Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court’s orders on Tuesday allowing the regularisation of sada bainama land is expected to benefit about 9.74 lakh farmers who had been struggling to obtain ownership rights for the past five years due to the restrictions imposed under the Dharani Act brought in by the previous BRS government.
Under the Dharani regime, there was no provision to regularise sada bainama land, leaving lakhs of farmers in uncertainty. With the replacement of the Dharani Act by the Congress government’s Bhu Bharati Act, the process of regularisation has now become possible, paving the way for ownership rights over nearly 10 lakh acres of land.
Welcoming the verdict, Telangana Deputy Collectors’ Association president V. Lachireddy and general secretary K. Ramakrishna said in a joint statement that the High Court’s historic judgment would ensure permanent rights for farmers holding sada bainama documents. They noted that the ruling would lead to the issuance of 13-B proceedings, thereby reducing land disputes significantly.
In its latest ruling, the court has clarified that applications submitted up to November 10, 2020, can be considered for regularisation under the new Record of Rights Act or Bhu Bharati Act. This verdict is seen as a breakthrough, offering long-awaited relief to farmers and ensuring ownership rights over their land.
In Telangana, it had long been a common practice for land transaction to take place orally, on white papers, or bond papers without formal registration. Such land parcels, when not regularised through mutation or registration, came to be known as sada bainama land.
To address this issue, the BRS government had accepted applications from farmers for regularisation of land purchased through white paper agreements before June 2, 2014, excluding urban areas. During the first phase, about 12.64 lakh applications were received through MeeSeva centres, of which nearly 6 lakh farmers were issued 13-B proceedings and given pattadar passbooks under the Telangana Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 1971.
Subsequently, following repeated appeals from farmers, the BRS government issued GO 112 on October 18, 2021, allowing another opportunity for sada bainama regularisation. Applications were invited up to October 30, 2021, during which 2,26,693 applications were filed.
Later, the deadline was extended till November 10, 2021, during which 6,74,201 applications were received.
However, complications arose with the introduction of the new Record of Rights Act, 2020 by BRS government, also known as Dharani Act which replaced the earlier ROR Act. A petition was filed in the High Court challenging the government’s orders to accept sada bainama applications after October 29, 2020, when Dharani Act came into force as it had no provision to regularise sada bainama land.
The petitioner questioned how could the government accept applications under old ROR Act which was abolished from October 30, 2020. The court had earlier issued interim orders restricting acceptance of applications to those filed before October 29, 2020 but the process stalled thereafter.
