Mutation entry doesn’t confer any right, title or interest in favour of

person and the objective is only for fiscal purpose:

Supreme Court of India
Supreme Court of India: Observing the well-settled position of law that,
Mutation Entry does not confer any right, title or interest in favour of the
person and it is only recorded for the fiscal purpose, Division Bench of M.R.
Shah and Aniruddha Bose, JJ., upheld the decision of the Madhya Pradesh
High Court.
Aggrieved and dissatisfied with the impugned decision passed by the Madhya
Pradesh High Court by which the High Court allowed the petition and quashed
the decision by Additional Commissioner, Rewa Division directing to mutate
the name of the petitioner in the revenue records, which was sought to be
mutated on the basis of the will, the original respondent 6 preferred the
present special leave petition.
Analysis, Law and Decision
Supreme Court stated that the dispute was with respect to mutation
entry in the revenue records.
It emerged that the application before the Nayab Tehsildar was made
on 9-8-2011, i.e., before the death of Ananti Bai, who executed the alleged
will.
Bench added that, it cannot be disputed that the right on the basis of
the will can be claimed only after the death of the executant of the will.
Even the will itself has been disputed.
Settled Position of Law
Mutation entry does not confer any right, title or interest in favour of
the person and the mutation entry in the revenue record is only for the
fiscal purpose.
If there is any dispute with respect to the title and more particularly
when the mutation entry is sought to be made on the basis of the will, the
party who is claiming title/right on the basis of will has to approach the
appropriate civil court and get his rights crystalized and only thereafter on
the basis of the decision before the civil court necessary mutation entry can
be made.

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 Analysing further, the Court added that right from 1997, the law is
very clear. In Supreme Court’s decision of Balwant Singh v. Daulat Singh,
(1997) 7 SCC 137, Court had considered the effect of mutation and
observed that mutation of property in revenue record neither creates nor
extinguishes title to the property nor has any presumptive value on title.
Such entries are relevant only for the purpose of collecting land revenue.
In the Supreme Court decision of Suraj Bhan v. Financial Commissioner,
(2007) 6 SCC 186, it was observed that an entry in revenue records does
not confer title on a person whose name appears in record-of-rights.
Entries in the revenue records or jamabandi have only “fiscal purpose”. So
far as the title of the property is concerned, it can only be decided by a
competent civil court.
In the following decisions also, the above view was taken:

Suman Verma v. Union of India, (2004) 12 SCC 58; Faqruddin v.

Tajuddin (2008) 8 SCC 12; Rajinder Singh v. State of J&K, (2008) 9 SCC
368; Municipal Corporation, Aurangabad v. State of Maharashtra, (2015)
16 SCC 689; T. Ravi v. B. Chinna Narasimha, (2017) 7 SCC 342; Bhimabai
Mahadeo Kambekar v. Arthur Import & Export Co., (2019) 3 SCC 191;
Prahlad Pradhan v. Sonu Kumhar, (2019) 10 SCC 259; and Ajit Kaur v.
Darshan Singh, (2019) 13 SCC 70.
While concluding the matter, Supreme Court held that it cannot be
said that High Court committed any error in setting aside the order passed
by the revenue authorities to mutate the name of the petitioner in revenue
records on the basis of alleged will and relegating the petitioner to
approach the appropriate Court.
Therefore, the Special Leave Petition was dismissed. [Jitendra Singh
v. State of M.P., 2021 SCC OnLine SC 802, decided on 6-09-2021]
Advocate before the Court:
Nishesh Sharma, Advocate appearing for the petitioner.

