AHMEDABAD: A missing comma in a definition of the state’s stamp duty jantri guidelines, causing a misinterpretation at the office of the registrar of stamp duty, has led the government to collect duty seven times lower than sanctioned for land located within the city limits. Since 2011, the owners of ‘non-agricultural (NA) open land’ within the AMC limits have been paying stamp duty meant for ‘revenue land’ located outside the municipal limits. Owing to the punctuation error, the state government has lost crores in revenue.
Jantri rates and stamp duty for land within the municipal limits are higher as a municipal corporation lays a town planning (TP) scheme. According to the revenue department’s July 14, 2016, notification, the state government had realized that the error of a ‘missing comma’ had crept into its 2011 jantri guidelines. According to the guidelines, the definition was read by officials as: “to collect jantri rates for land converted to non-agricultural included in town planning scheme.”
