Patna : Mutation, transfer, and jamabandi of apartment land in the names of flat owners has been halted indefinitely, following a directive from the Revenue and Land Reforms Department. The order cites the lack of legal provisions and software infrastructure as the reason behind the move, which takes effect immediately.
Instructions issued by Additional Chief Secretary Deepak Kumar Singh have gone out to all divisional commissioners and district magistrates, warning against continuing mutation practices that are not supported under the Bihar Land Mutation Act, 2011 and the accompanying Rules of 2012.
Several zonal offices had reportedly begun transferring land titles to individual flat holders—an act the department now deems irregular. Apartment flat owners, under current legal interpretation, hold an undivided, proportionate share of the underlying land, with no specific parcel demarcated. As such, existing law does not recognise individual ownership of land within a multi-storey apartment complex.
The department has also acknowledged that its software systems are not currently equipped to handle such cases. Development of new digital infrastructure is said to be underway, and any future provision for apartment land mutation will be introduced only after updates to the legal and technological framework are in place.
Until then, applications for mutation or related land records changes linked to apartment ownership will not be processed, leaving flat owners unable to register their share of land independently.
