The Supreme Court ruled that changes to property data in income registers do not result in the creation or termination of ownership rights. The Court emphasized that the right to ownership in real estate cannot be determined solely based on the income register; other evidence must also be considered.
A bench of judges Sanjay Karol and Augustine George Masih overturned the decision of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh, which had resolved a property ownership dispute based only on an entry in the income register. The Court stated that the right to immovable property cannot be considered voluntarily relinquished merely by making an entry in favor of another person; this must be independently proven by the party relying on it.
The Court noted: 'It is established by law that an entry in the income register neither creates nor terminates title and exists essentially for fiscal purposes. An order of the Tehsildar may regulate the income register, but it cannot act as a transfer or waiver of property rights simply by registering one person's name instead of another, and the civil court retains full jurisdiction to determine the underlying title to which the income register entry pertains.'
It was also pointed out that 'the legislative presumption of correctness attached to an entry in the income register under Section 117 of the Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Code, 1959, is a rebuttable evidentiary presumption, not a presumption of title, and it must be weighed along with other evidence.'
Furthermore, the Supreme Court concluded that changing property in the income register neither creates nor terminates title nor has any presumptive value; it only allows the person in whose favor the entry was made to pay the corresponding land tax. The Court also ruled that the date of entry in the income register alone cannot be considered the starting point for establishing the statute of limitations.
