Karnataka introduces online scrutiny to prevent revenue courts from admitting cases beyond their jurisdiction

Karnataka, which showed the way in reducing pending revenue cases, has now embarked on an initiative to streamline the functioning of revenue courts. It has taken measures to tackle the problem of some revenue courts misusing their quasi-judicial powers to support irregularities by taking up cases that are beyond their jurisdiction.

The government has put in place a 15-point online screening measure to prevent revenue courts from overstepping their jurisdiction.

Involvement of middlemen

“The verification of pending cases by the government showed that some Assistant Commissioners’ Courts had admitted cases beyond their jurisdiction by usurping the jurisdiction of civil courts to regularise irregularities, perhaps due to the involvement of middlemen,” Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda told The Hindu.

“When we analysed the legacy (long-pending) cases, we realised that a large number of them were actually not in the domain of revenue courts at all. Our officers had admitted these cases in collusion with middlemen or petitioners,” the Minister said.

In some cases, the proper authority for petitioners to approach was civil courts and in some others, there was no way that the revenue courts could have admitted them as they pertained to illegal measures, he noted.

“For example, if a person has illegally sold off another person’s property, it will have to be rejected during the process of mutation (process of updating land records to reflect a change in ownership). But old cases have shown that some revenue courts of Assistant Commissioners would admit the cases and issue direction to the authorities concerned to proceed with mutation as per the sale deed without going into merits,” he explained

Govt. land a casulty

He said that about 10,000 acres of government land were lost as they were passing orders in favour of those who have encroached upon the government land. “This was one of the reasons for proliferation of revenue layouts as orders were being given to issue khatas without survey sketch,” he said.

Stating that many of these courts were being run “like kangaroo courts”, he said there was gross misuse of quasi-judicial powers. The Minister said that to ensure justice, the Revenue Department has put in place a system of online checklist that scrutinises cases at the admission stage itself.

How it works

The scrutiny made mandatory for the AC’s courts will have 15-point checklist for which the ACs will have to tick either “yes” or “no” boxes online with digital signature for authentication. Even a single “no” will reject the case for being admitted. Each of these questions are designed to affirm that the case legally falls within the jurisdiction of the revenue court.

In addition to this, the government is also experimenting with livestreaming revenue courts. “We have done this on a pilot basis in Bengaluru South ACs court. The feedback is positive,” he said.

Pendency now

On the pendency of revenue cases, Mr. Gowda said the present dispensation had reduced the pending cases before tahsildar’s courts from 10,774 in May, 2023, to 488 now. Similarly the pendency of cases before the AC’s courts had been reduced from 73,624 in May, 2023, to 11,605 now.

While the tahsildar courts are supposed to dispose of cases within three months, the AC courts are supposed to dispose of them within six months. As many as 30 special ACs have been appointed to dispose of legacy cases, he noted.