Maharashtra's draft Land Titling Bill, published for public objections, would replace the state's possession-based land records with state-certified conclusive titles — a shift supporters say could relieve courts of a major share of civil litigation, but critics warn hands ownership disputes to forums falling short of Supreme Court standards.

The bill follows the Union government's Model Land Titling Act, drafted after NITI Aayog found land disputes make up roughly two-thirds of the country's civil litigation. Several states have taken up the model; one has already retreated: Andhra Pradesh enacted its own Land Titling Act in 2022, brought it into force in October 2023, and repealed it in July 2024 after advocates boycotted the district judiciary for months.

The problem is familiar to conveyancers. Ask a Maharashtra farmer whether the land in his satbara extract is really his, and he will probably say yes. Ask a court, and the answer is more careful: the record shows possession, and a mutation entry records that a transaction was reported. Neither, in law, proves ownership. That gap underlies a large share of land litigation in the state.

A register designed to clear the dockets

Under the draft, a Land Authority would prepare a survey record and a draft Record of Titles for notified areas, then invite claims and objections. Undisputed entries would be recorded. Disputes would go to a Land Dispute Resolution Officer, then to a Land Titling Appellate Tribunal, and finally to a special bench of the High Court. Three years after notification, an entry becomes conclusive proof of title and civil courts are barred from deciding such matters.

The intended gains are clear. A buyer currently must trace ownership through decades of documents, and one forged link can undo the chain. A unified public register would make double sales and false mutations harder. Banks could lend without private title searches, and verification would become faster and cheaper. If Maharashtra's dockets carry anything close to the national share, a working register would also ease the load on judges who re-litigate title.

Andhra Pradesh's year-long experiment

Andhra Pradesh's experience shows the risks of a flawed design. Its Act was brought into force in October 2023; advocates boycotted the district judiciary for months. The Andhra Pradesh High Court declined to stay the Act outright while its constitutional validity remained under challenge, but kept civil courts open for pending land matters and left the door ajar for petitioners once implementation began. The state abolished the law within a year, before the forum question was settled by a final judgment.

Where the draft draws fire

The forum is the central objection. The Title Registration Officer needs no law degree, and the Dispute Resolution Officer, of Deputy Collector rank in the reported draft, needs no judicial qualification. The Tribunal has a district-judge-level chair, but its other member is an administrative officer, and both serve three-year terms on government-set conditions.

The Supreme Court has held that a tribunal replacing courts must match them in independence, tenure and manner of appointment — in Union of India v. R. Gandhi (2010), in Madras Bar Association v. Union of India (2014), and again in Rojer Mathew v. South Indian Bank Ltd. (2020). A forum that decides who owns land decides a civil right as final as any court decides, and the Constitution does not let the manner of its constitution matter less because the subject is land revenue rather than company law.

The three-year finality rule raises further concerns. The model gives no extra time to minors, persons of unsound mind or heirs living abroad, although the Limitation Act, 1963 has long allowed for them. A family whose grown children work overseas could see the window close before anyone hears of it: gazette publication counts as notice to everyone, and appeal periods run from thirty to ninety days.

Other provisions worry practitioners. An unrecorded transaction would be void and inadmissible — harsher than the Registration Act, 1908 — and the model is silent on Section 53A of the Transfer of Property Act, leaving buyers in possession under written agreements unprotected. Parties with pending suits, decrees, mortgages or probates must obtain a Certificate of Recording or face stalled proceedings and unexecutable decrees. Compensation for wrong entries remains optional: the State "may" introduce it, while corrections are limited to clerical errors sought within three months.

What can still be fixed

Much can be repaired without abandoning the scheme. Individual notice and village hearings could be added through the Rules, extra time for minors and absent heirs by amendment, and compensation changed from "may" to "shall" with a fund behind it. Compliance periods for court proceedings could be lengthened.

The forum question is harder because it lies in the statute itself, and Andhra Pradesh's experience shows a state cannot afford to leave it unresolved. Ownership disputes could go to specialist civil benches or fast-track courts, leaving the revenue machinery to prepare records rather than adjudicate over them. A tribunal could also be kept but made fully judicial, with secure tenure and appointment on terms the Supreme Court has laid down, and the bar on civil courts narrowed so fraud and disability claims still reach them.

The draft is open for objections — the cheapest point of intervention. The Andhra Pradesh precedent shows what happens when a state skips that groundwork: not a faster, cheaper title system, but a year of court boycotts and, ultimately, repeal.