Registration department on backfoot due to glitch

Meanwhile, officials say that they are working to restore the online system, in close consultation with IT firms and institutions such as IIT Madras. As per new system, details of property and land owners will be entered in the system, after which such details will be uploaded in the newly-launched software.

According to officials, practically every sub-register office was affected due to the glitch in the online system for the last few days. With the public raising their voice in protest in many of the sub-registrar offices in the state, officials were forced to put away the mouse pads and pick a pen and make entries in the old -fashioned way. 

S Ramaprabhu, secretary of Southern Centre of the Builders Association, said, “The government should have imparted training to the employees who are unaware of handling new technology..” 

A senior official of Registration department said, “We have implemented offline system temporarily and all the register offices recorded good footfall in the offices on Thursday.”

It may be noted that Inspector General of Registration J Kumaragurubaran, on Wednesday issued circulars to all the districts’ registrars and asked them to visit the sub-registrar offices in their jurisdiction on a daily basis to oversee the online property registration. 

The Registration department also sought daily reports from the registrars across the state.

The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court, on Thursday directed the Registration department to file a status report on steps taken to improve online registration of properties in the state and also the present condition of online registration process. Petitioner Sankaralingam, from Sivakasi, had filed a court contempt petition, claiming that in his earlier petition he had stated that the employees of Registration department do not have enough training on online registration process. Until the training for online registration was imparted, the online process should not be made compulsory, he prayed. 

The High Court directed the Registration department to not make online registration mandatory till the online registration training was completed. Also, the officials should not insist in collecting the rates as mandated for online methods. The Court had further said that feeding in registration details such as name of the property, is the duty of sub-registrar and the same should not assigned to writers. 

However the direction of the Court was not implemented and so contempt of court should be initiated against the IG of Registration department, prayed the petitioner. The Public Prosecutor informed the judges that the Registration Department is involved in improving the online registration process with the help of an expert team from IIT-Madras. Judges Hemalatha and Sathyanarayana directed the IG of Registration department to file the status report on online registration The case had been adjourned to March 8.