Property law wire
Daily property law news for India: title judgments, stamp duty revisions, land record notifications, SARFAESI and RERA updates. Tagged by topic and by state.
Tue, 11 Aug
The Allahabad High Court held that once a District Magistrate decides that a land acquisition has lapsed under Section 24 of the 2013 land acquisition law, the State Government cannot stay or cancel that decision through an executive order. The court said the law gives the State no such power over a quasi-judicial decision.
LiveLawsource
The Telangana High Court vacated a stay on land acquisition for the MGBS to Chandrayangutta Metro Corridor 4, allowing authorities to resume the acquisition process. The stay had been sought by property owners who alleged the acquisition was disproportionate on one side of the road and that compensation was inadequate.
NewsMetersource
A parliamentary standing committee has recommended that digitally signed land records be given statutory legal validity, which would let a downloaded record stand on its own instead of needing a certified paper copy.
Business Standardsource
The Maharashtra Cabinet has approved a full stamp duty exemption on land transfers between group companies or SPVs for renewable energy projects, along with a 25 percent concession on transfer charges for land bought for such projects. The Cabinet also amended Section 72 of the 2013 land acquisition law to revise interest on delayed compensation payments.
Nagpur Todaysource
Mon, 10 Aug
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu announced the state will finish its land re-survey by 2027 and issue Pattadar Passbooks with blockchain-based tamper protection and QR codes, alongside digitisation of old revenue records like 1-B, Adangal and Inam registers. So far 32.22 lakh passbooks have been issued and re-survey covering 9,365 more villages is planned over the next seven months.
Telangana Todaysource
The Allahabad High Court ruled that a buyer who won a court order for a property's sale deed cannot enforce it after failing to pay the balance price for 20 years. The court cancelled a lower court order that had extended the buyer's time to pay, since the long delay was unexplained.
LiveLawsource
The Allahabad High Court dismissed developer Aims Max Gardenia's appeal seeking condonation of a 721-day delay in filing its RERA appeal, and separately upheld the RERA order granting buyer Pratibha Gupta 24% interest for the builder's delay in handing over possession, imposing Rs 2.5 lakh in costs on the builder. The court found the builder's explanation for the multi-year delay in filing its own appeal unconvincing.
Law Trendsource
The Ministry of Home Affairs has issued a standard operating procedure requiring renewable energy projects within 50 kilometers of India's international border to secure security clearance from the Home and Defence Ministries, with projects within 1 kilometer barred outright. Applications must now route through the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, which forwards the state government's land allotment details to MHA and Defence for clearance.
Saur Energysource
The Allahabad High Court held that compensation awarded for land in a different village can still be used as a benchmark to fix compensation for the land being acquired, if the two locations are comparable. This applies even when the strict same-village, same-notification rule does not technically apply.
LiveLawsource
Sat, 8 Aug
The Supreme Court held that a registered sale deed remains valid even when the buyer has not paid the full agreed price, because the seller's only remedy for the unpaid balance is a civil suit to recover the money, not cancellation of the completed sale. The ruling came in Raziya Begum v. Nafisa Begum, where the seller had sought to have the sale deed set aside for non-payment of part of the consideration.
RawLawsource
West Bengal's government is preparing a new industrial policy under which the state will proactively acquire and bank land for industrial projects, reversing its earlier position of requiring companies to negotiate land purchases directly with owners. Industry Minister Tapas Roy met industry leaders to finalize the draft policy, which the state expects to have ready by August 15, 2026.
The Weeksource
Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant launched 'anywhere registration' on July 29, 2026, letting property buyers and sellers register a deed at any Sub-Registrar office in the state rather than only the office covering the property's location, using the National Generic Document Registration System (NGDRS). Goa becomes the third state to implement this NGDRS-based reform.
Times of Indiasource
Maharashtra's real estate regulator extended project completion timelines by four months across the state, following a Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs advisory dated July 31, 2026 citing supply-chain disruption from the ongoing Middle East conflict as a valid force majeure ground. Industry bodies including NAREDCO Maharashtra welcomed the extension as relief for developers facing material and equipment delays.
