FAISALABAD: Three revenue employees, including two patwaris, have been suspended from service while two more patwaris have been issued show-cause notices in Tandlianwala for committing fraud worth Rs28m in mutation of land during the last six years.

A probe has been launched into the fraud by the administration.

Sources said the patwaris committed fraud by keeping the mutations pending or not completing the process while the agriculture land worth billions of rupees remained in the name of its former owners. The fraud has been detected by Tandlianwala Assistant Commissioner Osama Sharoon Niazi.

During examination of the record of mutations (hiba, virasat, transfer and sale) of the last six years, Mr Niazi came to know that the accused had not passed about 4,000 mutations and embezzled the money under the heads of mutation fee in the shape of FBR fee, local fee and government fee worth Rs26m to Rs28m.

Tandlianwala AC launches probe into the scandal

Though a computerised Arazi Record Centre (ARC) is functional in Tandlianwala, the patwaris would get the fee from the people on pretext of providing them services of going to banks and completing the process themselves in the ARC. They would get fake receipts of banks and mutations to give to the people, telling them that the mutations had been done. However, in reality they would keep money themselves.

Nazar Paroka from Halqa number 420 had more than 280 intiqals (mutations) pending due to the fraud.

AC Osama Sharoon Niazi suspended two patwaris, identified as Shakeel and Munawar, who had allegedly embezzled most of the money in the scandal.

The AC told Dawn he had directed all the patwaris to submit their affidavits regarding completion of all mutations by recovering fee till Sep 7; otherwise, their cases would be forwarded to the Anti-Corruption Establishment. He said now all the mutations had been completed and Rs20m recovered from the patwaris had been deposited with the national kitty.

The people whose mutations were not done were facing many issues due to the fraud of the patwaris as when they would go for transfer or sale of the land, it would still be in the name of former owners in the official record. It’s a surprise how patwaris have succeeded in committing the fraud despite an Arazi Record Centre as the digital system had removed the patwari out of the equation, making it necessary for the land owners and sellers to be physically present in the centre at the time of the mutations.

The AC claimed that residential and commercial mutations status would also be checked and nobody would be allowed to exploit the masses. He said we had worked day and night to detect the fraud and the responsible would face the music.

When asked why the cases of the corrupt officials had not been forwarded to the ACE, he said the administration’s focus was to save the people from the fraud and completion of the mutations. He claimed that they were making the system foolproof to avoid such practice in future.

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2020