The High Court of Karnataka | Photo Credit:

The High Court of Karnataka has directed the State authorities to create a central built-in geospatial platform combining knowledge of all forms of lands, together with Unique Land Parcel Identification Number (ULPIN) or Bhu-Aadhaar and digitised knowledge of forests by geo-tagging of all forest lands together with their demarcated boundaries as per historic gazette notifications.

Also, the courtroom directed for organising an inter-departmental land dispute decision cell (IDLDRC), immediately working beneath the supervision of the Chief Secretary and comprising representatives from departments of income, forest, city planning authorities, to mediate and concern binding inter-departmental orders on the difficulty of conflicting land information.

Automatic battle alerts

The central platform ought to have an automatic system to streamline all land-related purposes to make sure that no land-related motion is taken with out the necessary, real-time verification towards the unified land database. For instance, the courtroom mentioned, the Deputy Commissioners or planning authorities, must be legally barred from processing any land conversion or format sanction purposes till the automated system performs a test towards the built-in forest map.

If a parcel of land falls inside a forest boundary, the system should robotically reject the appliance and generate a “battle alert” for all of the departments involved, and the workplace of the sub-registrars ought to get alert to stop registration of any sale deed of such land.

The on-line portal for constructing plan approvals would even be required to be built-in with this method to robotically confirm that the land is legally transformed and free from disputes, the courtroom mentioned.

Devanahalli land

Justice Suraj Govindaraj issued the collection of instructions whereas coping with a dispute over sure lands located in Devanahalli taluk of Bengaluru because the Forest Department has issued discover Mohammed Shoaib and different land homeowners, who’ve already fashioned layouts by securing statuary approvals from the Bangalore International Airport Planning Authority. These lands had modified a number of personal people’ palms between Nineteen Thirties and Nineteen Seventies.

The courtroom mentioned that State Forest Department has to organize maps of forests utilizing high-resolution satellite tv for pc imagery from businesses just like the Forest Survey of India and the Indian Space Research Organisation and combine the maps with ULPIN.

Mobile app for public

Using knowledge from this central platform, a portal and a cellular app needs to be created for public to get a complete colour-coded studies on land-use classification, possession historical past (mutation information), particulars of litigation, encumbrances, warning if land falls within the boundary of forest or reserved for public functions, by getting into survey numbers or different identifiable particulars.

“This transparency mechanism of giving entry to public would function a robust deterrent to fraud, enabling residents to carry out their very own due diligence and successfully performing as a “fraud alert” for each future purchaser,” the courtroom mentioned.

The courtroom directed the federal government to arrange a high-level committee (HLC), comprising officers from Chief Secretary’s workplace, to implement these instructions in a phased method unfold over two years.

Published – August 20, 2025 09:42 pm IST