Perhaps the greatest beneficiaries of the Silicon Valley of India i.e, Bengaluru’s real estate boom are the neta-babu (politician-bureaucrat) brotherhood and corners-cutting lawyers, who have accumulated massive fortunes from the maze of documents required to purchase and register property.

On July 20, ten teams of the Karnataka Lok Ayukta (ombudsman) made surprise swoops on the offices of 43 sub-registrars in Bengaluru and discovered “shocking irregularities”. According to Justice (Retd.) B.S. Patil who was appointed Lok Ayukta after the office was vacant for several years, sub-registrars offices where all property registration documents have to be filed, are swarming with touts (agents) who levy large commissions ranging from Rs.10,000-100,000 for completing dozens of documents — many written only in Kannada, the state’s dominant language. “Moreover, cash registers are not maintained, PAN numbers are not mentioned in documents to evade payment of income tax, registration of revenue sites is done illegally and higher officials neither supervise nor take any action,” a Lok Ayukta spokesperson informed the media.

Outraged by blatant “maladministration and derelictions,” Justice Patil has initiated suo motu proceedings demanding explanation from the state government. But that’s an exercise in futility because such raids have been conducted every year since 2002 without any sub-registrar being prosecuted for corruption. Because under the rules, permission is required from the State to prosecute government employees. Meanwhile, it is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for the common man to emerge from a sub-registrar’s office without paying a bribe. Serpents slide freely in the garden city.