The confusion comes from the fact that everything about the transaction looks normal. The seller has a document. The sub-registrar registers it. The panchayat or the corporation takes tax. None of that has anything to do with whether you may build.
The first permission: diversion under Section 95
Section 95(2) of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964 says that an occupant of land assessed or held for the purpose of agriculture who wishes to divert it to any other purpose shall apply to the Deputy Commissioner, who may refuse or grant permission on conditions. Section 95(3) lets him refuse where the diversion is likely to defeat any law in force, cause a public nuisance, or is not in the general public interest. Section 95(4) lets him impose conditions on the dimensions, arrangement and accessibility of building sites.
What happens if it was never obtained is set out in Section 96, and it is not a fine you can budget for. Sub-section (1) allows the Deputy Commissioner to summarily evict the occupant and the person responsible for the diversion, and any building erected on the land is liable to forfeiture or summary removal if it is not taken down after written notice. Sub-section (3) lets him do the work himself and recover the cost as arrears of land revenue.
The second permission: the layout
Section 17(1) of the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, 1961 requires anyone sub-dividing a plot into a layout to submit a detailed plan showing the roads, the sub-divided plots and the areas earmarked for parks, open spaces and civic amenities. Section 17(2A) requires the owner to relinquish the roads and parks to the local authority and the civic amenity areas to the planning authority by registered relinquishment deed, free of cost. Only then, under Section 17(2B), does the final layout plan issue, and the proviso to that sub-section is blunt: no commencement certificate or licence shall be sanctioned or issued for buildings on sites in the layout unless the final layout plan is issued.
| Missing | Source of the requirement | Practical effect |
|---|---|---|
| Diversion for non-agricultural use | Section 95(2), Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964 | Summary eviction and removal of the building under Section 96 |
| Sanctioned layout | Section 17, Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, 1961 | No building licence for any site in it, and the planning authority may pull down work already done under Section 17(4) |
| Relinquished roads and parks | Section 17(2A) of the same Act | The roads and open spaces you are shown belong to nobody in law and may later be built on or sold |
| Building plan sanction | Sections 239 and 240, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Act, 2020, or Section 64 of the Karnataka Panchayat Raj Act, 1993 in a panchayat area | Construction without sanction, with the demolition powers that follow |
The sub-registrar is not checking any of this
Purchasers read registration as a form of official approval. It is not, and the Registration Act, 1908 says so on its face. Section 34(3) confines the registering officer's enquiry to whether the document was executed by the persons by whom it purports to have been executed, to satisfying himself of their identity, and, where someone appears as a representative or agent, to that person's right to appear. Nothing in that enquiry touches whether the land was diverted, whether the layout was sanctioned, or whether anything may lawfully be built. A registered sale deed for a revenue site is a perfectly valid registered sale deed for a plot you cannot build on.
Paying tax is not permission
This is the argument every seller makes and it has a direct statutory answer. Section 144(6) of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Act, 2020 lets the corporation levy property tax on a building constructed in violation of the building bye-laws, or in an unauthorised layout, or on revenue land, or occupied without an occupancy or completion certificate, and says the tax on such a building shall be double. The proviso then says that levying and collecting that tax confers no right to regularise the violation and no title, ownership or legal status, and that such buildings remain liable to action. The receipt in the seller's hand is evidence that the municipality knows the building is unlawful and is charging him twice for it.
- The conversion order under Section 95, with the survey number matching the site, not a neighbouring one
- The sanctioned layout plan bearing the planning authority's seal, and its number and date
- The registered relinquishment deed for the roads, parks and civic amenity area
- Which register the khata is in, and whether the property tax receipt shows the doubled rate
- A written position from your lender before you pay any advance, because most decline these
- The mother deed and the full title flow, since revenue sites frequently sit on unpartitioned family land
- Whether the site falls in a green belt, a buffer, a tank bed or a proposed road alignment
Some of these sites are bought knowingly and priced accordingly, and that is a commercial decision rather than a legal error. What is an error is buying one believing it is something else. If the seller says regularisation is coming, ask for the notification and not the assurance, and read the A khata and B khata answer before you decide. The full pre-purchase sequence is in our verification checklist.