Everything I would say about a khata inside the corporation applies here with one addition. The panchayat record is thinner, it is generated from a system that most sellers do not understand, and it is asked for at the counter in a way that makes buyers believe it settles more than it does.
What the entry actually asserts
Section 199(1) of the Karnataka Panchayat Raj Act, 1993 requires every grama panchayat to levy tax on buildings and lands within the panchayat area which are not subject to agricultural assessment. That qualification is the whole point. The panchayat has no power to tax agricultural land under that provision, so an entry in its property register is an implicit assertion that the property is not agricultural. Where the land was in fact never diverted under Section 95 of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964, the entry does not cure the position. It records a claim that the revenue record contradicts, and a purchaser has to reconcile the two rather than pick the one he likes.
Where title comes from
Section 54 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 says that a sale of tangible immovable property of a hundred rupees and upwards can be made only by a registered instrument, and that a contract for sale does not of itself create any interest in or charge on the property. Section 17 of the Registration Act, 1908 makes such instruments compulsorily registrable, and Section 49 says an unregistered document that required registration shall not affect the immovable property or be received as evidence of a transaction affecting it. Nothing in that chain has anything to do with the panchayat. The panchayat record follows the deed, it does not create the right.
| Document | What it proves | What it does not prove |
|---|---|---|
| Registered sale deed | The transfer of ownership, under Section 54 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 | That the property is free of encumbrances or that the use is lawful |
| e-swathu, Form 9 and Form 11 | Who the panchayat assesses for tax, and the extent it has recorded | Ownership, and the lawfulness of the construction |
| Conversion order under Section 95 | That the land may lawfully be put to a non-agricultural use | That a layout or a building has been approved |
| Panchayat building permission under Section 64 | That the panchayat has permitted this building | That the layout was sanctioned by the planning authority |
| Encumbrance Certificate | Registered transactions on the property for the period searched | Charges created without a registered instrument, such as a mortgage by deposit of title deeds |
Building on it is a separate permission
Section 64(1) of the Karnataka Panchayat Raj Act, 1993 says no person shall erect any building, or alter, add to or reconstruct any existing building, without the written permission of the grama panchayat. Section 64(2) is useful and underused: if the panchayat does not determine the application and communicate its decision within sixty days of receipt, the permission is deemed to have been given, and the applicant may proceed, though not so as to contravene the Act or the rules or bye-laws. Section 64(3) then gives the panchayat power, where a building has gone up without permission or contrary to the conditions, to order the work stopped or, by written notice, to require the building or the addition to be altered or demolished, with the cost recoverable as if it were a tax under Section 199.
Why the counter asks for it
Inside the corporation limits, the digitised khata has become the record the sub-registrar looks for before a document is accepted, and the position is set out in the refusal of registration answer. The panchayat record plays the same gatekeeping role outside those limits. The point to hold on to is that a gatekeeping requirement tells you what the counter needs, not what the property is. Section 199(6) makes any tax due to a grama panchayat recoverable as arrears of land revenue, and Section 201 gives a person aggrieved by an assessment an appeal to the prescribed authority. Both are provisions about tax. Neither is a provision about title.
What to check before you rely on the entry
- The survey number and extent in the e-swathu against the revenue record and the sale deed, since mismatches here are common and fatal at resale
- Whether the land was ever diverted for non-agricultural use, and the order number and date if it was
- Whether the layout was sanctioned by the planning authority, or the site was carved out privately
- The panchayat building permission for anything already constructed on the site
- An Encumbrance Certificate for the full period, read alongside a search of the central registry of security interests
- Whether the property falls in a green belt, a tank bed, a buffer or a proposed alignment
- Whether your lender finances properties in that panchayat at all, confirmed in writing before you pay
The pattern I see is a purchaser who was shown a clean Form 9, paid, registered without difficulty, and only discovered the problem when he applied to build or came to sell. The record was genuine every time. It simply answered a narrower question than he thought he was asking. The same distinction inside the corporation limits is set out in the A khata and B khata answer and in our note on the digitised khata. What conversion is, and the two ways it can be deemed granted, is in the DC conversion answer.