What Do Mutation Entries in the Ferfar Reveal?
A mutation entry, or ferfar, is the revenue record’s note of every change in who holds a piece of land and on what basis. The 7/12 extract shows you the present position; the mutation register shows you how the land got there. Reading the ferfar in sequence is how gaps in a title chain become visible.
Most buyers stop at the 7/12 extract. It names the holder, it states the area, and if the name matches the seller, the check feels done. It is not done. The extract is a summary, and a summary of a defective history still looks tidy.
The mutation register — Form VI, known in Marathi as the ferfar patrak — is where the working is shown. Every one of its mutation entries records one event: a sale, an inheritance, a partition, a gift, a mortgage, a court decree, a boundary correction, a conversion of land use. Read end to end, it is the chronology of the parcel.
What is a mutation entry?
When a sale, death or partition changes the record, the Talathi enters it as a proposed change in the mutation register, issues notices, and then certifies or rejects it — and only a certified entry carries through into the 7/12.
When something happens that changes the revenue record — a sale is registered, a holder dies, a partition is effected — the change does not appear in the 7/12 automatically. Someone reports it to the village officer, the Circle Officer or Talathi enters it as a proposed change in the mutation register, gives it a serial number, issues notices to the affected parties, and after the objection period either certifies it or rejects it.
Only a certified mutation entry carries into the 7/12. An entry that is pending, disputed or rejected sits in the register without reaching the extract, which is precisely why the register is worth reading.
What do mutation entries contain, field by field?
Seven fields: the mutation number, the date, the nature of the change, the names removed and added, the supporting document cited, and the certification status — each with its own warning signs, from sequence gaps to an uncited “oral” transfer.
Seven fields in each mutation entry and what to watch for
| Field | What it tells you | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Mutation number | Sequential identifier for the change | Gaps in the sequence for that survey number |
| Date of entry | When the change was proposed | Long delay between the underlying event and the entry |
| Nature of change | Sale, inheritance, gift, partition, mortgage, decree, correction | Vague descriptions such as “name correction” on a substantial change |
| Names removed | Who ceased to hold | A name that disappears with no explanatory instrument |
| Names added | Who began to hold | More names added than the instrument accounts for |
| Supporting document | Registered deed number, succession certificate, decree, order | “Oral” or no document cited on a transfer |
| Certification status | Certified, pending, or rejected, with the certifying officer | Anything not certified; anything certified unusually fast |
Why is the mutation register more revealing than the 7/12?
Because the 7/12 shows the outcome and the register shows the reasoning: rejected claims, pending changes, the instrument behind each transfer, and the speed and manner of each change appear only in the register, never in the extract.
Because the 7/12 shows the outcome and the register shows the reasoning. Four things only appear in the register.
Four things only the register shows — not the 7/12
Rejected entries. Someone tried to record a claim and failed. That claimant may still be litigating. The extract is silent about them.
Pending entries. A change proposed and not yet certified — which means the person currently named in the extract may be on the way out, or a new claimant on the way in.
The instrument behind each change. The extract names a holder. The register tells you whether that holding came from a registered sale deed, a succession certificate, a partition deed, a court decree, or nothing documented at all.
The speed and manner of each change. An inheritance recorded thirty years after the death, a partition among six heirs certified in a week, a “correction” that quietly enlarges an area — these are visible only in sequence.
How do you read a chain of mutations?
Work forward from the oldest entry, not back from today: for each one ask what event it records, what document evidences it, and whether the names it leaves tie into the next entry’s opening position — a clean chain reconciles at every step.
Work forward from the oldest available entry, not backward from today. For each entry, ask three questions: what event does it record, what document evidences that event, and does the resulting set of names tie into the next entry’s opening position?
A clean chain reconciles at every step. The names removed by entry 47 are exactly the names added by entry 39. The area does not change except where a partition or acquisition explains it. Every transfer cites a registered instrument. Every death cites a succession document and accounts for all heirs.
A chain with a problem will fail one of those reconciliations, and the failure is usually small on the page and large in consequence: five heirs added where the family had seven, or a survey number whose area grows by half a guntha in a correction entry with no order cited.
What are the classic defects a ferfar exposes?
Missing heirs, unregistered transfers recorded as fact, uncleared protected-tenancy entries, unsatisfied mortgages, cumulative area drift, and acquisition notations — defects that sit in the register long before they ever surface on the 7/12.
Missing heirs. The most common and most expensive defect in Maharashtra plotted land. An inheritance mutation adds some of the deceased’s heirs and not others. The omitted heirs’ shares remain theirs, they are not bound by a sale they were not party to, and they can surface years later. Daughters omitted from pre-2005 successions are a recurring version of this.
Unregistered transfers recorded as fact. An entry showing a change of holder with no registered deed cited. The record may reflect a transaction the law does not recognise as a transfer of title.
Tenancy entries that never cleared. A protected tenant recorded under the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, with no subsequent entry showing purchase, surrender or disposal of the tenancy. The tenancy is a live encumbrance, not a historical note.
Unsatisfied mortgages. A mortgage entered and no corresponding release entry. Until discharge is recorded, the charge is on the record.
