Legal wrangles hold up ‘B’ Khata conversions
The Hindu
Civic body proposes restricting regularisation to sites
Though it was first proposed in 2018, lakhs of citizens are still waiting for the civic body to regularise their properties from ‘B’ Khata to ‘A’ Khata. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) had proposed to delink ‘B’ Khata from Akrama-Sakrama. This way, it would be able to issue ‘A’ Khata to all the applicable properties, but the proposal is stuck in legal wrangles.
Since 2008, the civic body, following directions of the State government, has not been issuing ‘A’ Khata (permanent property record) to properties that are in violation of government regulations. For such properties, for the purpose of tax collection, a separate register was created – B register. However, properties under this register have come to be known as ‘B’ Khata properties.
Senior civic officials told The Hindu that the high-level committee chaired by the Additional Chief Secretary, Urban Development Department, had met a few times to discuss the delinking of the Khata issue from Akrama-Sakrama, which is still pending before the Supreme Court. To make way for the delinking, the State government had amended the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964, in March 2018.