'Had no intention of buying then,' says Haryana IAS who vacated stay on land sale before family bought it

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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..

A day after sellers and buyers approached a tehsildar at Panchkula for the registration of the lands 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 kings 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 kings land...

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 Pandoras 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 kings land...

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)...