Land acquisition in TN -- The labryinth path

Nowadays I see many people, even some of my friends, are in the mood of buying houses or land. I also hear the ordeal that they face -- the rate, sheer wandering effort et al they put. In addition to that the geniunity of the property is what was their main concern and many of them are having no clue about verifying the same. Through the details I acquired by listening from experienced people and reading articles in magazines during various times, I could gather some information. I thought of giving that knowledge to people here, so have compiled a four part series and have given here. There could be factual errors and statements. These purely arise out of my lesser knowledge and wronging memory. As I lack any credible experience in this area and this series is not based on any scientific research. Despite these, I intend to give them here as a starter's guide to people in this area. I would gladly accept changes to them if any mistakes are pointed out. The intention here is not to belittle or demean any individual or organisations. If it has hurt anyone please accept my apologies.

Here is the link to the parts:

Part I        Part II        Part III        Part IV
Feel free to post your comments.

Land acquisition in TN -- The labryinth path - IV

Assume that a person say 'A' has got 5 pattas i.e. five lands adjacent to each in a locality. He sells to 'B'. A sale deed comes into existence between 'A' and 'B'. Ideally 'B' should easily get patta for all these five lands after a few days time. Pratically this does not happen. By the time 'B' sells that to 'C'. 'C' verifies the 5 pattas in A's name and verifies the sale deed between 'A' and 'B'. Verification of patta has to be carried out by 'C' by applying in person at the revenue department. Let us assume that, through "connections" or somehow, 'C' verifies the originality of the Patta and gets clarifies that indeed 'A' was the owner of all those 5 pieces of land. The process of sale deed verification is widely know as getting EC or encumberence certificate. 'C' applies in the registration dept. a.k.a registrar office for EC for a period of his/her choice. Accordingly, in a few days the EC can be obtained. Infact anyone can go and apply for verification of these two set of govt. record. Registration records from 1985 onwards are computerised in registrar offices. Individually in each offices the records are computerised but they are not interconnected. So one has to go to the specific registrar office under which that land comes and apply for a EC. Just to remind a fact that a land can be under one area registrar office and can be another area revenue i.e. thasildhar office. Each govt. office's jurisdiction is determined by that dept itself. The names of districts, taluk et al that commoners use is that of jurisdiction of revenue dept. That is why Chromepet area comes under Kancheepuram district but is under Greater chennai police district.

Now that 'C' has verified the EC and he/she is satisfied that there is no encumburence in the sale and finally purchases from 'B'. Now that 'C' has five legal heirs i.e. children, wife et al. Let us say them as 'C1', 'C2', 'C3', 'C4' and 'C5'. 'C' writes a will to give equal share to his legal heirs and registers it. 'C' dies. Assume that 'C5' sells his portion to 'E'. Now that 'C1', 'C2', 'C3', 'C4' authorise 'D' a builder, to come up with a layout of plots for sale in their share of land. The authorisation has to be registered, again in the registrar office, and the record document would be in the form of a "Power of attorney". 'C1', 'C2', 'C3', and 'C4' would have furnished enough proof for their legal ownership of those pieces of land and registered the "Power of attorney". In that document 'C1', 'C2', 'C3', and 'C4' would have given full permission to draw layout, apply for municipal authority permission for that layout. Assume that 'D' persuades 'E' too to give Power of Attornery(PoA) to come up for the layout.

With these two power of attorneys (PoAs) 'D' comes up with a single layout of building plots of a small township. As per stipulated plan of town planning office or metropolitan planning authority, the layout should consist of properly marked plots, access roads, common playground/park area et al. Let us assume that accordingly 'D' comes up with a layout marking numbers for each plot in it. Assuming that we have 20 plots in the township that encompass these 5 survey numbers owned by 5 different people who through two different PoAs authorised 'D' to come up with this township. For approval 'D' has to provide the valid documents (pattas, PoAs et al) and drawing of layout to the town planning office. The Town planning officer (TPO) approves the layout. There layout sketch provided by 'D' will be signed & stamped by TPO and a the TPO issues a signed order for this entire township layout. Together these two documents form the approved layout records.

