Section 128 of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964 stands as an important statutory command governing the recognition and reporting of acquisition of rights in land. Though revenue entries are essentially maintained for fiscal and administrative purposes, their importance in the practical enjoyment and assertion of property rights cannot be understated. An erroneous revenue entry continuing even after the rights of parties have been determined by a competent court creates an incongruous situation: the judgment and decree declare one person to be entitled to the property, while the revenue records continue to reflect another. It is precisely in this context that Section 128 assumes significance as a statutory checkmate against the continued existence of revenue entries inconsistent with legally acquired and judicially recognised rights.
Section 128(1) of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act recognises acquisition of a right by “succession, survivorship, inheritance, partition, purchase, mortgage, gift, lease or otherwise.” The breadth of the provision is significant. The legislature has deliberately employed the expression “or otherwise” after enumerating the familiar modes through which rights in land may be acquired. The provision is, therefore, not confined merely to rights flowing from sale, gift, inheritance or partition. It is capable of accommodating other legally recognised modes by which a person acquires a right as a holder, occupant, owner, mortgagee, landlord or tenant of land. A right conclusively declared or crystallised through a judgment and decree of a competent court necessarily assumes great importance while applying this statutory framework.
A judgment and decree cannot be treated by the revenue officer as an ordinary private assertion of title. It is the culmination of a judicial adjudication. When parties have approached a competent court, placed their rival claims before it, led their evidence and obtained a final adjudication concerning their respective rights over immovable property, the tahsildar cannot thereafter constitute himself as another adjudicatory forum to decide whether the court was factually or legally correct. Section 128 does not confer appellate jurisdiction upon the tahsildar over decrees of civil courts. Nor does it authorise a revenue officer to substitute his subjective satisfaction for a binding judicial determination. Section 128 must therefore be appreciated in its proper statutory setting. The provision is concerned with acquisition of rights and the reflection of such acquisition within the revenue administration. Once a person's right has been established through a subsisting judgment and decree, the revenue authority cannot ordinarily defeat the consequential request for mutation by reopening the very questions which culminated in that decree.
The tahsildar or revenue officer, upon the representation made by the judgment or decree holder, may legitimately verify whether the judgment and decree relied upon are genuine, whether they concern the property for which mutation is sought, whether a person is entitled to claim under the decree, and whether any superior court has stayed, modified or reversed the decree. These are matters relating to implementation. At the outer limit, Section 128 cannot be converted into an administrative appeal against a civil decree. The provision becomes particularly important where old revenue entries continue to stand in the name of persons whose claims have already been negatived or displaced by judicial adjudication. The mere existence of an earlier revenue entry cannot itself become an impediment to recognising the right flowing from the subsequent judgment and decree.
A judgment cannot remain merely a declaration on paper while administrative records continue indefinitely in contradiction to it. The fruits of a decree must reach the successful litigant. Where the decree determines a right capable of being reflected in the revenue records, the tahsildar's role is consequential rather than appellate. Ultimately, Section 128 provides the statutory answer to the continued existence of erroneous revenue entries after judicial adjudication. Once the competent court has spoken and its judgment and decree remain operative, administrative records must move towards conformity with that determination. The decree holder should not be sent from pillar to post or subjected to another round of adjudication before the revenue machinery. Thus, Section 128 of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964 operates as a statutory checkmate to erroneous revenue entries after judgment and decree.
About the author: Galav Gowda is an Advocate practicing before the Supreme Court of India and the High Court of Karnataka.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s). The opinions presented do not necessarily reflect the views of Bar & Bench.
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