Area drift. Small area corrections across several entries that cumulatively change the parcel. Each looks clerical; together they may reflect an encroachment, a road widening or a boundary dispute.
Acquisition notations. An entry recording a notification under an acquisition statute for part of the survey number. This is how you discover a road alignment through the plot you are being shown.
Does a certified mutation entry prove ownership?
No — revenue records are kept for collecting land revenue and carry only a presumption of correctness, not title; a person named in an entry may not own the land, and a person not named may. Title comes from the instruments.
No, and this is the point most frequently misunderstood. Revenue records are maintained for the collection of land revenue. Entries in them carry a presumption of correctness — they are taken to be accurate until shown otherwise — but they are not documents of title. Title comes from the instruments: the registered sale deed, the decree, the succession document.
The practical consequence runs both ways. A person named in a mutation entry may not own the land. A person not named may own it. The register is the best available map of the history, and it is evidence, but it is not the deed.
How do you obtain the mutation register?
Mutation extracts are held with the Talathi and at the tehsil office, with many available online and certified digitally signed copies through the state portal — and you should ask for the complete run of entries for the survey number, not only the ones a seller selects.
Mutation extracts are held at the village level with the Talathi and at the tehsil office. Maharashtra’s digitised land records make many entries available online, and certified copies with digital signatures can be obtained through the state’s records portal. For anything older than digitisation, or where an entry looks incomplete online, the physical register at the tehsil is the source.
Ask for the full run of entries for the survey number, not only the ones your seller selects. A chain is only informative complete.
The five-step sequence to use
The five-step chain verification sequence
- Obtain the current 7/12 extract and note the survey number, holder names and area.
- Obtain the complete mutation register for that survey number, oldest entry to newest.
- Reconcile forward: for each entry, match names out against names in, and area against area.
- Pull the underlying instrument for every transfer entry — the registered deed, the decree, the succession document — and read it against what the entry claims.
- Search the sub-registrar’s index independently for that survey number, to catch registered transactions that never reached the register at all.
Step five is the one buyers skip and advocates do not. A registered transaction that was never mutated is invisible in both the extract and the register, and it is still a transaction.
How Lords of the Lands handles this
On a plotted development the mutation work is done once, at the parent-parcel level, before the layout is sanctioned — which is the difference between buying a plot in a sanctioned estate and buying a survey number from a seller. The chain from the original holder through to the sub-division is on file across our Karjat, Khopoli and Raigad coast estates, and it is available to read before any payment is taken. A buyer’s advocate is welcome to examine it, and should.
Frequently asked questions
How far back should the mutation chain go?
Practice in Maharashtra is to trace thirty years, which matches the ordinary limitation position for adverse claims. Where the history is complicated — partitions, tenancy, abolished tenures — go further back, to the earliest available record.
What if a mutation entry is illegible or missing?
Apply to the tehsil for the physical register. A genuinely missing entry is a gap that has to be bridged by the underlying instruments and, where necessary, a declaration and indemnity from the seller.
Can a mutation entry be challenged?
Yes. Entries are appealable through the revenue hierarchy, and the underlying title can be litigated in civil court regardless of what the record says.
Does a pending mutation stop a sale?
It does not legally prevent one, but buying into a parcel with an uncertified mutation means buying into whatever the dispute is about. Wait for certification or price the risk.
Is the mutation register the same as the 7/12?
No. The 7/12 (Forms VII and XII) shows current rights and crop details. The mutation register (Form VI) shows the sequence of changes that produced them.
Related reading
Reading the records
- How to read a 7/12 extract – the current position.
- The Other Rights column on the 7/12 – where charges and disputes sit.
- The property card and the 8A – the holder’s account.
- How to check a plot’s NA status – the use-classification check.
- The title-check checklist – the documents to demand.
- How to verify title before buying – the six-document sequence.
Tenure and NA status
- Class I vs Class II tenure – which land transfers freely.
- What NA land actually is – the core distinction.
- NA plot vs agricultural land – the land-use line.
- Maharashtra has scrapped separate NA permission – the 2025 reform.
- How the one-time NA premium is calculated – the cost of conversion.
- Is the NA Sanad still required? – the old document today.
RERA, access and registration
- What “RERA-approved” actually means – and what it does not.
- How to check a MahaRERA number yourself – reading the portal.
- Right of way and access – the recorded-access test.
- Getting building permission for a plot – the approval to build.
- How a land sale is registered – the step that transfers ownership.
- The documents to check, in order – the full sequence.
Buying and context
- How to shortlist a plot – the nine criteria.
- The real risks in emerging corridors – and the checks that retire them.
- Khopoli-Pali road land: the SH-93 guide – a corridor worked through.
- Land vs plotted development – raw land versus a sanctioned layout.
- The NRI document checklist – for overseas buyers.
- What Lords of the Lands builds – who we are and how we work.
Citations and sources
Sources: Maharashtra Land Revenue Code, 1966, Chapter X (record of rights, Sections 148 to 159) and the Maharashtra Land Revenue Record of Rights and Registers Rules, 1971; Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948. This article is general information current as of September 2026 and is not legal advice. Records vary by district and parcel — have the chain examined by your advocate before you transact. Official sources: Mahabhumi 7/12 (Bhulekh) · IGR Maharashtra.