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Law on Fraud | Registration of document by public officer while
discharging public duty: A Fraudulent activity?
AP HC decides
Andhra Pradesh High Court: M. Satyanarayana Murthy, J., expressed
that,
“If a party to the document wants to annul the document, he has to
file a suit under Section 31 of the Specific Relief Act before the competent
Civil Court and if, third party wants to annul the document, he has to
approach the competent Civil Court and seek relief under Section 34 of the
Specific Relief Act.”
Murthy and Sodemma were husband and wife with no children.
Murthy was the absolute owner of agricultural land and a house, he had
alienated his entire property to his wife during his lifetime.
Sodemma who was the maternal aunt of the petitioner, bequeathed
the said property to him as he had taken care of their welfare at the old
age. Therefore, petitioner became the absolute owner and possessor of the
said property as per the registered Will deed executed by Sodemma.
Respondent 15, son of younger brother of Murthy with a mala fide
intention to become the owner of Murthy’s property hatched a plan and
fabricated an adoption deed to claim that Murthy and Sodemma adopted
respondent 14 and got the signature of Murthy and Sodemma on the said
fabricated deed by fraud and misrepresentation.
Later, in the year 2002, respondent 15 fabricated unregistered
agreement of sale on the blank stamp papers signed by Murthy having
believed him.
Respondent 14 filed for partition of the above-mentioned property by
claiming that he is adopted son of Murthy and Sodemma.
Respondent 15 also filed for specific performance of unregistered
sale agreement alleged to have been executed by Murthy after lapse of
more than 17 years from the date of alleged execution of the said
unregistered agreement. Murthy and Sodemma contested both the suits
and denied the execution of both the fabricated adoption deed dated
24.05.1993 and alleged unregistered agreement of sale.
Further, it was submitted that during the pendency of both the said
suits, respondent 17, the then Minister for Animal Husbandry alleged to
have purchased the property, which is the subject matter of those two suits,

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and started construction of palatial building in the subject property and he
by abusing his power as the Minister for Animal Husbandry made the
authorities concerned to issue antedated permissions in contravention of
Rules.
This Court had directed that there shall not be any construction on
the subject property.
Crux of the Matter
Alleged playing of fraud on Sub-Registrar in mutating the name of
respondents 14 and 15, registration of property in the name of respondent
16 allegedly at the instance of respondent 17.
Petitioners claim was that when the decree was passed, appeal was
pending against both the decrees and common judgment, execution of sale
deed by respondents 14 and 15 in favour of respondent 16 allegedly at the
instance of respondent 17 deviating the decree was serious illegality and it
amounted to ‘fraud’.
Tahsildar, respondent 8 was not supposed to mutate the names of
respondents 14 and 15 and only due to influence of respondent 17.
Petitioner claimed that the very mutation of the name of respondents
14 and 15 in the revenue record, now mutated the name of respondent 16
after completion of sale transaction, registered document was tainted by
‘fraud’.
Analysis, Law and decision
To constitute fraud, there must be a suggestion, as a fact, of that which is
not true, by one who does not believe it to be true; the active concealment
of a fact by one having knowledge or belief of the fact; a promise made
without any intention of performing it; any other act fitted to deceive; any
such act or omission as the law specially declares to be fraudulent.
In the present matter, Court stated that,
In the absence of any interim direction, registration of a document when
presented for registration satisfying the requirements under the Stamp Act
and Registration Act is justified.
Court added that Registrar is bound to register the document presented for
registration unless there is prohibition from registration of such document
pertaining to the land covered by Section 22A, 35 (3) and Section 71 of the
Registration Act. But no such ground was raised in the present matter.

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 In Court’s opinion, execution of registered sale deed by respondent
14 and 15 in favour of respondent 16 by playing fraud was purely a mixed
question of fact and law, such a question cannot be decided in writ petition
while exercising power under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.
Supreme Court in Satya Pal Anand v. State of M.P., AIR 2016 SC
4995, held that “a party aggrieved by registration of a document is free to
challenge its validity before a competent Civil Court.”
High Court held that while exercising jurisdiction under Article 226,
this Court cannot annul document on the ground of ‘fraud’ and
‘misrepresentation’ since they are both mixed questions of fact and law,
such roving enquiry cannot be conducted by the Constitutional Court to
issue a writ of Mandamus as it is an extraordinary and discretionary relief.
When the documents are presented for registration before the Sub-
Registrar, his duty is to register the same subject to any bar contained in
any law and satisfying the requirements under the provisions of the Stamps
and Registration laws. Such registration of document is nothing but
discharging public duty.
Therefore, registration of document while discharging public duty by
public officer cannot be said to be fraudulent act and such act will not
attract the definition of fraud under Section 17 of the Indian Contract Act.
When can a document be cancelled?
It is settled law that the document can be cancelled only by filing suit
before the Civil Court under Section 31 of the Specific Relief Act by a
person, who is a party to the document.
If a third party intended to annul the document, he has to file a suit to
declare the suit document as illegal and not binding on the plaintiff.
Due to lack of merits, no relief was granted and petition was
dismissed.[Mangipudi Nagaraju v. State of Andhra Pradesh, 2021 SCC
OnLine AP 3148, decided on 8-10-2021]

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