Times of Indiasource
The Andhra Pradesh High Court dismissed a writ petition challenging a Canara Bank communication about dismantling non-hypothecated machinery left at an already-auctioned property, holding that the petitioner had an effective alternative remedy before the Debts Recovery Tribunal and had, in fact, already approached the DRT. The court relied on the Supreme Court's Satyawati Tondon and PHR Invent Educational Society precedents that bar writ petitions where a statutory SARFAESI remedy is available.
LiveLaw Bizsource
Fri, 7 Aug
The Ministry of Home Affairs has issued new national security guidelines banning solar, wind and hybrid renewable energy projects within 1 km of India's international border, and requiring security clearance for such projects located between 1 km and 50 km from the border. The guidelines also bar developers from engaging staff or labour from Pakistan, Bangladesh or China without MHA permission, and from transferring project land to foreign companies without prior central government and MHA clearance.
The Hindusource
Manipur's Land Resources Department has launched eight online portals, including for registration permission, change of land use, land allotment, land acquisition tracking and revenue court case management, plus a single 'LR Manipur' mobile app tying them together. The portals were built with the National Informatics Centre and connect the offices of the Deputy Commissioner, Sub-Registrar and other revenue authorities into one digital workflow.
The Sangai Expresssource
Goa's Project Naksha initiative is asking property owners in Panaji to submit ownership documents by August 31, 2026, so the government can prepare Urban Property Cards recording clear title for urban plots. The exercise is aimed at formalising ownership records in the city ahead of any future development or infrastructure planning.
Digital Goasource
The Bombay High Court held that only another registered document can alter the terms of a registered sale deed, so an unregistered agreement between other parties cannot be used to say the deed's buyers still owe money or never got clean title. It discharged criminal cheating charges against purchasers who bought under a registered 2014 deed, since they were never party to the earlier unregistered arrangement the complainant relied on.
SCC Onlinesource
Thu, 6 Aug
The Tripura High Court ruled that a person allowed to occupy land with the owner's permission cannot claim ownership through adverse possession merely because they stayed for decades, unless they can show they openly asserted a hostile claim to the owner's knowledge. The court restored title to the original owner's heirs in a Dhalai district dispute where the occupant had been recorded in revenue records only as a permissive possessor since 1988.
Northeast Nowsource
Odisha plans to amend its land lease rules to offer shorter 30-year industrial leases instead of the current 90-year term, aimed at making land available faster and more flexibly for solar and floating solar power projects. The state is also examining its floating solar potential on water bodies as part of the same renewable energy push.
The Hindu BusinessLinesource
The RBI has proposed draft amendments to the Credit Facilities Directions for NBFCs that would limit non-banking financial companies to offering only term loans and stop them from offering revolving credit products, except for NBFCs authorised to issue credit cards. Feedback on the draft norms can be submitted until 28 August 2026.
Business Standardsource
The Allahabad High Court held that a District Magistrate must act on a bank's Section 14 SARFAESI possession application but can decide its own priority based on how many cases are already pending before it. This means secured creditors cannot force a DM to jump the queue for faster possession of a mortgaged property.
LiveLawsource
Tue, 4 Aug
The Supreme Court set aside a 2007 Punjab and Haryana High Court ruling and held that 436 bighas 18 biswas of land in Haiderpur village, Gurgaon, worth over Rs 30,000 crore, is village common land (shamilat deh) that vests in the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon, not the private parties and developers who had bought it. The court restored a 1955 mutation favouring the Gram Panchayat and rejected decades of private ownership claims built on the overturned High Court judgment.
Times of Indiasource
Andhra Pradesh's renewable energy nodal agency NREDCAP said 40,000 acres of government land have been handed over to developers and 1 lakh acres of assigned private land are now under a tripartite agreement mechanism, where a farmer holding government-assigned land that cannot otherwise be sold or leased can route it to a renewable energy project through an agreement between the farmer, developer and NREDCAP, with the developer paying the farmer Rs 31,000 per acre per year. The interview also detailed roughly 112 GW of sanctioned renewable capacity against a 160 GW state target.
The Hindu BusinessLinesource
