SC clarifies property mutation only serves revenue purposes, cannot by itself establish or extinguish ownership rights

NEW DELHI: Observing that mutation of a property in revenue records does not create or extinguish ownership, Supreme Court has said that title of property cannot be decided on the sole basis of revenue record and it must be weighed along with other evidence.A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Augustine George Masih quashed the order of Madhya Pradesh HC which decided a title dispute on the basis of the revenue record. It said a right in immovable property cannot be treated as having been voluntarily abandoned because of a revenue entry in favour of another person. It must be independently established by the party relying on it.The bench said,“It is settled law that an entry in the revenue record neither creates nor extinguishes title and exists essentially for fiscal purposes. The order of the naib tehsildar may regulate the revenue record, but it cannot, merely by recording one person’s name in place of another, operate as a conveyance or a relinquishment of proprietary rights, and the civil court remains fully competent to determine the underlying title, which the revenue entry follows .

“The statutory presumption of correctness attaching to a revenue entry under Section 117 of the MP Land Revenue Code, 1959, is a rebuttable evidentiary presumption and not a presumption of title, and it must be weighed along with the rest of the evidence.”It said mutation of a property in revenue record does not create or extinguish title nor has it any presumptive value and it only enables the person in whose favour mutation is ordered to pay the land revenue in question.   SC said the starting point of the limitation can’t be fixed merely by identifying the date on which the revenue entry was made.