Gaya, March 4: With the institution of a criminal case against assistant registrar B.N. Vidyarthi, employees of land registration department, deed writers, buyers and sellers, a major racket in land registration has been detected.

The case against the assistant registrar and others has been instituted on the basis of an inquiry report submitted by Sadar SDO Navneet Ranjan Tiwari.

The preliminary inquiry conducted by the SDO has detected fraudulent registration of more than 41 property, thereby causing losses to the public exchequer.

According to stories doing rounds, land belonging to the administration and zila parishad has been sold by the land mafia in collaboration with the registration officials.

Multi-storeyed buildings have been shown as vacant land to short-change the state exchequer, as registration fee of vacant land is less than buildings.

Besides changing the character of the property, “manipulation” has been made in the mandatory description of the location of land. Property located in high-price zones with a higher registration fee has been shown to be located in less important areas.

The scandal, first came to light following complaints received by Magadh division commissioner K.P. Ramaiah regarding malpractice in the department.

The failure of the government to compile and update land records to prevent fraudulent transactions have also added to the situation, believes activist S.B. Bhaskar.