MUMBAI: Housing societies seeking deemed conveyance will no longer need to go through a fresh hearing before revenue officials to get the society's name entered in the land records.
The decision will not only reduce the bureaucratic process, but will save residents several months of waiting period. The revenue department has directed all collectorates that maintain land records to desist from issuing fresh notices and conducting hearings once the competent authorities in the co-operatives department have held hearings and given an order in favour of deemed conveyance. "The deputy registrar is the competent authority to hold such hearings. Holding a second hearing all over again for the same issue creates unnecessary delay. Hence it has been decided that mutation of land records will be carried out based on the deputy registrar's decision," said Swadhin Kshatriya, principal secretary (revenue and forests).
Currently, the district deputy registrar of co-operative societies first conducts a hearing and decides in favour of deemed conveyance, following which a second hearing is conducted by the sub-registrar who issues a deemed conveyance certificate.
Once the land records office receives the certificate with a request for updation of records, it conducts its own independent hearing according to the process under the Maharashtra land revenue code for any mutation of records.
With the change, the sub-registrar's office forwards a copy of the order directly to the land records department, which carries out the mutation without a fresh hearing.
"Greater relief to societies would be provided if the second hearing within the co-operatives department was also done away with," said Vinod Sampat, an expert on housing laws.