Gurugram: Three months after a Haryana IAS officer vacated a 20-year-old stay on sale and purchase of 14 acres in Panchkula, her husband, a state information commissioner (SIC), and their son made a deal to buy five acres of the land.
Haryana Chief Secretary (CS) T.V.S.N. Prasad, however, stayed the registration of sale deeds last week, flagging legal discrepancies.
The Haryana government, under the instructions of Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, Wednesday constituted a panel for an inquiry into the removal of stay by Phulia. Senior IAS officer Amneet P. Kumar will head the inquiry committee which will also include IAS officer T.L. Satyaprakash, deputy district attorney Sukh Ram and retired Haryana civil services officer R.K. Garg, considered an expert in revenue matters.
The 14-acre plot of land, originally part of more than 1,396 acres that Raja Sardar Bhagwant Singh owned across seven villages in Panchkula, now has an estimated market value of over Rs 70 crore.
In September last year, Ambala Commissioner Renu Phulia took just 12 working days to vacate the 20-year-old stay on the sale and purchase of the 14 acres by a quasi-judicial order.
Three months later, her husband Satyavir Singh Phulia, a retired IAS officer serving as SIC now, and their son Nilanchal entered a deal to purchase five acres for Rs 2.12 crore at a Rs 42.5 lakh per acre rate.
Ashok Pawar, a leading property consultant from Panchkula contacted by ThePrint, put the market rate of the land at Rs 5-6 crore per acre, which means the value of the five acres is Rs 25-30 crore.
Contacted by ThePrint Tuesday, Renu Phulia said her family had no intention of buying the five acres when she wrote the order vacating the stay issued 20 years ago.
A day after sellers and buyers approached a tehsildar at Panchkula for the registration of the land’s sale deeds, chief secretary Prasad, who holds charge as additional chief secretary of revenue and disaster management, on 29 March restrained all Panchkula tehsildars from registering sale deeds of all land owned originally by the erstwhile king’s legal heirs.
Prasad passed the order, flagging legal discrepancies, which he noticed after Sushil Sarwan, the Panchkula deputy commissioner (DC), sought his guidance in the registration of sale deeds since the revenue officials had yet to decide on the surplus area of the erstwhile king’s land.
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What the commissioner said
Speaking to ThePrint, Renu Phulia said, “I passed the order on September 13, 2023, to allow the appellants to sell their land entirely on legal grounds because I found this a permissible area. Our talks for the purchase of this land began in October and November.”
“Finally, the deal was struck for Rs 45.25 lakh per acre and my family made the initial advance payment of Rs 50 lakh to the sellers in December 2023. As per the prevailing collector rates, we have paid stamp duty on Rs 2.25 crore for five acres of land,” the commissioner said.
Asked about the haste in the pronouncement of the order, Phulia said there was no reason to delay the decision because the plea by the appellant was strong on legal footing.
She said her husband had also duly informed the chief information commissioner about the land purchase, and she sought the government’s permission for the land purchase in the names of her husband and son, according to service rules.
Promoted from the state civil services, Phulia, an IAS officer of the 2003 batch, has been commissioner of the Ambala division since September 1, 2021. In that capacity, she made decisions on appeals against orders by the Ambala, Kurukshetra, Yamunanagar, and Panchkula collectors.
On 6 January, 2024, she was also given charge of the commissioner of the Karnal division, with the power to decide on appeals in Karnal, Panipat, and Kaithal.
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What the case is about
According to records of the case accessed by ThePrint, an appeal was filed before Phulia on 28 August, 2023 for vacating the stay order on the sale and purchase of the 14 acres in Beed Firozadi village, Panchkula. The Panchkula collector had passed the stay order in September 2003.
Owners Prithvi Raj Chhabra, his sister and former Haryana IAS officer Shashi Gulati, and Sunil Kumar, filed the appeal concerning the land, which had been purchased from the Raja’s legal heirs between 2000 and 2002.
The appellants argued that in a similar case, the then Panchkula deputy commissioner, Alok Nigam, passed an order on 20 April, 2004, saying there could be no bar on transfer by a person shown as the owner of a plot of land in revenue records.
In their case, complained the appellants, the revenue authorities had even refused to enter the hibbanama (gift deed) executed by one of the appellants, Sunil Kumar, in favour of the other, Chhabra, in the revenue records.
On 13 September 2023, within 12 working days of the filing of the appeal, Phulia decided the case in favour of the appellants.
Inter-alia, her order said the revenue records showed the appellants purchased the 14 acres from the legal heirs of Bhagwant Singh. Since they were the absolute owners and possessors of the land, they could not be stopped from alienating the said land further, it said.
The order further said the records showed that the land was never declared surplus or vested with the government.
So, Phulia ordered the revenue officials to register the transfer documents executed by the appellant and enter the mutation in the revenue records.
She also directed Panchkula DC Sarwan to take action against the revenue officials who had refused to record the hibbanama executed by Sunil Kumar.
Months later, Phulia’s husband and son made a deal with Chhabra and Gulati to purchase five acres (800 marlas) of the land.
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Why CS stopped sale deed registration
On July 28, Chhabra and Gulati approached the tehsildar in Panchkula to transfer nearly 12 acres of their land for Rs 5.26 crore.
Of this, five acres were to be transferred to Phulia’s husband Satyavir Singh Phulia and their son Nilanchal, three acres (480 marlas) to one S.K. Juneja from Manimajra in Chandigarh, and a little less than four acres (total 634 marlas) to Usha Rani, wife of a retired Indian Forest Service officer from Kurukshetra.
The next day, Panchkula DC Sushil Sarwan wrote to chief secretary Prasad seeking guidance after the tehsildar approached him with the apprehension that the registration of the sale deed could open Pandora’s box of more such transfers of the land, jeopardising state interests because officials were yet to decide on the issue of surplus area in the erstwhile king’s land.
“In compliance with the order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court issued on February 2, 2023, the Collector, Panchkula has initiated the process of redetermining the surplus land as per law. Consequent to the revoking the stay as ordered by the Commissioner, a plethora of sale deeds are likely to be presented soon, due to which there is a possibility of the creation of third-party interests and jeopardising the government interests (sic),” the DC wrote to Prasad, citing the tehsildar’s concerns.
Justice Vinod S. Bhardwaj, who issued the high court order on 2 February 2023, also directed the collector to complete the redetermination expeditiously, preferably within one year.
On 29 March, Prasad restrained all registering officers from registering any sale deeds, saying “It is not justifiable to register sale deeds as the SDM, Panchkula who exercises powers of the Collector has to re-determine as per the High Court order the permissible area (PA) of owners, tenants’ permissible area (TPA) and surplus area (SA) in the revenue estates where Raja Bhagwant Singh owned the land (sic).”
A revenue official informed ThePrint that the Haryana Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953, and the Haryana Ceiling on Landholding Act, 1972, once passed, put a ceiling on how much area a landowner could own, called permissible area (PA). The acts further prescribed the area that tenants could be vested with — TPA. The area left after the PA and the TPA is the surplus area (SA). The ownership rights to such land remain with the government.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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