Now that if 'F' would like to buy a plot, say plot number 18 there starts the issue. As of now none of these approved documents the layout (i.e.) the sketch or the order says to which survey number does this plot number 18 belong to. Because in the sketch & order it would be mentioned merely that the township encompasses survey number say I, II, III, IV, V (they will be arabic numerals or alpha numerals in reality and not roman numbers. for ease of explanation I have used roman numbers here). So if 'D' & 'C3' sell plot no. 18 to 'F' saying that (in the sale deed) this plot no. 18 belongs to survey number III it becomes incomplete or incorrect as there is no offical records verifying the same. But the sales between 'D' & 'C3' and 'F' is registered by the registrar office because it is not the registration department's duty to verify the validity of ownership. The issue is because the layout sketch (i.e. plots 1 to 20 with road et al) does not show any super-incomposition of survey demarcations (i.e. not super-imposed against the patta drawing) to the layout plot demarcations. So there may arise some encumburence in future if 'E' claims that a portion of plot 18 or entire plot 18 belongs to him/her and he did not authorise 'D' (or) 'C3' to sell the same. Also when 'F' purchases plot 18 there might be another form of encumberence that 'C' might claim that he/she has not actually deceased or there might be yet another "legal" hier of 'C'.

What typically happens in real life nowadays is that, after buying this plot 18 from 'D' and 'C3', 'F' sells it to 'G' then 'G' to 'H'. When 'J' purchases from 'H' he/she might get into such troubles. Atleast the legal hier issues (i.e. 'C' not actually dead or 'C' has another legal heir) can be easily overcome by looking into death certificate or other means. But the bigger problem is the puzzle - 'in which survey number does this plot belong to'.

In reality all such current issues are of this sort that is the real encumberance is burried under a labryinth set of title transfers (sale or otherwise). Currently there is no remedy provided by the metropolitan development authority (MDA) or the TPO office. Much of the clarity that is needed are left in the way the sale deed are drawn and the sale is made. If the sale deed doesn't have the partisan ownership (or) all these owners together sell the plots then such risks is alleviated otherwise only civil suit would determine the legality of ownership of land. One can think further more complicated dimensions to the above mentioned labryinth to conceal the deceit further deep and cheat people further smartly. We have three govt. department -- the revenue dept. (thasildhar office), the TPO/MDA, the registrar office which do three different aspect of land/building management & transaction but are not properly knit to give much needed transparency to block any chances for fraudulence.

The main thing is the TPO or MDA should emphasise of giving some way of showing the superimposition of layout onto the revenue dept demarcation (survey no.) i.e. give a way to shown the layout sketch's superimposition on patta diagram. Also the almost non-functioning of the revenue dept. in providing patta for newer owners should also change. Otherwise this would create a bigger issue in near future. Less knowledgeable people who had to invest money in lakhs would finally end up getting cheated and would soon become bankrupt. Earlier in their loan mela mood even banks have provided loans with some incomplete verifications, now they have also become vulnerable. This situation would not only make individuals bankrupt but may also hurt banks as well.

