To curb the misuse of the General Power of Attorney (GPA) in the city, the UT Finance department has barred all GPA holders from applying for a no-objection certificate (NOC), which is mandatory for selling or purchasing a property.

The orders empower only the actual owner of a property to apply for NOC, which was not the case in the city so far.

The orders, issued on September 2, have been circulated to the branches of the UT Estate Office, which deal with NOC related matters.

The stern decision has been taken in wake of the increasing cases of misuse of GPAs for obtaining NOCs from the Estate Office, leading to a large number of litigations.

“GPA does not provide ownership rights to the holder. Rather, it is a power of attorney given to the holder by the owner of property to perform certain actions on behalf of the absolute owner. For instance, the GPA holder can correspond with the government departments concerned on behalf of the owner, pay bills, accept and redress notices, etc,” a senior official explained.

“So far, GPA holders were allowed to apply for NOC. Bur certain unscrupulous elements had made it a tool for grabbing properties. After obtaining the NOC, such elements were selling the property and cheating the absolute owner,” the official added.

In its order, the Finance department states: “It has come to notice that there are some issues and cases of misuse of NOC... In this regard, in future NOC will only be applied by the owner of the property as per the records of the Estate Office and the same will only be issued to him or her.”

... contd.