The Supreme Court on Friday said that property transactions were traumatic in India and asked the Centre to take the lead in adopting blockchain technology to make the property registration process seamless nationwide.
Calling for a complete overhaul of Indias land registration and titling system, a bench of Justice P S Narasimha and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said the existing legal regime, rooted in colonial-era statutes, has bred confusion, inefficiency, and an enormous volume of litigation.
The apex court examined what it described as a 'dichotomy between registration and title', urging the Centre to lead reforms that modernise the real estate transaction framework using emerging technologies such as blockchain.
'The Registration Act mandates registration of documents, not of title. Registration of a sale deed does not confer guaranteed ownership; it only serves as a public record of the transaction having presumptive evidentiary value,' the Bench observed.
The judges noted that even a registered sale deed is not conclusive proof of ownership, forcing buyers to trace decades of past transactions to verify title.
'Property purchase has not been easy. It is not difficult to find people grudgingly telling us that it is, in fact, traumatic,' the judgment authored by Justice Narasimha said.
Pointing to blockchain as a potential solution, the Court said the technology could transform land registration into a 'secure, transparent and tamper-proof system'.
Bhavini Mishra, Business Standard
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