Understanding the Basic Fundamentals of Land Ownership in the Context of Nagaland

By Yanpvuo Kikon In simple words, government is not the land owner, government is only the record keeper. Individual/Community is still the custodian of the land but the record/data of who owns which plot of land is to be registered and maintained by the Government/Village Council accurately and securely. Implementation of land record management system should not imply that the land owners are bound to pay tax. A hypothetical case - Mr. Seve got a gift from his father Mr. Veta, a plot of land which he later sold to Mr. Huveto. There has been 2 transactions on this plot land: 1st transaction - “GIFT” from Veta(Father) to Seve (Son) 2nd transaction - “SALE” from Seve to Huveto There has been 2 mutations (Mutation simply means change in the name of owner) on this plot of land: 1st mutation - Owner name changed from Veta to Seve 2nd mutation - Owner name changed from Seve to Huveto After 10 years, a third person appears, brings his own documents and claims that the land belongs to his grandfather and occupies the property saying that the transaction between Seve and Huveto is bogus. These kind of disputes can always be resolved if the transactions such as the one between Seve and Huveto had been registered officially with the Government/Village Council. Resolving property ownership disputes is the primary objective of land record management system while the tax component is only a secondary objective which can even be excluded due to the super-cession of our customary laws. Note that in Nagaland, those outside the municipal/town areas come under the Village Councils and the village council maintains these transactions in a manual register. The Village Council is paid a small registration fee to register this transaction (Sale, Gift, Partition etc) and the Village Council is the custodian of all these property records. Any dispute which may arise, the Village Council is bound to refer to its Records of Rights (ROR) and resolve the dispute. All over the world, when it comes to holding Proof of Ownership of any property, we have two types of records: 1) Record of Rights (ROR) - A “Document” showing textual data of property owner, area, location etc (Patta, Jamabandi, Khata, Khataun etc) 2) Cadastral Map - A “Map” showing boundaries of land ownership, area etc And today, we have GIS technology which can be used to provide additional accurate data into the entire Land Record Management System. At this age, today we are all headed towards becoming urbanized and modernized people living in highly populated towns with thousands of very unorganized and chaotic land records which will become very risky, vulnerable to manipulation, forgery and even loss of highly critical records if they are burnt or misplaced. As per Article 371A, no Act of Parliament can be used to govern Nagaland when it comes to the subject of customary laws without the assent of the State Legislature. It is important for us to maintain our customary laws but even the customary law which was enforced 200 years back was based on precedence and relevance to that era. Today also, our customary law should be practiced based on precedence and relevance to our present era. With rapid modernization, we must also adapt and ensure that critical records and information must be digitized. Cadastral survey should be allowed because the need has now come for us to ensure maintenance of high quality records and data without the apprehension of paying land revenue. We need not have to pay land revenue tax but we must ensure that the Govt and Village Councils maintain land record and data of the highest accuracy and quality. (Note that till today each village household pays ‘House tax’ (Not ‘Land tax’) to village council and each land owner in municipal area pays Land Revenue Tax (But not ‘House tax’) to DC Office and Jamabandi tax in Mouza areas of Dimapur generally of few hundred rupees in a year.) The computerization and modernization of all Land Registration, Land Transaction, Record of Rights and fee payments to both DC Office and also the Village Councils must be effectively implemented, streamlined & made transparent so that the revenue and house tax which each villager pays to the Village Council and the property tax which each house owner in municipal area pays to DC Office must go towards spending in developing our towns and villages right from waste management to beautification, drainage, roads etc without giving public the doubt to raise questions on diversion or misuse of public funds for private gains. Accurate, secure, robust and digital record/database of ownership, mutation, transfer, partition etc is primary and tax (Land revenue) is secondary for there are other means for generation of Government revenue such as commercial taxes where Dimapur Commerical Taxes (GST) alone collected a total revenue of Rs. 508 Crores during the period of 2017-18. More business = Jobs in private sector + Tax (Government Revenue) should be the Government’s approach. But in order for our State to attract more investors and business, our Government and leaders should focus on drafting and notifying the Investment Policy and a Nagaland Single Window Investment Promotion & Facilitation Act, building top class infrastructure, Start-Up Policy and improve the ease of doing business. When it comes to land records, government is not the owner, government is only the record keeper.