Mohali administration cancels mutation of MGF land over tax evasion

Sanjay Bumbroo

Tribune News Service

Mohali, June 10

The Mohali administration has cancelled the land mutation in the name of MGF Developers for alleged evasion of stamp duty, causing “multi-crore loss” to the state exchequer.

The orders in this regard were issued by District Magistrate Girish Dayalan on Thursday. Dayalan said as the probe had found that the land mutation had caused a huge loss to the state exchequer, they had reversed the mutation orders.

He said they had submitted a report to the state government to frame a scheme to charge fee for land mutation as per the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).

Dayalan said the state government was yet to formulate a policy for charging land mutation fee in cases of transfer of land from one company to the other, while 14 states in the country, including Haryana, had already framed a policy in this regard.

The District Magistrate had ordered the probe on June 7 after 120 acres of land were transferred without the payment of stamp duty by twisting NCLT orders and guidelines.

As per information, the land in Bairampur and Manak Majra villages in Mohali district had been transferred to MGF Developers from Emaar MGF in pursuance of demerger of companies as per the scheme of arrangement approved by the NCLT in its judgment in 2018.

Sources said the MGF had filed an application with the Subdivisional Magistrate, Mohali, on March 16 and the same was sent to the tehsildar for further action. The then tehsildar had kept the case file pending for seeking legal verification. She had also raised objections over the non-payment of stamp duty by MGF Developers (resulting company) after getting land from Emaar MGF (demerged company).

Interestingly, during the pendency of the case, the then tehsildar was transferred and the land was transferred to MGF Developers by creating a new case file.

When the District Magistrate asked the District Revenue Officer to submit his report, the latter in his reply while seeking action in the case had stated that a parallel file had been created to transfer the land while the original case file was pending.

Loss to exchequer as stamp duty not paid

• The orders with regard to the cancellation of land mutation were issued by District Magistrate Girish Dayalan on Thursday
• Dayalan said the probe had found that the land mutation had caused a huge loss to the exchequer due to alleged evasion of stamp duty. Hence, they had reversed the mutation orders
• He said they had submitted a report to the state government to frame a scheme to charge fee for land mutation as per the National Company Law Tribunal