If the Maharashtra government works according to the schedule its Revenue Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule has outlined, then the state will be the first in the country to bring in a law for land titles. The law will conclusively establish land ownership, offer legal protection to property owners, streamline real estate transactions, and prevent or clear systemic land disputes. The government will introduce the Land Titling Bill in the winter session of the state legislature in December. There is no reason that it will not be passed. The procedure of President’s assent may take a few more months after that. The proposed law is intended to be on the lines of what city states like Singapore and Dubai, and scores of developed countries, have in place.
Advantages Of Land Titling
The advantages of such a law are obvious. When the state government guarantees that the ownership of land is listed on property documents, with the official measurement of the land before a transaction can be registered, and issues digital property cards—or vertical cards to apartment owners in housing societies—that display exact boundaries and owners’ identities, the scope and number of land-related disputes, including ancestral claims, overlapping boundary claims, and fraudulent sale deeds, would greatly decline. The exact number of land title disputes in Maharashtra are hard to come by even in official data, but news reports show that tens of thousands of pending land and revenue dispute cases clog the offices of the revenue department or linger in courts for decades. Across India, nearly 66 per cent of all civil suits are disputes related to land and property.
Gaps In Existing System
The prevailing system has relied on the traditional 7/12 extracts being handed down to the last buyer in property transactions and title searches done for the past 12 to 30 years in case of property—or apartment—purchases. These lend themselves to being fabricated or faked and lead to disputes or, in some extreme cases, unsuspecting genuine owners being cheated out of their ownership. The existing sale deed registration and property tax receipt systems indicate land titles but do not conclusively establish them. This, at best, is presumptive ownership of land and, at worst, merely cogent evidence of money paid to a government office. There are clear gaps that the law intends to make good.
Implementation Will Be Key
While the need for the law is beyond doubt and the government’s intent is to be appreciated, the challenge will be to implement it in a time-bound and streamlined manner so that the system does not leave out even the smallest of transactions and the humblest of buyers. The impact of the proposed law will unfold in the years to come, but when the Bill is introduced, it will mark a much-needed revision and upgrade since the colonial land record system.
