Khemka proposed rules to curb black money in '12

CHANDIGARH: Four years before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's demonetisation move, Haryana's whistleblower IAS officer Ashok Khemka had proposed rules to prevent fraudulent and 'benami' transactions and check unauthorized transfers of village panchayat land in the state. However, the proposed rules were never notified in the official gazette. In 2012, Khemka had pointed out 'benami' transactions where black money was recycled to evade the clutches of law.Khemka was holding the charge of director general of land consolidation department and inspector general of registration then.
According to the documents accessed by TOI, Khemka had proposed about half a dozen conditions for registration of land deals concerning village panchayats and 'shamlat deh' (common land) after he came to know about huge misappropriation of panchayat lands.
A day after framing the rules, Khemka had sent a detai led letter to the government on October 11, 2012, about the move and detection of unauthorized transfer of ownership of large areas of panchayat land.“In some cases, the unauthorized occupants are industrial houses and senior officials.There are fraudulent transactions where a party sells the same property more than once,“ Khemka had mentioned in the letter.
To put a check on fraudu lent and 'benami' transactions, according to the officer, the Haryana Registration Rules, 2012, were framed. These rules were aimed to introduce the Unique Identification Authority of India's Aadhaar numbers for individuals and corporate identity number (CIN) issued by the ministry of corporate affairs for corporates so as to uniquely identify sellers and buyers.
“The use of Aadhaar and CIN will help identify all immovable properties of an individual across the state,“ Khemka had stressed in his letter addressed to the state additional chief secretary (revenue).
The officer had also submitted the rules to the government for approval and publishing the same in the official gazette as required under the Registration Act, 1908. However, according to official sources, the proposal was turned down on the ground that the officer was not competent to draft the rules. Though an official said Khemka had sent the proposed notification as per the prevalent practice in such cases