The government has foiled a series of well-planned schemes by a group of notorious land dealers to take control of 23 public and private housing plots worth around Rs 13 billion in the north and north-east of Kathmandu.

A government investigation that began after a tip-off from unknown sources has disclosed that the group succeeded in manipulating the fieldbooks -- the most authentic documents legally certifying ownership of land -- at Chahabil Land Revenue Office (LRO) and the Survey Office (SO) to insert the names of fake owners.


After the disclosure, the Ministry of Land Reforms and Management (MoLRM) has instructed Chabahil LRO to cancel all ´suspect´ land ownership certificates. It has also intensified investigations into how the group managed to insert fraudulent names into sensitive government records.

“We noted down the involvement of four officials at SO, including its chief Ram Binay Singh, in the crime,” said Chhabi Raj Pant, Secretary at MoLRM. He told myrepublica.com that the ministry has already turned the case over to the district police office to initiate court cases against them for forgery.

As per standard practice, only the officials concerned at LROs and SO have access to the fieldbooks, which detail land owners´ names, tenants´ names and remarks on property status. In theory, all blanks in the fieldbooks should be filled, specifying all particulars of land structure and ownership.

However, as some of the books are maintained in a traditional way and rarely updated, officials said a substantial number of such blanks are left empty.

“The group, in collusion with some individuals at Chabahil LRO and SO, apparently took advantage of this situation to enter fraudulent names in the blank spaces, and took out ownership certificates issued in those names,” said a member of the investigation team.

As per the investigation, the group managed to register 800 ropanis (100.56 acres) of land located in Bauddha, Chapali Bhadrakali and Chabahil in the names of fake owners. Interestingly, about 100 ropanis (about 12 acres) of that land was private property owned by individuals.

The affair, meanwhile, has demonstrated how deep is the penetration of notorious land dealers and how they are posing a challenge to the security of private property. Officials at the ministry also noted that such activities could be going on in other parts of Kathmandu Valley and also in cities outside.

To find possible anomalies in other parts of the Valley, the ministry has constituted special fact-finding teams and taken control of fieldbooks from all five LROs in the Valley, including Bhaktapur and Lalitpur.

“We are investigating the books, tallying the records with original data sheets which have been micro-filmed and maintained safely at the Land Information and Archive Division (LIAD),” said the source.

In the next phase, the ministry plans to carry out similar investigations in major cities across the country, where land has fast become a high-value commercial commodity. However, cross-checking records in those places will be difficult, as LIAD has no micro-films of their original copies.

Likewise, the ministry has instructed all LROs and SOs not to issue photocopies of fieldbooks, unless demanded by land owners and tenants. It has also directed the teams not to leave any blanks in the documents.

“If there are blanks in the fieldbooks, we have decided to stamp them as ´not filled up´ instead of leaving them blank,” said the highly-placed MoLRM source.

source: Sharma, M. (2010),"Land sharks fix fieldbooks, grab Rs 13b in property ",republica, 27 August 2010