LAHORE: Punjab’s Board of Revenue (BOR) and the Lahore district administration have failed to stop the corruption of patwaris as a citizen has lodged a complaint before a BOR senior member against the patwaris, who had allegedly received bribes in the matter of mutations of properties, Pakistan Today learnt on Wednesday.
According to details, Asad Sheikh, a citizen, alleged in the complaint that approximately Rs50,000 per case are being received as bribe money in Lahore district under the guise of confirming inheritance mutation and the recipients of bribe money are patwaris of Cantt, Raiwind, Shalimar, City and Model Town.
According to the complainant, the patwaris use delaying tactics in proceedings if they are not paid the bribe money, forcing the legal heirs to pay such huge bribe money for their legitimacy. The patwaris receive bribe money directly or through their private secretaries [munshis].
Sheikh provided details of more than 100 inherited mutations in five tehsils of Lahore with the application and claimed that if these transfers are investigated, it will be easy to know what difficult circumstances the heirs have to go through from the registration of the transfer of inheritance to the approval stage.
With the application, Sheikh provided details of mutations made by 14 patwaris posted in different locations of Shalimar while the names of four patwaris of Cantt, three of Raiwind, 22 of City and 14 of Model Town, and the list of inheritance mutations made by them were also attached.
Sheikh demanded in the application that the record of these mutations should be immediately seized by the BOR and an investigation should be started so that corruption could be stopped immediately.
“By filing cases against the elements involved in corruption, the victims should get their money back,” he demanded.
However, a senior member of BOR informed this scribe that the board has instructed all the assistant commissioners to set up public information desks and resolve all matters of inheritance transfers under their supervision.
“When all these works are carried out under the supervision of assistant commissioners, corruption in the Patwar Khanas will be eliminated automatically and the work of public will also start on priority basis,” he said.
