On the first day of July 2024, India replaced Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay’s Indian Penal Code from 1860 and Sir James Fitzjames Stephen’s Indian Evidence Act from 1872 with Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita and Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam respectively. The Criminal Procedure Code which had been revised in 1973 to separate the judicial and executive functions was also amended and given the new nomenclature of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Samhita. All three had received the presidential assent on 25 December of the previous year. The day has been celebrated as Good Governance Day since 2014 to honour the contribution of Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Unlike the scriptural ordinances (Bhagavad Gita, Bible, Guru Granth Sahib or the Qur’an), laws are subject to temporal revision as they are made by human beings in the context of the contemporary. As such, every piece of legislation should have an inbuilt date of review to ensure that changes are made by design, rather than by default or to score political brownie points.
Property rights and succession issues
Considering this, the introduction of the Indian Registration Bill 2025 is a welcome move. It is aimed at replacing the Registration Act of 1908. The Ministry of Rural Development introduced the draft bill in May this year.
Land and property disputes form two thirds of the civil litigation in the country.
And they’re governed not just by the Indian Registration Act 1908, but also the Transfer of Property Act 1882, the Stamp Act 1899, as well the Indian Succession Act 1925. They are deeply interconnected, which means that the 2025 Bill would affect all these existing laws.
This point has been forcefully argued by the well-known expert on the issue of land rights and land legislation, BK Agarwal, the former Chief Secretary of Himachal Pradesh, in his books: Land, Law and Administration, Land Registration: Global Practices and Lessons for India, and his blogs for the Vidhi Centre for Legal Research.
In his constructive critique of the proposed legislation, he says that the real intent and purpose of the Registration Act should be stated upfront—to give security of title to the person acquiring property, prevent frauds in property transactions, to provide authentic copies of deeds in case of loss or destruction of the same, to avoid litigation regarding the authenticity of wills and to create a publicly accessible record of all property transactions so that anyone dealing with a property can take an informed decision.
Everything else should aid and facilitate these larger objectives. The facilitating provisions in the RERA and IT Acts should also be clearly spelt out on the lines of the Jan Vishwas Act 2023, and the proposed Jan Vishwas Bill 2.0 on the Ease of Doing Business .
Also read: India’s land acquisition disputes have a way out. Both Japan and Gujarat have used it
The main provisions of the Bill
We now come to the main provisions of the proposed Bill. As the law on registration comes under the concurrent list, a key objective is to offer a pan-India governance architecture for digitising, streamlining, and modernising the current property registration process and increasing the scale and scope of transactions covered by its provisions. The Bill provides a uniform administrative structure under the Inspector General of Registrations (IGR) across states, which includes the upgradation of technology at registration offices to facilitate the option of electronic signatures under the IT Act 2000, and allowing online document submissions and conditional online appearances for registration.
The creation of necessary infrastructure such as computers, scanners, and cloud storage for recording all registration documents could be the possible first step in the blockchain registry for land documents.
The Bill also expands the range of documents, and provides for templates for documents which are to be compulsorily registered. All transaction documents executed among the parties to create rights, interest or title in an immovable property or otherwise have been included within its gamut.
Another important change is with respect to the responsibility of banks and financial institutions while granting loans on the basis of mortgage by deposit of title deeds. They will be mandated to file a copy of the title deed with the registering officer within the local jurisdiction and notify the officer about mortgage on the property. However, Agarwal goes a step further. He proposes the abolition of English and Equitable mortgages for these are vestigial anomalies, not even applicable in the country of their origin.
He also suggests that documents, which are presently exempted from registration— for instance, vested land given to landless SC/ST families —may be given exemption from payment of registration fee and stamp duty, but not from registration.
This will ensure verification of the identity of the grantee, acceptance by him and confirmation of transfer of possession to him. This will curb the paper grants/pattas by authorities without the grantee ever getting possession. The second-best option to bring all documents affecting rights in property on record. Kerala has taken the lead in this regard.
Also read: Don’t expect much litigation with SC ruling on property rights. India is in privatisation era
Registration of wills
Further, all pending litigation in relation to a property by a prospective buyer should be placed on record. This is a major source of dispute in the sale and purchase of property.
Another major lacunae that needs to be resolved is the non-precedence of a registered will, over a non-registered one. Due to this legal position, many times, after the death of a person multiple unregistered wills appear in the possession of interested parties, leading to long-drawn out litigation.
This situation can be resolved if registration of a will is made compulsory under the law.
Another step to reduce litigation would be the compulsory description of property based on the record of rights or any other record having spatial description. Some states have made it mandatory to describe property based on the record of rights and attach new maps in case of the transfer of a part of the property. This has been done through administrative instructions only. It should be given legal standing by making appropriate provisions in this section.
Agarwal also pointed out that, while digitisation of land records has improved, there is wide scope for improvement. A separate format of Record of Rights (RoRs) should be prescribed in urban areas and merged with the property tax records. The rural and the urban ministries, along with the office of IGR must work in tandem to achieve the objectives of the Act.
Agarwal suggested vesting urban municipal functionaries with powers of a revenue official—both for measurement of land as well as for assessment of value for purposes of property taxes. In case of non-availability of record of rights, parties may be asked to get a fresh geo-referenced drone-survey of the plot under transfer and the adjacent plots. To reduce benami transactions, he suggests a provision mandating the concerned registering officers to link all the immovable properties with the PAN Card or Aadhaar Card of the owner.
The Registration Bill 2025 symbolises a noteworthy first step in India’s legal and administrative transformation journey, in consonance with the larger national vision of shredding its colonial legacy, e-governance, and a step toward transparent administration. Like all non-scriptural texts, there is scope for, and necessity for continuous improvement.
Sanjeev Chopra is a former IAS officer and Festival Director of Valley of Words. Until recently, he was director, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration. He tweets @ChopraSanjeev. Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)