With three days to go,hundreds of group housing society apartment owners are involved in a last minute rush to register their property as failure could result in payment of penalties between Rs 2 to 8 lakh. More than ten thousand allottees of group housing societies have not registered their flats years ago. Initially,when Noida came into being,the local administration used to register the sub-lease for flat owners on stamp paper of Rs 100. Stamp duty,however,was levied on land registered in the name of the group housing cooperative society. As structures were built on the allotted land,the then officials had felt that there was no need of levying stamp duty. Later,land registration officials claimed allottees have to pay stamp duty and register the flats in their names and only then they will get the ownership of flats. The Indian Railway Welfare Organisation (IRWO),the Air Force Naval Housing Board (AFNHB),the Army Welfare Housing Organisation (AWHO) and several others had filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court stating there was no need of levying stamp duty. They had also pleaded that stamp duty should be charged at the allotment rates for the first allottees and not on present circle rates as was being charged by the registration department. In September last year,the Supreme Court in its order had given time till March 9 for registration of flats without penalty. The amount of penalty was not specified. Later,some allottees approached the Supreme Court which had issued notices to the authority and the registration department. The next date of hearing was fixed on March 28. "Penalty means authority penalty. We had requested Noida Authority to extend the date from March 9 to March 28,but officials have declined to do so. Present exemption of penalty is till March 9 only," Assistant Inspector General (Stamps) S N Rai said. "Around 3,000 such allottees are yet to register the flats. For the last few days,around 400 registries are being done every day. We have extended the timings till 10 pm for the benefit of allottees," he said. "After March 9 though there will no additional stamp duty,but they will have to pay the penalty to the authority at the rate of Rs 100 per day since they were supposed to execute the lease deed within six months of their allotments. As these cases are more than a decade old allottees will have pay penalty between Rs 2 lakh to Rs 8 lakh," said Rai. "If an allottee manages to get documents cleared from the authority by March 9 we will allow them to register such flats in the next four months," he added.
