How to Buy Agricultural Land (Part 2)

If you want to do it through a local commission, keep this in mind, the three sets of the registration deed you need to prepare, none of them should have anyone's signature or thumbprint on it, not the witness's, not the identifier's, not the buyer's, not the seller's. For this permission, an application will go under the local commission, and that application will bear the seller's signature. One seller, two, three, however many there are, their signatures will be on it. That application will go to the sub-registrar, stating that these individuals cannot appear before you in person, therefore they want the registration done through a local commission, and the applicant be granted permission to sell this land through a local commission. The magistrate will approve it, and that approval will be recorded in his own personal register kept in that office, noting that such-and-such draft came in, local commission permission was granted on such-and-such date, under such-and-such diary number, and after stamping it, the sub-registrar will sign it and hand it over to you. After that, everyone needs to sign and thumbprint, and once everyone has signed and thumbprinted, you make the payment, and then the local commission submits the registration to the sub-registrar along with the original fard-e-bai, and after submission, it gets registered through the proper procedure. When the sub-registrar registers this deed and gives you back the original draft, it doesn't mean you've become the owner of the land. I have countless clients who bought agricultural land ten years ago and their registrations are just sitting there. They came to me saying, sir, we want to sell, and it turned out the mutation (intiqal) of the land was never done, and this is a dangerous thing. Don't just sit at home after getting the registration done, if you sit at home, no one in the revenue record knows that this land has been sold. That land will remain in the name of the same owner you bought it from, and a mischievous patwari or middleman, who finds out that this property has been sold by Zaid to Bakar but the mutation hasn't been entered in the revenue record, will let Zaid sell it to someone else, that middleman will go, get his cut, and think, sell it, we'll see. Greed sets in, and the land gets sold further. Ten years later when you find out, it's already changed hands three times, and you're just sitting there holding a registered document, that's not it, that's not the right way. After getting the registration done, your next stage begins. Keep in mind, never hand your original registration deed to any patwari for the purpose of mutation. You should get a certified copy from the sub-registrar's office, and after getting that certified copy from the sub-registrar's office, give that copy to the patwari, and in your own presence have him enter it in the patwar register (perat patwar), stating, I am submitting this certified copy of the registered property deed to such-and-such patwari for the purpose of mutation. Once it's entered in the patwar copy, the patwari must then take it to the tehsildar. When it goes to the tehsildar, it will be entered in the government copy (perat sarkar), stating that this registration has been received by me for mutation purposes. Then the tehsildar will hold a public meeting (jalsa-e-aam) about it. I'm telling you some things that don't exist in practice anymore but are legally mandatory. The tehsildar will hold a public meeting about it. In the public meeting, the registration will be confirmed, that yes, Zaid sold this to Bakar. A landholder resident of that area (patti-dar) will second it, saying, yes, Zaid sold this land to Bakar. Zaid's presence there is mandatory, and either Bakar's representatives who purchased it, or Bakar himself, must be present, legally, though practically this doesn't happen these days. In practice, you go and hand it to the patwari, and he says, come back in two days for your mutation number, and he writes the mutation number on it, but legally, what I'm telling you is mandatory. Once mutation is done, your name will be entered in the register of rights holders as owner. Following this mutation, then in the jamabandi, the record of rights, once the jamabandi update is happening, you have to go and get yourself entered there too, stating that under this jamabandi I am now the owner. Then, of the rabi and kharif crop seasons, whichever is nearest, there are only ten to fifteen days during which mutations and crop inspections are entered. You need to go during the rabi or kharif crop season, and go get the girdawari (crop inspection record) of this agricultural land entered in your name as owner, self-cultivating, or if you're bringing in a tenant farmer, then in the owner's column your name will appear and in the cultivation column the tenant's name will appear. Once the girdawari is in your name, then, brother, your purchase of agricultural land is complete. I hope I have given you the details of how agricultural land is purchased.