LAHORE: As a part of reforms being introduced in the government departments, the Punjab Board of Revenue (BoR) has approved a system of monitoring and accountability of the revenue courts and announced establishment of two accountability committees to ensure justice to the people involved in litigation over land, revenue and other relevant issues.

“Though the monitoring and accountability system exists and working well on day-to-day affairs of executives, it is almost dead in the judicial matters of these officers (tehsildars, commissioner and members of the BoR). Therefore, a new system is being put in place to monitor and ensure accountability for providing justice,” BoR member (Taxes) Zaman Wattoo explained while talking to Dawn on Saturday.

Mr Wattoo said there was a need for a strong system of checks and balances over exercise of judicial powers by the revenue courts for quite some. The idea of the new system of monitoring and accountability on the judicial side to check flagrant violations of law and serious deviations from procedure was floated by Senior Member of the Board of Revenue Nabeel Javed in various meetings of the full board, which unanimously approved it. Formulation of modalities was assigned to the member (taxes).

Minutes of the meeting held on Oct 9 indicate that constitution of two monitoring & accountability committees was approved by the full board of BoR. Guidance was also sought from the district judiciary monitoring system of the Lahore High Court for the terms of reference of the committees.

The committee-I will be headed by the senior member board of revenue (SMBR) and will include four other members of the board. It would oversee the functioning of the courts of members of BoR, commissioners and deputy commissioners. In case of serious violation of law or procedure, the committee would take action.

The committee-II will be headed by the member (taxes) and would include two other members of BoR. It would oversee the work of additional commissioners, additional deputy commissioners, assistant commissioners and revenue officers.

The full board also recommended a separate wing for internal audit, called Audit, Inspection & Monitoring (AIM) Wing, to ensure financial propriety. It will audit the revenue generated through stamp duty, mutation fee, agricultural income tax, proceedings of sale and rent from the state land, condonation fee, rent of shops on state land etc. Under the restructuring process, the Inspectorate of Stamps, Colony Audit Cell, Members’ Inspection Cell and Revenue Audit & Inspection Cell would be placed under the member (AIM).

“These reforms are very important for keeping an eye on the judicial performance of the revenue courts to end malpractices and ensure justice,” Mr Wattoo said.

It may be mentioned that the BoR is also getting the working mechanism of the colony branches in districts restructured through putting a monitoring system in place. Colony branches in the offices of DCs deal with land allotment, transfer and the relevant record. There are reports that the appointment of officials in these branches is considered to be very lucrative in terms of minting money and those intending to get posting there allegedly use influence as well as money. To stop such malpractices, the branches require restructuring (digitisation etc).

Besides, the BoR has also empowered sub-registrars to register the entire sale/purchase of properties in all private housing schemes (cooperative etc) and those under control of development authorities through an e-registry portal. Under this initiative, the transfer of land in all housing schemes would now be carried out through online e-registry.

Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2024