Supreme Court of India· 20 August 2026
Does a revenue mutation entry, by itself, extinguish or create title to immovable property?
JAMNABAI AND OTHERS v. VASUDEV AND OTHERS
2026 INSC 900 · SLP (C) NO.39 OF 2026
Coram: Augustine George Masih; Sanjay Karol
Answer
No. An entry in the revenue record neither creates nor extinguishes title and exists essentially for fiscal purposes; the order effecting mutation may regulate the record but cannot 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 rather than creates. The statutory presumption of correctness attaching to such an entry is a rebuttable evidentiary presumption, not a presumption of title.
Headnote
Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 — s.100 — Order XLI Rule 27 — Specific Relief Act, 1963 — s.34 — Limitation Act, 1963 — Art. 58, 100 — Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Code, 1959 — s.117, 257 — Second appeal — Revenue mutation — Adverse possession between co-owners —
Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 — s.100 — Second appeal — Interference standard —
Held: Section 100 confers a restricted jurisdiction; a second appeal lies only on a substantial question of law, not because a different inference is preferable. Interference needs a demonstrable error in approach, or a conclusion no reasonable judicial mind could have reached. ('17)
Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Code, 1959 — s.117 — Mutation entries and title —
Held further: An entry in the revenue record neither creates nor extinguishes title and exists for fiscal purposes; it cannot operate as a conveyance or relinquishment of proprietary rights. The presumption of correctness attaching to it is rebuttable, not a presumption of title. ('22)
Limitation Act, 1963 — Adverse possession — Ouster between co-owners —
Held further: Possession of one co-owner is ordinarily possession on behalf of all; mere continuance in possession does not confer adverse title. An ouster requires assertion of hostile title with exclusive possession to the other co-owner's knowledge, absent which limitation does not run. ('25)
Specific Relief Act, 1963 — s.34 — Consequential relief bar —
Held further: Section 34's bar applies only where a bare declaration is sought without available consequential relief; it does not apply where partition, possession and injunction were also sought. Appeal allowed; the impugned judgment is set aside. ('27, 30)
In the Court's own words
Paragraph 22Equally, the mutation recorded pursuant to Ex.D22 could not by itself extinguish Ramprasad's title. It is settled law that an entry in the revenue record neither creates nor extinguishes title and exists essentially for fiscal purposes, as held by this Court in Sawarni v. Inder Kaur and Others[^9]. 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 rather than creates. The statutory presumption of correctness attaching to a revenue entry under Section 117 of the Madhya Pradesh 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, which the first appellate court did, finding it displaced for the specific reasons recorded above. For these reasons the High Court fell into error in holding that Ex.D5, whether taken alone or together with the revenue proceedings under Ex.D22, established that Ramprasad had relinquished his proprietary interest in the suit property.
Paragraph 27Section 34 of the Specific Relief Act requires a plaintiff seeking a declaration of legal character or right to also seek further relief where it is open to him to do so, and its object is to prevent a litigant from obtaining a bare declaration where consequential relief is both necessary and available. The present case does not fall within that mischief, since the appellants did not seek a bare declaration but sought, along with the declaration of coownership, partition, possession and a permanent injunction, and the trial court granted the declaratory and protective relief warranted by the evidence while leaving actual partition of the agricultural land to the competent Revenue Court. The relief of cancellation of a revenue mutation entry is not the same as a declaration of title, and once a civil court has adjudicated that the mutation did not extinguish the appellants' inherited title, the entry itself cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the title so declared. The High Court accordingly erred in treating the absence of a specific prayer for cancellation of Ex.D22 as an indispensable condition for the maintainability of the suit.
Acts & Sections
s.100 Code of Civil Procedure, 1908Order XLI Rule 27 Code of Civil Procedure, 1908s.34 Specific Relief Act, 1963Art. 58 Limitation Act, 1963Art. 100 Limitation Act, 1963s.257 Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Code, 1959s.117 Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Code, 1959s.114(e) Evidence Act, 1872One judgment a day. That's the whole habit.
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