What Is a Fard? (Part 1)

Today I'm going to give a lecture about property, since different people have asked different things, I'll try to answer all these questions in this lecture. I've said this repeatedly, that regarding land units in this country, God forbid, I'm not saying Pakistan should be broken into pieces, I mean in terms of land division: the biggest unit is Pakistan, then provinces, then divisions, then districts, after districts, tehsils, after tehsils, villages, after villages, mauzas (revenue estates). A single village can have more than one mauza, a single tehsil can have more than one mauza, mauzas are the working unit. Now villages aren't that big anymore, now a single mauza can contain two villages. I've been asked, sir, what is a mauza? Under the Land Revenue Act, a mauza refers to that piece of land in which more than one owner resides. Before Partition, and for some time after Partition, there were landlords who owned four or five mauzas, but that's mostly a thing of the past now. A mauza is what identifies where your land, or the land you're buying, is located, that this is your land in this area. Mauza Barki, Mauza Patyara, Mauza Raiwind, these are the kinds of mauzas you'll come across wherever you want to buy property. After mauza comes khewat, how many khewats are there in one mauza? After that comes, how many khatunis are there in a khewat? After khatunis you get to khasra numbers, that's the division of land. Now some people don't know the indirect terms, the units of land measurement, I'll explain that too today. For measurement there's square kilometres, this is how land is measured, how many square kilometres Pakistan covers, that's the central figure, then comes murabba (squares), murabba acres, meaning 25 murabbas make one acre. After murabba comes acre, after acre comes kanal, after kanal comes marla, after marla comes sarsai, this is the division of land. Now you buy a property, a property is gifted to you, you inherit a property, or you take a property as a mortgage, you hold a mortgage deed, you take a loan against it. Categories of mutation: after a sale, mutation happens, mutation means transfer, transfer of ownership. Transfer of ownership happens through sale, transfer of ownership happens through inheritance, that A was the owner, he died, now A's children's inheritance mutation will be entered. Gift, hiba, mutation also happens for gift. Exchange deed, my property is in one mauza, B's property is in another mauza, they need to be mutually transferred, this is called an exchange mutation, we exchange with each other, exchange means we swap, or we have lands in different places within the same mauza, we mutually transfer them, we exchange with each other, one mutation gets passed for this. There's a mutation for mortgage too, that A's property, A took a loan from B and mortgaged his property, that too gets a mutation entered, that this property carries this lien, this burden, this debt, and in exchange for it this property is mortgaged, and this mutation that gets passed is a mortgage mutation, that until the loan is repaid, the owner will be someone else, someone who holds the property differently, the one the property has been given to, mortgagor and mortgagee, the mortgagor is the one giving his own property, and the mortgagee is the one temporarily taking his property, until this loan is repaid this will stay with me. That covers categories of mutation.

Now it was asked, how many kinds of fard are there? I won't confuse you too much, because this is already a confusing subject, patwaris and tehsildars have made it very complicated, but it's not actually complicated, and that complexity is slowly disappearing now, I'll explain that later. 1. There's a fard-e-barai-record (record extract), the owner goes and says, sir, from the register of rights holders, issue me a fard for the record, to check my status, whether my status is updated or not. 2. There's a fard-e-bai (fard for sale), the owner goes saying, I'm about to sell this land, I need a fard-e-bai as proof of ownership, which I have to give to the buyer, and this is the most dangerous and important document. I'll explain later what the procedure for the fard-e-bai is. One fard for record, one fard for sale, 3. one fard for gift (hiba), that you're gifting something, 4. one fard for mortgage. These are the four main types of fard that are typically issued. Besides these, there are other fards too, for instance, someone needs to be released on bail, an order is passed that, sir, deposit surety bonds of this much amount, the court says. I am the owner, I own land worth more than the one lakh surety amount, now I'll go to the patwari and tell him, issue me a fard, I need to give a surety bond, I need to give this bail bond, this bond in court, and the patwari issues that fard, which the tehsildar verifies, and along with it gives a valuation report too, this is also a kind of fard. I think this is needed very rarely. The main ones I've told you, fard for record, fard for sale, fard for gift, and fard for mortgage, these are the four main fards used in our daily lives, that's the categorization of fards, and for what purposes are they used? 1. Now the fard for record is only for your own record, to update the record. 2. The fard for sale is for selling, now the fard for sale isn't routinely issued by the patwari, the fard for record he can issue routinely because it doesn't affect ownership, but the fard for sale, when the patwari issues it, he enters it in almost all of his registers, and the fard for sale is not issued unless the actual owner goes himself, or the general attorney appointed by the actual owner goes, the general attorney will go, or the actual owner will go, only then will the fard be issued. Now that fard for sale, in the register of rights holders from which he's issuing the fard, he'll get a thumbprint on it, and write with his pencil that he has issued the fard for sale. He'll write it in the patwar copy, then it will go through its process to the tehsildar, there it will be written in the government copy, after writing it in the government copy, the tehsildar will approve it, and after approving it will write the nature of the land, whether it's agricultural, residential, or commercial, whatever it is, their revenue record, commercial property isn't dealt with by the revenue record, but if the commercial status has already been established, then it's on their record, and he'll issue it, that's the whole process.