DC Conversion in Karnataka: Section 95 and What It Changes

On the outer stretches of the Sarjapur Road corridor, most land started as agricultural land. Some of it has been lawfully diverted to non-agricultural use and some of it has not, and from a car window the two look identical. The document that tells them apart is a conversion order.

The provision

Section 95 of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964 governs the use of agricultural land for a non-agricultural purpose. The scheme of the section is that an occupant of agricultural land who wants to use it for another purpose applies to the Deputy Commissioner, and the diversion takes effect on the permission being granted, subject to the conditions imposed.

Section 96 of the same Act deals with the consequence of diverting land without that permission. The procedure under section 95 has been amended more than once, so the sensible instruction is to read the section as it currently stands rather than to rely on a description of it — including this one — as the last word on procedure.

What the order actually says

A conversion order is a short document and every line of it is load-bearing.

• The land — survey number, hissa where relevant, village, hobli and taluk.
• The extent converted, which is often less than the whole survey number. This is the line most frequently misread.
• The purpose — residential, commercial, industrial. The permission is for that purpose, not for any non-agricultural use in general.
• The conditions, which commonly include setbacks, provision for roads and open space in a layout, and a period within which the converted use must commence.
• The order details — the office, the reference and the officer, so the order can be traced back to the record it came from.

The three errors buyers make with it

Assuming the whole survey number is converted. If the order converts part of a survey number, land outside that part is still agricultural however continuous it looks on the ground. Read the extent in the order against the extent in the instrument.

Assuming the purpose does not matter. An order permitting an industrial use does not authorise a residential layout. The purpose in the order and the use proposed have to be the same thing.

Assuming the order is the last approval needed. It is the first of several, and the others are described below.

What has to follow the order

The order of that table is the point. Each step depends on the one above it, which is why a missing conversion order shows up much later as a khata that cannot be issued or a building plan that cannot be sanctioned — long after the money has moved.

How to verify it

1. Ask for the conversion order itself, not a reference to it in a brochure or a listing.
2. Read the survey number, the village and the extent on the order against the registered instrument and the record of rights.
3. Check that the recorded land use for the survey number reflects the diversion. An order that was granted but never carried into the record is a job half done.
4. Check the purpose against the use actually proposed.
5. Check the conditions, and whether they have been complied with — particularly any period within which the converted use had to commence.
6. Where the land is being sold as plots, ask for the approved layout as well. Conversion permits the use; the layout approval permits the subdivision.

What conversion is not

• Not title. The order is a permission attached to land and addressed to the applicant. It says nothing about who owns the land.
• Not a layout approval. Permission to use land for a residential purpose is not permission to cut it into plots and sell them.
• Not a building sanction. What may be built, and to what envelope, is decided later by the authority that sanctions plans.
• Not a guarantee that services exist. Water, drainage and power connections follow their own applications to their own agencies.

Where it stops mattering

Two situations take the question off the table. Land inside an approved layout that has already been through the sequence above carries its approvals with it, and the plot buyer inherits them — which is precisely why an approved layout is worth paying attention to. And an apartment in a registered project sits on land whose status was filed with the regulator at registration; a registration application under section 4 of the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 covers the land and its title, and a buyer is entitled to see what was filed.

What never takes it off the table is an assurance that conversion is under process. Under process is a state that produces no document, and a document is the only thing that survives the conversation.

The stage-by-stage purchase sequence, with the document that settles each check, is the buyer guide. Conversion, record of rights, khata and layout approval are defined in the glossary, and what is actually built along this stretch, with jurisdiction and regulator, is on the Sarjapur Road page.