<p>Bengaluru: Karnataka has started the process of drafting a new law to replace the existing legal regime administering lands and their ownership, which the government says is no longer relevant due to its colonial imprint.</p>.<p>The Karnataka Land Revenue (KLR) Act, 1964 -- considered the mother law for its overarching influence on various governance functions -- will be done away with.</p>.<p>An apex committee has been constituted to draft the new law. The drafting process will involve experts from the National Law School of India University and think tank Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.</p>.Consultants under lens in Karnataka amid project cost overruns.<p>“The KLR Act was imported from the erstwhile Mysore Land Revenue Act, which came from a law the British followed,” Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda told <em>DH</em>. “Those days, the guiding philosophy was to maintain revenue from land. That’s what the British were after. Now, we don’t get any revenue from land. What we actually do is manage lands and their ownership,” he said.</p>.<p>The existing KLR Act is comprehensive, spanning 15 chapters and 202 sections. “We can’t redraft the Act in one go. We plan to do it in 2-3 batches. The first draft is expected in three months,” Gowda said, adding that the new law should be ready before the end of the current fiscal.</p>.<p>According to Gowda, the KLR Act is loaded with British legalese. “It is very difficult to understand,” he said. “And, the Act has seen several amendments over the years. Every amendment contradicts a section in the law. Over time, a series of such contradictions have built up.”</p>.<p>Gowda cited an example: While tahsildars have been tasked with clearing encroachments on public lands, courts keep pointing out that this is the deputy commissioners’ job as per the Act.</p>.<p><strong>Land ownership</strong></p>.<p>The new law will bring “more certainty” to land ownership, Gowda said, broaching a difficult topic.</p>.<p>Currently, land ownership is ‘presumptive’ as opposed to being absolute, resulting in litigations.</p>.<p>“We want to move towards land title guarantee,” Gowda said. “In Australia, a land ownership document issued by the government is infallible. Here, the default legal position is that the government is the owner of all lands. I am not radical enough to say that we will revisit this position. But we want to bring more clarity to land ownership. One way of doing that is by reducing litigations,” he said, adding that the new law would simplify the functioning of his department. “Right now, there are too many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ in the law, which means they are subject to interpretation.”</p>
<p>Bengaluru: Karnataka has started the process of drafting a new law to replace the existing legal regime administering lands and their ownership, which the government says is no longer relevant due to its colonial imprint.</p>.<p>The Karnataka Land Revenue (KLR) Act, 1964 -- considered the mother law for its overarching influence on various governance functions -- will be done away with.</p>.<p>An apex committee has been constituted to draft the new law. The drafting process will involve experts from the National Law School of India University and think tank Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.</p>.Consultants under lens in Karnataka amid project cost overruns.<p>“The KLR Act was imported from the erstwhile Mysore Land Revenue Act, which came from a law the British followed,” Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda told <em>DH</em>. “Those days, the guiding philosophy was to maintain revenue from land. That’s what the British were after. Now, we don’t get any revenue from land. What we actually do is manage lands and their ownership,” he said.</p>.<p>The existing KLR Act is comprehensive, spanning 15 chapters and 202 sections. “We can’t redraft the Act in one go. We plan to do it in 2-3 batches. The first draft is expected in three months,” Gowda said, adding that the new law should be ready before the end of the current fiscal.</p>.<p>According to Gowda, the KLR Act is loaded with British legalese. “It is very difficult to understand,” he said. “And, the Act has seen several amendments over the years. Every amendment contradicts a section in the law. Over time, a series of such contradictions have built up.”</p>.<p>Gowda cited an example: While tahsildars have been tasked with clearing encroachments on public lands, courts keep pointing out that this is the deputy commissioners’ job as per the Act.</p>.<p><strong>Land ownership</strong></p>.<p>The new law will bring “more certainty” to land ownership, Gowda said, broaching a difficult topic.</p>.<p>Currently, land ownership is ‘presumptive’ as opposed to being absolute, resulting in litigations.</p>.<p>“We want to move towards land title guarantee,” Gowda said. “In Australia, a land ownership document issued by the government is infallible. Here, the default legal position is that the government is the owner of all lands. I am not radical enough to say that we will revisit this position. But we want to bring more clarity to land ownership. One way of doing that is by reducing litigations,” he said, adding that the new law would simplify the functioning of his department. “Right now, there are too many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ in the law, which means they are subject to interpretation.”</p>
