Land Records and Right to Information Act

Bishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel prize winner, famously said: “When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.”
Usurping land by other less subtle means in India is not too uncommon.

Many of the applications under Right to Information Act addressed to the Revenue , Survey and Settlement and Registration departments relate to land records. They mainly concern complaints of land grabbing, where one person’s land has been allegedly sold by another person as if it is his property. The appellants in these cases complain that by means of forgery, impersonation or false claims, sale or settlement deeds were got registered or the names got changed in patta (revenue record about ownership).

The problems arise from many issues:

  1. When a sale deed is registered at the office of the sub registrar, an application for change of name of patta is collected and is forwarded to the concerned Taluk (Tehsil) office. But more often than not, no action is taken on this application, unless the purchaser pursues the matter personally. As a result, discrepancies exist between the revenue records and the registration department records. Further, if the buyer has made a false claim about title to the land, this goes undetected.
  2. Rule 55 of the Registration Rules states ‘it forms no part of the registering officer’s duty to enquire into the validity of a document brought to him for registration or to attend to any written or verbal protest against the registration of a document based on the ground that the executing party had no right to execute the document.” Essentially, the only objections he can consider are about impersonation and forgery or that the executing party is a minor or mentally unsound. Therefore, the registering officer is bound to register a document without questioning the title of the seller. Genuine owners of land are puzzled and upset that title to their land has been usurped by somebody else utilizing the official process.
  3. In such situations, the affected person is told that the only option open to him is to move the civil courts.
  4. Even if he approaches the police, his complaint is often dismissed as a civil case beyond the purview of criminal jurisdiction.
  5. In 2011, the IG Registration issued a circular that when a complaint of fraudulent registration involving impersonation or forgery is received, it should be enquired into by the District Registrar and if the complaint is substantiated, punitive action in the form of prosecution of the concerned should launched and curative action by annulling the fraudulent document should be initiated. Many persons moved the High Court against this circular. In many cases, the High Court granted interim stay of the circular and the consequent prosecution. In some cases, stay of the circular was refused while prosecution was stayed. On the other hand, the Madurai bench has passed orders in another set of writs that the circular is valid. Registration department cites the stay granted in the principal bench and refuses to carry out annulment of documents.

In essence, the swindler claims title to the property while the swindled person has to move the court to get his legitimate rights. The plight of the affected persons reminds one of Lord Bowen’s words:

The rain it raineth on the just

And also on the unjust fella;

But chiefly on the just, because

The unjust hath the just’s umbrella.

As the matter concerns different departments, there are conflicting entries in different records, all paving the way for avoidable litigation.

It will be useful if something like a Land Aadhaar identity is assigned to each piece of land for clear identification- and linked to individuals’ Aadhaar cards.