Professional / Revenue-related Knowledge
What the domain tests
This section separates a Tehsildar candidate from a generalist. It examines the Punjab Land Revenue Act 1967, the record-of-rights system, mutation and partition procedure, tenancy, and the acquisition, registration and stamp framework that the tehsil office runs on daily.
The chain of revenue officers
Board of Revenue (Punjab), then Commissioner of the division, then Collector (the Deputy Commissioner of the district), then Assistant Collector (the Assistant Commissioner, and the Tehsildar within his tehsil), then Girdawar/Qanungo, then Patwari. The Tehsildar is not the Collector; his powers are those of an Assistant Collector.
Records you must distinguish
- Jamabandi: record of rights showing owners, shares and cultivators; revised periodically, four-yearly in Punjab.
- Shajra Nasab: pedigree of the landowning families.
- Khasra: numbered plot with area and classification; Khatooni: field register of crops and possession.
- Wajib-ul-Arz: village customs, rights of way and grazing.
- Roznamcha Waqiati: the patwari's daily diary; Register Girdawari: crop inspection for kharif and rabi.
Mutation and partition
Section 45 of the PLRA 1967 requires a person acquiring a right to report to the patwari within three months; the patwari enters it in the roznamcha and reports to the Tehsildar, who issues notice to interested persons and, absent dispute, attests the mutation. Section 44 makes jamabandi entries presumed true until the contrary is proved. Partition (taksim) is applied for to the revenue officer, followed by notice, verification of shares and physical division.
Worked example
A sells land to B in June, but B never reports the transfer. Reasoning: the sale deed may be registered under the Registration Act 1908, yet the jamabandi still shows A, because mutation is a separate revenue act. Until attestation the section 44 presumption works against B, and a later bona fide purchaser from A may prevail. B should apply immediately; the three-month rule is a duty and delay invites litigation.
Traps that cost marks
Treating registration as mutation; calling the Deputy Commissioner a Tehsildar; confusing jamabandi with khasra; and assuming occupancy tenancy still exists, since proprietary rights were vested in occupancy tenants by the 1952 Act, leaving owner and tenant-at-will.