The Revenue Department: Speaking of Your Rights

The Revenue Department: Speaking of Your Rights (eBook)

Every land question of the village, answered in plain words, with the record to see and the officer to approach.

Description

Khatauni, khasra and the village map, mutation after succession or a sale deed, Section 38 correction, boundary disputes, pathways, ponds and Gram Sabha land, abadi, allotment of residential sites, consolidation, land acquisition and compensation, NOIDA, Greater Noida and YEIDA, nazul and government leases, riverbed, eviction and rehabilitation, land revenue recovery, the Revenue Court, RTI, e-KYC and cyber fraud, writ petition and higher-court strategy, and the latest legal changes: 67 subjects, 670 questions and answers, in the direct language of the village.

Every answer carries four things: what it means for the farmer, which record to see, where to go and a caution; cautions verified from the law and the latest court decisions are marked with a star. Written by a former District Magistrate and senior revenue administrator of Uttar Pradesh, from more than three decades of handling land matters.

This is an independent and completely free public-interest publication of Cooperation17, a public charitable trust. It is not a Government publication and not a substitute for the current law, the certified record or legal advice. Before any final step, confirm with the competent authority and the law in force on that date. Share it with anyone whose land is their livelihood.

Suggested keywords: khatauni, mutation, land records, Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code, Gram Sabha land, land acquisition, Cooperation17

About the Authors

Brajesh Narain Singh, known in public life as B.N. Singh, is a retired officer of the Indian Administrative Service of the Uttar Pradesh cadre and the President and Trustee of Cooperation17, a public trust registered in Uttar Pradesh. A native of Azamgarh, he served the public for nearly thirty-two years, from January 1994 to September 2025, first in the Provincial Civil Service (1992 batch) and later in the Indian Administrative Service (2009 batch).

His career spanned district administration, urban governance and national policy. He served as Officer on Special Duty to the Union Ministers of Agriculture and of Surface Transport, and spent about twelve and a half years with the Delhi Development Authority, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and the New Delhi Municipal Council.

As District Magistrate of Gautam Buddha Nagar from 2017 to 2020, he led the acquisition of 1,334 hectares in six villages for the first phase of the Noida International Airport at Jewar under the land acquisition law of 2013. Built on dialogue and the consent of farmers, the acquisition was completed within about two years at an administrative cost of only about ₹3 crore, around 0.096 per cent. He also helped resolve the long-stalled land issues of the Eastern Peripheral Expressway, introduced the agreement-to-sub-lease instrument for flat buyers awaiting registration, launched the SHOR platform for redressal of workplace sexual harassment, promoted Miyawaki urban forests, improved government schools through corporate partnerships and acted firmly against illegal mining and fraudulent builders. In this period Noida and Greater Noida were selected under the United Nations Global Sustainable Cities 2025 initiative in the University City category.

As Commissioner and Registrar, Cooperative Societies, he worked to strengthen primary agricultural credit societies and to improve fertiliser availability for farmers through cooperatives. As Transport Commissioner in 2025, he introduced citizen-centred reforms, including a WhatsApp chatbot for transport services, faceless services through Common Service Centres and stronger road safety enforcement.

After retirement he devoted himself to Cooperation17, whose motto is सहयोग से सेवा, Service through Cooperation, and whose work draws on Sustainable Development Goal 17 on partnerships. The trust offers free, impartial and evidence-based legal awareness to farmers, cooperative members, apartment owners and road users.

He is the author of eight free e-books in Hindi and English: four on the Transport Department, setting out the rights of citizens and the duties of officers; two on cooperative societies in question-and-answer form; and two on the Revenue Department and the rights of landholders. Each answer is anchored in the relevant Act, rule or notification, and all eight books are available without charge.

His guiding conviction, shaped by decades in public service, is simple: a citizen should not have to become an expert in administrative systems to receive what is lawfully due. He lives in New Delhi and continues to work for lawful, humane and accessible governance.

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