Gram Sabha land, ceiling land and other things you cannot legally buy

Some land in Uttar Pradesh cannot be bought, however good the price and however confident the seller. Not "risky" or "needs a lawyer": not transferable. A sale deed for it can be registered, and still give you nothing. The khatauni tells you which land this is, if you read the category column.

Land that cannot be sold to you

Gram Sabha land. Land vested in the village panchayat under the UP Revenue Code: common land, roads, grazing ground, land the state allotted to the village. It can be leased or allotted by the panchayat for specified uses; it cannot be sold by an individual. Around Ayodhya it is common along village edges and beside the parikrama routes, and it is exactly the land that gets fenced and offered as "plots".

Ponds, pasture, forest and public use. Talab, charagah, forest, cremation ground, school land, roads. Recorded as such in the village record and protected by court orders on top of the statute. A pond that has dried is still a pond in the record.

Ceiling surplus land. Under the UP Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1960, holdings above the ceiling were taken over by the state. Descendants of the old holder sometimes still farm it and sometimes sell it. It is state land.

Evacuee and enemy property. Land vested in the state or the Custodian after Partition. Rare in Awadh but not unknown in the older towns.

Land that can be sold only with conditions

Allotted land with a lock-in. Plots and agricultural land allotted by the state to landless families, or under housing schemes, often carry a bar on transfer for a period, or need permission. The allotment order says which.

Land held by Scheduled Caste owners. A transfer from an SC bhumidhar to a non-SC buyer needs the District Magistrate's prior permission under the UP Revenue Code. A deed without it can be undone.

Agricultural land in an NRI's hands. Under FEMA an NRI or OCI cannot buy agricultural land, plantation land or a farmhouse, only inherit them. The NRI guide covers the rest.

Land under acquisition. Once a notification for acquisition is issued for a road, a township or an airport, dealing in the land is restricted and compensation goes to the recorded owner at that date. The project pages on this site list affected localities as notices are published, for example:

Land in a plotted development without RERA. A layout above 500 sq m or eight plots that is marketed without UP RERA registration is being sold outside the law. The plot may be fine; the seller is not.

Reading the khatauni category

The category column on the khatauni uses the revenue department's own terms. The words to stop at are Gram Sabha or gaon sabha, banjar, charagah, talab, jangal, and any note of ceiling surplus, acquisition, or a bar on transfer. The words you want to see describe a private holder with transferable rights. The safety-check guide walks through the rest of the record; this site's locality pages list known watch-outs where we have found them, for instance the Gram Sabha presence noted for some villages behind Faizabad Road:

₹12,000 per sq m

Residential

₹24,000 per sq m

Commercial

₹45,00,000 per hectare

Agricultural

SourceFull circle-rate table →

If you have already paid

A token paid against land in one of these categories is money spent on a lesson, not a plot. A registered deed for it can be challenged by the state or the panchayat at any time, and often is when the land becomes valuable. If you hold such a deed, a lawyer can tell you whether the land was ever transferable; if it was not, the practical options are limited to recovering the price from the seller.

Before that point, one check prevents all of it: the category on the certified khatauni, read before the token. Civil Lines, 6.4 km from Ayodhya Dham station, has none of these problems on its main plots; the villages a few kilometres out have several. Ask us before you look.