The state government has revealed a significant property registration fraud involving its e-khata system, resulting in the suspension of five sub-registrars after officials discovered the fraudulent registration of approximately 1,332 properties over a one-year span from December 6, 2024, to December 5, 2025.
The department of stamps and registrations has suspended these officials due to their alleged involvement in the misuse of the Kaveri 2.0 portal, their failure to import essential e-khata information from the e-swathu software, and the unlawful registration of sale deeds.
The suspended individuals include Ravi Sankana Gouda, N Satish Kumar, Sridhar (first division assistant-in-charge sub-registrar), Girish Chandra, and R Prabhavathi. Initially launched with great enthusiasm as a reliable digital safeguard, the state government’s e-khata system, designed to prevent property registration fraud, is now under scrutiny following the revelation of the scam, which came to light after a complaint was lodged by the executive director of the Centre for Smart Governance (CSG), an organization that provides technological solutions to government departments.
In response to the complaint, the North CEN police initiated a cybercrime investigation against unidentified individuals under various sections of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
Officials indicated that the Kaveri-2 portal, which has prohibited property registration without a valid e-khata since 2024, was allegedly tampered with. They reported that individuals accessed information from the Unified Land Management System (ULMS), which holds land records from their origin to conversion, and hacked the software to falsely represent certain properties as having e-khata under the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) department.
These properties were subsequently registered unlawfully. The complaint asserted that the perpetrators forged property documents and circumvented system safeguards to enable registrations despite the lack of valid e-khatas. This incident marks the second significant case of fraudulent property registration reported since the e-khata became mandatory for all property registrations in Bengaluru.
According to sources, numerous sub-registrar offices responsible for rural gram panchayat properties have been impacted, with the majority of unlawful registrations linked to these offices. A technical analysis has allegedly uncovered software bypasses in several sub-registrar offices, such as Banaswadi, Ulsoor, and Varthur.
