CPCT Test 15
15 min30 WPM required400 words
Click on the passage and start typing to begin.
The revenue administration of Madhya Pradesh is a complex and historically rooted system of land records management, land rights adjudication, and revenue collection that traces its origins to the land settlement operations of the British colonial administration and the princely states that were incorporated into Madhya Pradesh at independence. The land records system, maintained by the revenue department through a hierarchy of Patwar Halkas at the village level, tehsil offices, sub-divisional offices, and district collectorates, records the ownership, cultivation, and use of every plot of agricultural and non-agricultural land in the state in the records of rights known as the Khasra and the Bhu-Adhikar Pustika. The Patwari, the village-level revenue official, maintains these records and reports changes in cultivation, crop sowing, and ownership transfers to the tehsil office for incorporation in the permanent record. Mutations, the formal recording of changes in land ownership arising from inheritance, sale, gift, mortgage, court decree, or government acquisition, are adjudicated by the Tahsildar and Sub-Divisional Officer through a quasi-judicial process. A party seeking mutation must file an application with supporting documents â the sale deed, court decree, or succession certificate â and the matter is heard after notice to all interested parties. The revenue courts, presided over by the Tahsildar, Sub-Divisional Officer, District Collector, and Commissioner at successive appellate levels, adjudicate disputes relating to land records, tenancy, land ceiling, and other revenue matters under the Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Code, 1959. The Board of Revenue, located at Gwalior, is the apex revenue court in the state and hears appeals and revisions from decisions of lower revenue courts. Madhya Pradesh has been a pioneer in the computerisation of land records under the National Land Records Modernisation Programme, implementing the Bhu-Abhilekh portal which provides online access to digitised Khasra records, ownership certificates, and maps for all land parcels in the state, enabling landowners to obtain certified copies of their land records without visiting a government office. The integration of land records with the registration system has been achieved through the SAMPADA portal, which links the Sub-Registrar's office's deed registration with automatic mutation in the land records, reducing the time and procedural burden on landowners following a property sale. Bandobast operations, the periodic fresh settlement of land revenue assessment, have been superseded in most of the state by the continuous updating of records, though special settlement operations are occasionally required in areas where records have become outdated.