Would some solution arrive in near future for this issue?

~~~~~~~~~~~~ concluded ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Land acquisition in TN -- The labryinth path - III

We have porumbokku land that can be allotted by the revenue department for building purposes. This is one stream through which land for building comes. The other stream could be privately owned lands which could have been classified as private barren land or classified as agricultural earlier (fertile or tharisu) and due to years of non-usage of it for agricultural purposes could come into the category of "land not for agriculture". So through three means i.e. govt. owned porambokku; private owned erstwhile agricultural-turned-barren land; private owned barren land could be allowed by govt. for residential building allotment. The porambokku to residential plot conversion is simple and does not always become an item for cheating as the ownership and records are with revenue department (govt. ), so no issues. Revenue department allots a vast of porombokku land to town planning office of municipality or metropolitan development authority of a big metropolis, an another govt. department. It is this department that takes the porambokku land, forms a "layout" and then sells them as plot to individuals.

Private owned land goes into ownership change by the way of sales to another person or title transferred to legal heirs according to a will or other form of legal transfers. Thus a single piece of a privately owned barren land becomes part and more legal complications. Added to it, when the part of land that is title transferred was in the name of a minor and it is used by his/her guardian, more legal complications comes into picture. Let us take the simplest case, i.e. assuming a privately owned a piece of barren land is owned solely by one person. Then it means that s/he should have got patta for that land. A patta for a piece of land (agricultural or otherwise) is given be revenue department to an indidivual owner upon legal title to that person. To provide a patta to a person who legally owns a piece of land the revenue department conducts a "survey" i.e. measurement of that land noting its means and boundaries. It is very vital information, otherwise a stretch of land cannot be located by its dimensions and cannot be said as "this is what belongs to that person". Typically the survey of a land covers its dimensions i.e. length, breadth in all directions to come up to a closed circuit (to tell in engineering lingua). Then its adjacent land marks are identified (eg. north is bound by this survey no. land; east by 40 feet road; west by that survey number land; south west by porambokku; south by 30 feet road etc). A sketch of this closed circuit showing all these boundaries are drawn. The sketch, and a filled-in form mentioning the name of the owner is arrived at, then a number is given to it, which is popularly known as survey/patta number (that is unique for the locality that is mentioned) and these are sent by the surveyor to the thasildhar's approval. After verifying all the details, not only sent by the surveyor but also the govt. records of that area provided to him earlier by the VAO of that area, the thasildhaar approves and signs in that document. It is this "signed" document plus the sketch, is called as 'patta' and is given to that private land owner. This gets into revenue dept records thus acknowledging that person as legal owner of that land. This enables the revenue department to collect land tax from that land owner (the process of survey and patta is similar for barren land and other lands including agricultural land). Also this is the legal document that is judicially accepted to show a person as owner of that piece of land. Pattas are given in such fashion for both agricultural and barren land of private parties. Hence, in broader classification lands are divided as patta lands and the govt. lands.

Now a patta holder of a barren land sells this land to another person. A financial transaction takes place hence a fee for this transaction has to be paid by the buyer to the govt. and the govt. would "register" this transaction and thus comes the registration department (or) the registrar office into the picture. This registration dept. records this transaction after supposedly checking (need not verifying/validating) the patta of the seller and registers the sale deed between the buyer and seller. It collects a registration fee and also a fee to transfer the name in patta from the current owner to the new owner. This tranfer fee ideally has to be sent to the revenue department. The revenue department has to verify & validate and has to update its record with the new owner's name so that when the new owner applies for patta in his/her name it can provide one for that land.

...to be concluded

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Land acquisition in TN -- The labryinth path - II

When British set the current form of land administration they took a lot of information from the existing chieftans set by earlier system i.e. from the likes of karnams and maniyams. They provided the vital land classification (viz. fertile land, cultivable land, barren land etc.) and owner-ship information. As per the current system, the revenue department of the government is the custodian of all lands in the state. So the TamilNadu (TN) revenue dept is the custodian of the land including the forest area of TN. The revenue department has officers from Village Administrative Officers (VAOs), to tehsil/taluk head popularly known as Thasildhaar to Revenue Division officers (RDOs) comprising of a few taluks, to Divisional Revenue Officers (DROs) to Collectors/District Administrator.

