What Is a Fard? (Part 3)

If you're educated, keep this in mind, a patwari isn't more educated than you, you just need to focus a bit. It comes back to the same thing: if you take legal advice, nothing can happen to you. Legal advice means taking advice from a good lawyer who knows this field. The patwari isn't more educated than you, the tehsildar isn't more educated than you, this whole racket has been built in such a way. What used to happen? There was a fard, first of all, thank God, it used to be written by hand, that was troublesome in itself, they wrote in a cursive, broken handwriting style, now the writing is more legible, but at one time there was this broken shorthand style of writing, it had its own proper direction, it was extremely difficult to read, you had to read it by guesswork, it was pure guesswork, thinking, he drew this line, that means this, this line means this is a public meeting, this line means that, it was an odd shorthand-like language of its own. Now, what I'm about to tell you is, if the patwari blackmails you, and the tehsildar is also colluding with him, but you are educated, if you're educated, if you know how to speak up, if you know how to fight for your rights, believe me, this patwari and this tehsildar can't do anything to you. They are only kings on the strength of their own job, their own position, and we ourselves have made them kings, because although we're owners of ten acres, fifty acres, two hundred acres, two thousand acres, ten thousand acres, we don't bother to even understand the property, thinking, why should I, the patwari might strike out a line in some record and finish us off. We're lazy, we don't want to understand it. Now awareness has grown, now people want to understand what these rackets are. Suppose you go to the patwari, look, this should be a small task, now how do they blackmail the ADLR? They haven't given the ADLR the full record. The land category isn't even with them, the land category is manually with the patwari, because it needs to be surveyed every year, every year, maybe slowly, over five, ten years, the ADLR system will become complete. Now a person goes, says, sir, I need this fard, now the ADLR issues you the fard, freezes the fard for sale from that end. Now, whether it's agricultural, residential, or commercial isn't indirectly shown, it's not in that fard, the fard for sale has already been issued. Now if you go to get it registered, the first objection they'll raise is, sir, this fard doesn't state the category of the land. If the land category is stated, your fees will be charged accordingly. Now suppose you've bought two acres of agricultural land, the fard is silent on the category, you go to the patwari, he says, pay up, you say, sir, this is agricultural land, he writes 'residential,' doesn't write 'agricultural.' Now if you're buying two acres of agricultural land and the fard says residential, you'll have to pay lakhs of rupees in fees according to the DC rate. He'll blackmail you for this, and then, God forbid, God forbid, somehow your registration gets done, when you go for mutation, one thing is very important. For mutation, you should never give your original registration to the patwari, I've handled cases on this. You give the original registration to the patwari, he makes it disappear, and after making it disappear, chaos erupts, registrations upon registrations get made on that same land, the same patwari arranges it. Patwaris team up with people, there are disconnected pieces of land lying around, unauthorized plots lying around, unauthorized fields lying around, barren for years, no one around, the patwari knows these are lying there, he gets forged documents made through people and transfers them into their names and takes money, and later, twenty years down the line, it comes out that we've been defrauded. If a patwari blackmails you, you have a forum, if the tehsildar is colluding with him, you have a forum, the AC (Assistant Commissioner), if he's colluding with them too, go to the collector, if that doesn't work, go to the commissioner, if that doesn't work, go to the Board of Revenue. You need to have the courage, a patwari cannot blackmail you. A patwari is an uneducated man, his knowledge is limited only to these lands, your knowledge is far greater than his, argue with him, if you stand firm on your rights. These patwaris have all sorts of ways to blackmail, but when their registers reach a senior officer, everything gets sorted out. They say, sir, this objection was raised in this application, when, here's the register right in front of you. Patwari, tehsildar-level people have convinced themselves that people won't bother going through the hassle of going to a higher forum against them, that no one can do that, all their arrogance rests on their position. When an application goes in saying this person is demanding a bribe from me, all their bluster deflates, and it does, they'll fall at your feet asking you to withdraw the application, and when that happens, a truly patriotic citizen's answer should be: why should I do what you say, I'll do what the law says.