Legal status of land must be made known to buyers.

Bombay High Court justifies its intention is to alert property buyers as well as Government officials. Nov 15th 2010, Noida, Property buyers dreading the antecedents of the land they are planning to buy have reason to rejoice. If the Bombay High Court has its way, property records will bear additional information regarding the legal status of the plots. A division bench of Justice B.H. Marlapalle and Justice U.D. Salvi has recommended that legal liabilities of a land find mention in the 7/12 extracts (property records). The High Court, nullifying a petition challenging the decision of the Nashik Collector to start including details of the legal disputes of land in the 7/12 extracts, decreed, "We suggest that all the district collectors in Maharashtra issue such circulars." The court justified that the intention was to alert property buyers as well as Government officials. "It is intended to ensure that the suits under trial with respect to the properties sought to be transferred by any means is brought on record, while affecting an entry in the 7/12 and other rights extracts," said the High Court. The judges added that the Nashik Collector's decision has not imposed any form of restriction on the transfer of properties under litigation. It only proposed to alert the revenue officers and particularly those who are responsible for mutating the revenue entries regarding the rights of the parties. The Court was hearing a petition filed by a Nashik resident, who had challenged the local Collectors' circular to revenue authorities to reflect under trial court cases in the property records.

The petitioner's lawyers claimed that the decision had placed unreasonable restrictions and caused prejudice to his rights to dispose off the suit property. However, public prosecutor Molina Thakur countered this argument by saying that the ultimate objective of the circular was to safeguard the rights of the public. "When a buyer of a property puts in his hard-earned money to purchase a piece of land, he should be made aware whether the land is involved in litigation," said the advocate. The Court agreed to the Government's contention. However, it remains to be seen if the Government accepts the High Court's suggestion. Consumer activists have welcomed the order, saying that property buyers would be able to verify readily from the records if the land they are planning to buy has any legal encumbrances.