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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Legal Loopholes That Plague Land Titling in India -Karuna Maharaj

Legal Loopholes That Plague Land Titling in India -Karuna Maharaj

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published Published on Dec 21, 2017   modified Modified on Dec 21, 2017
-TheWire.in

The government needs to create a workable, inclusive system of land titling and records to allow land markets to function effectively and reduce judicial burden.

Land is one of the most litigatious and controversial subjects in India. The lack of a proper system to maintain land records and provide persons with conclusive titles results in frequent and long drawn legal conflicts. Determining who the unchallenged land owner continues to be is a difficult task since registering any transaction under the Registration Act, 1908 is just an evidence of the transaction, which does not confer any title on the landowner. The system envisaged under the Registration Act runs parallel to the records maintained by the revenue department. These are supposed to reflect the changes in either record. However, this does not always happen.

Some transactions (e.g. gifts) which may be part of revenue records are not necessarily required to  be registered under the Registration Act. This is another factor that is complicating and creating distortions in records maintained under both the revenue codes of the states and the (Central) Registrations Act. Further, certain systems of land ownership in states like Haryana and Himachal Pradesh only deal with ‘shares’ of particular persons without demarcating physical boundaries between them. Similarly, most land records do not really mirror property ownership at an individual level. The colonial system of deed-based registration, presumptive title (not conclusive title) and land records open to challenge, continue to limit proper land utilisation.

Under India’s constitution, maintenance of land records, land revenue, survey and ‘record of rights’ are clubbed in the state list. In the concurrent list, some subjects which the parliament has legislated on  – stamp duty, Registration Act, transfer of property etc. – have a direct bearing on land records. Legislative and executive processes and procedures seldom work in tandem. To rectify the anomaly in the land situation, the central government has drafted the Model Land Titling Bill, 2011. The Bill aims to create a template for states to move towards establishing conclusive titles through government notifications. The government has  also launched the National Land Records Modernizing Program (2008) to address the issue of conclusive land titling.

Unfortunately, the entire system of new officers and authorities proposed in the Bill does not clarify their functioning vis a vis the current or existing system. The factors further dogging the Bill are inadequate  land records, uncertain procedure of survey to execute the ‘mirror’ principle under the Torrens system (the purpose of the Torrens system is to provide certainty of title to land and make the registration conclusive). These are some primary reasons why the Model Bill did not create much stir in the state legislatures. The land titles register accurately and completely reflects the current ownership and interests about a person’s land which is called the ‘mirror’ principle. This means the land records ‘mirror’ or reflect the reality of the situation on the ground, i.e., with respect to a person’s rights and interests over a piece of land.

Also, the central government’s funding of authorities that primarily function under the aegis of state governments, (for e.g. ‘land record’, ‘record of rights’) as envisaged in the Bill, are seen to be problematic.

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TheWire.in, 20 December, 2017, https://thewire.in/206447/legal-loopholes-plague-land-titling-india/


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