LAHORE - The Board of Revenue told Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar on Tuesday that there was no need for appointment of patwaris in urban areas.
Hearing a suo motu case regarding the role of patwaris at Supreme Court’s Lahore Registry, the top judge sought a complete report on appointment of patwaris in 10 days.
Punjab Advocate General Ahmad Awais and Board of Revenue member Ejaz Ahmad appeared before the two-member bench that was headed by the chief minister. Ahmad Awasi told the apex court that there was no purpose of the appointment of the patwaris in urban areas. On which the chief justice directed the officials to submit a report after thorough inquiry into the matter.
Taking suo motu notice of the issue earlier, the chief justice had sought a complete report from the Punjab government about Patwaris and patwarkhanas working in the metropolis. He asked that under what law, the Pawtaris were preparing land transfer deeds after establishment of the Punjab Land Revenue Authority (LRA).
The CJP had regretted that they (Pawaris) were committing fraud with innocent people, saying, “If the government fails to offer a legal justification for working of Pawtaris, I will remove all Patwaris.”
Also earlier, the chief justice had directed the provincial government and senior member Board of Revenue to present a report regarding all Patwar circles and Patwaris working there in one week.
The Punjab Land Record Authority (PLRA), established to eradicate exploitation through forgery, fraud and manipulation, besides bringing an end to the influence of “patwaris” in the province, has been continuously taking steps to keep a check on corruption and inefficiency of the officials. Even then the corruption on the part of Pawaris continues unabated.
The patwaris are so powerful that they have defeated the PLRA system to perform its duties effectively. Early this year, the Punjab Chief Minister’s Office had constituted a committee to oversee outsourcing of fard – the only function transferred to the authority from the Board of Revenue (BOR) to bring an end to the notorious patwari culture.
The committee consisted of ministers for law, finance and revenue, chief secretary, PLRA DG, Board of Revenue senior member, P&D Board chairman, finance secretary, Bank of Punjab president and Quaid-i-Azam Thermal Power Limited (QATPL) CEO. The committee will sort out modalities for outsourcing of fard and decide fee for this purpose.
There was a tussle between ADLRs and Service Centre Incharge because both claim they head the arazi centres at tehsil level. He said the patwari system used to prepare land record every four years that was shelved. “It was easy to point out any land tampering,” he said, adding that blunders were reported in computerisation process but no one bothered.
The authority has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a courier service for delivery of certified copies of the transfer/registry documents to owners from December 15. It also set up Bank of Punjab (BoP) counters at the PLRA service centres for provision of agri-pass books, besides depositing transfer and ‘fard’ fee.
As per PLRA sources, 210,000 fard documents and 85,000 transfer deeds were being issued at arazi centres every month and a total of Rs800 million revenue per month was being generated. The Land Records Management Information System (LRMIS) was developed in 2005 and the authority was set up in 2017. Over Rs13 billion rupees were spent on it and the Punjab government was still funding it.
Despite the strenuous efforts and huge funds being spent, corruption still knows no bound thus the Supreme Court had to take up the issue.