VAOs with the help of erstwhile Karnams & Maniyams maintain village level land records -- nanjai(read as nun-jai), punjai (read as pun with the 'un' like in 'fun' and 'jai') these two being fertile lands whose irrigation was done through govt. source of water viz. river, river-channels, lakes, dams etc. Hence these lands are termed as "wet lands". There is another category of cultivated land. It is called as maanaavaari. Maanaavaari land is cultivated purely based on the rain water that is fallen directly into the land and not irrigated through govt. source of water. Hence they are called as "not-wet" lands. They are also cultivated lands and hence are fertile lands. When any of the fertile land (wet or not-wet) is not cultivated for a period (of 6 months or so) continously for some reason (the most prominent in TN is maaanaavaari becoming uncultivated due to lack of rain) then it falls under the category called tharisu (cultivable but not recently utilised). The revenue dept. had different slabs of land taxes for these different type of lands. The very classification of lands into such categories is mainly for fixing the different tax slabs, which are widely known as theervai. This is different classification of agricultural lands. If the land is not agricultural, ie. if it is barren land (non cultivable/cultivated) land, then it is called as porambokku. Porambokku is govt. held barren land. There could be privately held such barren land as well. Apart from these another classification is done for forest area whose management/administration is done by forest department (transfer of custody happens here from revenue to forest, I guess). Also land area that is based on water storage like lake area, pond area etc. are also done. In addition to that we have land identification of sea side as well. Even though this classification is done akin to the thamizh traditional classification of kurinji, mullai, marutham, neithal and paalai, the focus is more on a higher level look of whether it is agricultural(including fertile and cultivable but recently not cultivated) (or) forest (or) barren (or) water catchment land. Such classification is done for govt. held or private held land. Ideally it is the porambokku, the barren land, that is, and that has to be, used for allocation of any form of building except on some extreme circumstances (eg. if govt. finds petroleum under a vast stretch of agricultural land then through proper decree they transfer it from agricultural tag to building tag for special purpose).

Thus is the intent, but due to various reasons -- from social value degradation to natural calamity -- many a water storage lands (i.e. land that is tagged as lake) are being transferred into porambokku category either officially by govt. or coersively by people by illegally occupying and going through politicians route.

For our area of interest let us stick to the barren land (porambokku and privately held barrent) and see the metamorphosis of it from barren to a land for residential purpose to be bought by an individual buyer.

...to be continued

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Land acquisition in TN -- The labryinth path - I

kaani nilam vEndum parasakthi kaani nilam vEndum
andha kaani nilathinilE Or maaLigai katti thara vEndum

what a simple request from Mahakavi Bharathi. His greatness is shown even here. For this request that is seeming simple, he knew very well who should he ask - no less than a Godess. Why not some mortal? He knows it is next to impossible. For him financial crisis was a bigger issue then, but for many people in present years it is all but finance that still keeps the above stanza alive.

Acquiring a residential plot, a piece of land, in big cities of TamilNadu, especially in Chennai, Coimbatore, Trichy, Madurai and their suburbs is life exhausting, high risk dream of every middle & upper middle class income people, and it is next to impossible for middle class and low income class people.

On the one hand the prices are skyrockting like anything with pure gambling hype on the other hand the heavy risk that loads everyones mind is - is it a geniune piece of asset or am I being cheated? Less to say that many wouldn't even know that they could be cheated even innovatively. A few weeks earlier, in a thamizh weekly magazine I read about the plight of an IAS officer to get an offical record, popularly known as patta, for the piece of land that he bought & owned legally. It seems he had to expend 11 years of his energy for the same. If such is the plight of a govt. officer even during "those" days (80s & 90s) think about the fate of commoners now.

Where does the problem lie? If not a square blame, atleast a lion's share of this blame should lie in the steps of government, especially the executive wing of TN government.

History first. During kings rules, even during moghul-arab-persian rules, the land administration by the kings' govt. was entirely different from the present one. During the kings' days, kings used to award lands to esteemed, well-known and well-acknowledge people, in the tunes of villages -- "We allot 'this' village to you and your clan for all the good deeds that you did for the kingdom". Those people would take the village; build good big houses for them and use a vast amount of land for agriculture; employ the locals in farm activities (the main/primary occupation of those days); give land for their houses; share the prospects from the land sumptously with the villagers; paid one-sixth of the income to the kings' exchequer. It was a federal way of administration by the kingdom. Not everything was written down as a single constitution then. That is why one could say many "constitutions" were written & in use during different ages the chief/ popular/famous among them being the smritis of manu, pathanchaji et al. manusmriti has become a notorious one now. This emphasies the federalism as, then in India, multiple smritis were followed by people. This historic note until the arrival of British crown rule in India emphasises the decentralisation of land administration. This was overall successful method. This system has its own disadvantages (as the zamindaars could easily become autocrats as shown in many movies and stories). But overall it did work with the social set-up of India then.

When the British took over things changed. The present land administration system is completely set by British. Since the British were not the people of the country they needed account of every piece of land in India for their better control. Thus came the present, centralised form of land administration into existence.

......to be continued.
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