15 held in Bhu Bharati and Dharani land registration scam in Telangana

Fifteen people were arrested for allegedly causing a loss of ₹3.9 crore to government through alleged irregularities in land registrations on ‘Dharani’ and ‘Bhu Bharati’ portals in Jangaon and Yadadri Bhuvanagiri districts of Telangana, Jangaon police said on Friday (January 16, 2026). Another nine accused are currently absconding, he said.

Another nine accused are currently absconding, he said.

The accused committed fraud in transactions related to 1,080 documents across Jangaon and Yadadri districts. A total of 22 cases have been registered — seven cases in Jangaon district and 15 cases in Yadadri district, the Warangal Police Commissioner Sunpreet Singh said.

The Police seized ₹63.19 lakh in cash, ₹1 lakh deposited in bank accounts, property documents worth approximately ₹1 crore, one car, two laptops, five desktop computers, and 17 mobile phones from the accused, an official release said.

Two prime accused, who are running online service centres, along with other accused, collected money from farmers and allegedly manipulated the payment challans generation process to reduce the challan amount.

The accused collected money from farmers through Mee Seva operators by claiming that the payments would be made through an NRI account. From the collected amounts, commissions were paid to online service operators and middlemen, while the remaining amount was sent to the prime accused, police said.

“The prime accused used the “Inspect – Edit Application” option on the Dharani/Bhu Bharati websites to reduce the challan amount and the edited challans were sent back to farmers through mobile phones”, police said.

Similarly, by using mobile applications, the accused altered the government-issued receipts on the website, showing lesser amounts than actually payable. “They paid only the reduced amount to the government and submitted the fake challans through middlemen at local MRO and registration offices, thereby cheating the government and causing heavy revenue loss,” the police said.

The Congress government launched the ‘Bhu Bharati’ portal for land administration by replacing the ‘Dharani’ land records management system introduced during the previous BRS regime.