LAYYAH, June 23: Five revenue officers temporarily posted for the recovery of revenue outstanding are allegedly transferring lands or mutation of land, Dawn has learnt.

The district government posted five gardawars as assistant recovery collectors on the basis that the revenue recovery was not up to the mark because of the shortage of revenue officers or naib tehsildars.

These grade nine officials — Ghulam Baqir, Abdul Ghafoor, Mumtaz Husain, Bashir Husain and Muhammad Yaqoob — belong to politically influential groups.

Mr Baqir, Mr Ghafoor and Mr Mumtaz were appointed through a letter 2466/75 dated December 10, 2003, on ad hoc basis, Bashir through a letter 2609/15 dated December 30, 2003, and Mr Yaqoob through a letter 6/11 dated January 1, 2004. They are engaged in entering land mutations illegally as they are not authorised by the competent authority to do so.

According to section 42, sub-section 6, of the West Pakistan Land Revenue Act of 1967 only revenue officers can enter and approved mutation of land. Under section 16, sub-section 2, of the West Pakistan Land Revenue Act, the Board of Revenue confers powers of mutations through a notification to them. These five recovery officers are basically field revenue officials and do not fall in the category of revenue officers as prescribed in the Land Avenue act.

Executive District Officer (Revenue) Ghulam Akbar Khan Khichi said the district government had written a letter to the Board of Revenue about these postings. If the board had any objection towards the postings, it would have responded. He admitted that according to the Revenue Act, assistant collector recoveries could not enter mutations till the board empowered them to do so.