THATTA: The Sindh Board of Revenue has cancelled almost the entire record of rights (land ownership) of 56 dehs of Thatta taluka reconstructed under the July 17, 2013 Supreme Court order.

The apex court had issued the order by taking suo motu notice of the destruction of various departments’ records during the disturbances that erupted in the country in reaction to the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi on Dec 27, 2007.

In compliance of the SC order, the Sindh BoR had constituted a supervisory committee to reconstruct the destroyed records of rights in 695 dehs of Thatta district and the process continued till date. However, a notification recently issued by the BoR said that the reconstructed record of 56 dehs was reassessed and found to be defective.

It was learnt through official sources that anomalies of serious nature concerning ownership of individuals’ lands were detected and, therefore, the BoR decided to reconstruct the record afresh on the recommendation of the committee.

The committee noted that “the entire reconstructed VF-VIII of Taluka Thatta is defective,” adding that it had not been prepared as per the guidelines for the revenue officer circulated by the BoR.Thatta Deputy Commissioner Nadeem Memon and Assistant Commissioner Asghar Ali Ghanghro, commenting on the issue, said the record of rights reconstructed by the additional deputy commissioner-1 was not needed to be revised or reconstruct but the entire record reconstructed after a field survey conducted by the assistant commissioner who had been assigned the task at that time would stand cancelled and have to be reconstructed afresh.

The DC said that notices were being issued to the landholders concerned asking them to produce their property documents before the officials concerned within the next two weeks. The notification (No.98/MISC/2015/REV-I(II)112) said that the entire land of Deh Bello Veeran, Katcho, belonged to the forest department and, as such, the records of rights in this area had not been cancelled. It said that the records of Kohistan 7/1 and Kohistan 7/2 dehs had not been destroyed during the disturbances. Since the original records of these dehs were present, their reconstructed version had been cancelled, it added.

Several affected landholders who spoke to this reporter said they were ready to undergo another round of scrutiny of their property documents but it was advisable that the task was given to the Thatta taluka revenue administration so that every individual concerned was not made to proceed to Hyderabad repeatedly to get the documents verified or scrutinised.

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2015

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