KARACHI, Sept 15: The Sindh governor has approved a proposal of the Board of Revenue (BOR) Sindh, for setting aside an order of the provincial ombudsman in which he directed the BOR to allow the mutation of a property, with regard to which a FTO was issued in March, 1969.

The board had taken the plea and felt that the mutation should have been done a long time ago, and such a precedence means acceptance of other claims, which would open a Pandora’s box, especially bringing the land mafia into the fore.

The board had also taken the plea that this case was badly time barred, and that all genuine cases have been disposed of, while the applicant had more than 33 years to have his/her lands mutated in the record of rights.

Besides, with the prior approval of the governor, the BOR has already wound up the residue work of evacuee properties with effect from January 2002, as it had become a source of illegalities, irregularities and corrupt practices.

It was pointed out that residual work, comprising among other things documentation — both for urban and rural properties — recovery of outstanding dues or transfer price, rent of mortgage money of each property already disposed of and discharge of miscellaneous liabilities out of these recoveries, pending immediately before the repeal of the Repeal Act 1975, was transferred to the BOR vide the Executive Order of 25-7-1985.

It was observed/noticed that the repeal of acts and regulations regarding displaced persons have seen 28 years pass-by, but ostensibly some cases under the garb of residual work which were still lingering on, surfaced afresh to the detriment of the government’s interests.

Such glaring examples, especially of allotment of 700 acres of prime state land in cosmopolitan Karachi was done, causing a loss of millions of rupees to the provincial exchequer.

Recently, the governor was also apprised about fraud committed in district Mirpurkhas by a senior clerk of the Evacuee Property Branch who, by forgery, issued clearance certificates of about 190 acres of agricultural land of Talukas’ Mirpurkhas and Kot Ghulam Mohammed as well as 35 houses, shops and plots that were transferred to various so-called allottees with forged signatures. The official was, however, dismissed from service and the matter was referred to NAB.

The governor approved action in the case of Maqbool Ahmed Siddiqi against DDO Revenue Saddar who violated the instructions of the government for entertaining the application in violation of standing instructions.

Meanwhile, the revenue authorities have been directed to follow the standing instructions of the government and not to allow the grabbing of evacuee properties now in possession of the government.—APP