Daily Times

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has directed the Board of Revenue (BoR) Sindh to rewrite the Record of Rights (RoRs) and clear any suspicious entries marked in red by following a transparent process. “This will ensure that rightful owners receive their legal rights.”

He said this while presiding over a meeting of the Board of Revenue here at CM House. During a meeting at the CM House focused on rewriting the Record of Rights and addressing the issue of suspicious entries, Chief Secretary Asif Hyder Shah, PSCM Agha Wasif, SMBR Baqaullah Unar, Member BOR RS&EP Ghulam Abbas Naich, Special Secretary GA Zaman Narejo, and PD LARMS Saifullah Abro, were in attendance.

The Chief Minister was informed that the Board of Revenue had decided to block 946,000 entries in the Record of Rights back in 2019. In response, he emphasized that the Record of Rights is a legal document, and there is no legal basis for marking any entry as suspicious without first hearing from the affected parties.

Mr Shah pointed out that identifying approximately 500,000 entries with a red mark has caused emotional distress for genuine owners and has led to increased litigation. “I don’t want legitimate property owners to be at the mercy of Tapedars, Mukhtiakras, and sub-registrars,” he stated. He instructed the Board of Revenue to streamline the procedure, create a model digital form, secure his approval, and initiate the digitization of the records in two designated Dehs in the province.

The Chief Minister requested the Board of Revenue to provide him with the names of two Dehs, one from Karachi and one from a rural area, to serve as model Dehs for rewriting the Record of Rights.

Regarding the rewriting of the Record, the CM was informed that Sindh’s Record of Rights is revised or rewritten every 30 years. Chief Secretary Asif Hyder Shah noted that the last revision occurred in 1985, whereas Punjab revises its records every four years and Karnataka and Maharashtra in India revise theirs every ten years.

Murad Shah stressed that the goal of updating the record is to secure ownership titles, ensure transparency, integrate with e-registration, and provide online services.

The main legal provisions regarding the Record of Rights are outlined by The Sindh Land Revenue Act of 1967, including Section 39, which specifies the documents to be included in the Record of Rights.

Section 42 details the procedures for making entries in the mutation register. Section 40 empowers the Board of Revenue to issue notifications to create a record where none exists or to revise the Record of Rights as necessary.

As for digitizing the Record of Rights, the Chief Minister indicated that the focus should be on V.F. VII-A for agricultural land and V.F. II for non-agricultural land, reflecting the latest ownership entries across 6,090 Dehs.

Member of the Board of Revenue Ghulam Abbas informed the CM that the Board had conducted separate meetings with two companies regarding the digitalization process. Each company proposed a timeline that requires four months to develop the software and an additional four to five months for pilot implementation. In light of this, the CM directed the Chief Secretary to personally oversee the digitization of the Record of Rights. “I want you to select one Deh from Karachi and another from any rural district to initiate this work,” he instructed, adding that once the initial efforts are deemed satisfactory, more Dehs can be addressed. The CM also tasked the Chief Secretary with assigning the responsibility of rewriting the Record of Rights to the IT company established by the Sindh government. “This will be their first assignment,” he said. The chief minister also directed the chief secretary to suggest the amendment to the land Revenue Act to simply the procedure.