiny. The bill also takes note of rapid digitization of land records in several states. Thus, it seeks to facilitate electronic registration of documents and have provisions for enclosing scanned copies of documents in certain cases. To make land registration process convenient, it proposes that immovable property can be registered anywhere in the State. At the same time, it proposes deletion of the section 28 of the 1908 law which allows a person with immovable property in more than one state to register documents relating to transfer in any of the states to prevent abuse of this provision by unscrupulous elements to save registration fee and stamp duty resulting in loss to the State where the property is situated. This provision also makes hard to track the property transfers.

Now all documents related to development or sale of immovable property such as power of attorney, developers/promoters agreements and any other agreements will need to be registered mandatory to prevent document forgery. It also makes mandatory requirement of passport photograph, digital photograph and thumb impression for registration of documents.

Preventing false registration of property

At present, Sub-Registrar’s office has no power to refuse the registration of documents which are often abused by unscrupulous elements to get false registration. The proposed bill introduced section 18A to provide prohibition of registration of certain types of properties (such as belonging to charitable institutions and the Government etc).

Gender Equity

As per the old law only documents related to adoption of a son are required to be registered. To ensure gender equity, the bill proposes to add provisions to register documents related to adoption of daughters thus giving them right to inherit immovable property.

Compliance with Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation Act 2012

One of the key features of the new ‘Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Resettlement and Rehabilitation Act 2012’ is the high enhanced amount of compensation guaranteed to displaced families. However, to calculate this amount the formula relies on the registered value which are, at present, notoriously opaque and often outdated.

Amendments proposed in the old law are being brought to ensure greater accuracy in calculating the ‘market value’ by mandating registration of all property-related documents related to development or sale, enabling frequent registration and bringing transparency by allowing public scrutiny of land records.

Issues

While the bill seeks to introduce many reforms, the power of refusal to register immovable property might be misused by corrupt officials to extract favors from real estate developers. It should be implemented along with digitization of land records of property under section 18A which should be notified publicly and their records be available online. Also the bill should have included the enabling provisions to use UID number in future in place of thumb impression etc. for electronic registration which would be very effective against ‘benami property’ transactions.