Kul and Tenancy Rights on Agricultural Land Maharashtra

Key Takeaways

“Kul” means tenant. Under the Maharashtra Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948, a person cultivating another’s land as a tenant acquires statutory rights that survive a change of owner.
The record, not the sale deed, is where it hides. Tenancy is typically visible in the “other rights” column of the 7/12 extract and in tenancy registers — places a conveyancing-only title search may never open.
Section 32G is the pivot. The Act made tenants deemed purchasers on the “tillers’ day”, with the Tribunal determining the purchase price. Where 32G proceedings were never completed, the position can remain unsettled for decades.
Section 43 restricts onward transfer. Land purchased by a tenant under the Act cannot ordinarily be sold, gifted, mortgaged, leased or partitioned without the Collector’s prior permission, subject to a relaxation introduced by a 2014 amendment.
Tenancy questions go to the Tehsildar, not the civil court. The Act channels tenancy issues to revenue authorities, which changes both the forum and the timeline for any dispute.
Detection is cheap; discovery after purchase is not. Order the 7/12, read every entry, trace the mutation history, and take a written opinion before you pay any advance.

Direct answer: A “Kul” is a tenant recorded on agricultural land under the Maharashtra Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948. The Act deliberately gave cultivating tenants strong statutory rights — including, on the appointed day, the status of deemed purchaser with the price to be fixed by the Tribunal under Section 32G — and it restricts what the tenant-purchaser may later do with that land under Section 43. The result is an encumbrance that is legal rather than financial, so it does not appear as a mortgage or a lien on any bank record. It sits in the revenue record. A buyer who looks only at the sale deed chain and an encumbrance certificate can complete a purchase and only later discover that someone else holds enforceable rights over the land.

This is one of the most expensive blind spots in Maharashtra land buying, and it is entirely avoidable with the right search.

What the Tenancy Act Was Designed to Do

The Maharashtra Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948 (originally the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act) is agrarian reform legislation. Its purpose, sharpened by the amendments of the 1950s, was to make the tiller of the soil the owner of the land. It did this by protecting tenants from eviction, capping rent, and ultimately transferring ownership to cultivating tenants.

The critical design feature for a modern buyer is this: the rights created are statutory, not contractual. They do not depend on a written lease existing, and they are not extinguished merely because the land later changed hands or the tenant stopped cultivating.

Key terms you will encounter

Kul / Kuli — the tenant recorded against the land in the revenue record.
Kul kayda — colloquial reference to the tenancy law itself.
Protected tenant — a tenant with statutory protection from eviction under the Act.
Deemed purchaser — a tenant treated by the Act as having purchased the land on the appointed day.
Tillers’ day — the appointed date from which the deemed purchase operates; the Act also contemplates postponed dates in defined circumstances.

Section 32G: The Provision That Decides Ownership

Section 32G is the machinery provision. Where a tenant is deemed to have purchased the land, the Tribunal issues notices, hears the tenant, the landlord and all other interested persons, holds an inquiry, and determines the purchase price of the land in accordance with Section 32H. For a tenant deemed to have purchased on a postponed date, the Tribunal determines the price as soon as may be after that date.

Three things follow, and they are where most real-world problems live:

Completed 32G proceedings produce a determinable outcome. The price was fixed, the certificate followed, and the record ought to reflect the tenant as owner.
Incomplete or defective 32G proceedings leave the position unresolved — sometimes for decades, with heirs on both sides now involved.
The consequences of a tenant failing to comply with the statutory steps are governed by the Act and by a substantial body of case law, and outcomes are highly fact-specific. Do not assume any general rule applies to your parcel. This must be checked on the actual file with a Maharashtra revenue advocate.

Section 43: The Restriction That Blocks Your Sale

Section 43 restricts transfer of land purchased or sold under the relevant provisions of the Act. In its core form, such land cannot be transferred by sale, gift, exchange, mortgage, lease or assignment, nor partitioned, without the previous sanction of the Collector, and permission is granted only on conditions prescribed by the State Government.

An amendment brought into force in 2014 relaxed this. Reported summaries of the amendment indicate that where a specified period has elapsed since the land was transferred to the tenant, the Collector’s permission is not required if conditions are satisfied — including payment of a fee calculated as a multiple of the land revenue, the purchaser not exceeding the ceiling under the Maharashtra Agricultural Lands (Ceilings on Holdings) Act, 1961, and no breach of the Bombay Prevention of Fragmentation and Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1947. The amendment is also reported to operate prospectively.

We flag this deliberately: the exact elapsed period, the fee multiple and the prospective cut-off are details that must be verified against the current bare Act and the applicable Government Resolution for your district. Do not rely on any secondary summary — including this one — as the operative rule. Confirm with the Collector’s office and a revenue advocate.

Why this matters commercially

A Section 43 restriction is often endorsed in the 7/12 record. If it is present and unresolved, your sale deed may be unregistrable, or registrable but vulnerable. Buyers financed by a bank will discover it at legal vetting and walk away. That is a liquidity problem you inherit at purchase and only feel at exit. Section 43 also sits alongside the separate Section 63 eligibility bar, so a buyer must clear both tests — the rules are set out in our guide to who can buy agricultural land in Maharashtra.

Why a “Clean” Title Search Still Misses This

A conventional title search traces registered instruments — sale deeds, mortgages, releases — and produces an encumbrance certificate from the Sub-Registrar’s records. Tenancy rights are not created by a registered instrument. They arise by operation of statute and are recorded in revenue records maintained by a different department entirely. This is exactly why a proper land title verification exercise must run the full revenue-record checklist, not just the deed chain, and why a 30-year title search and advocate’s title report should be instructed to cover tenancy expressly.

Search performed	What it shows	Will it reveal a Kul entry?
Encumbrance certificate (Sub-Registrar)	Registered charges and transactions	No
Title deed chain / search report	Devolution of registered ownership	Only indirectly, if a deed recites it
7/12 extract — occupant column	Recorded holder	Sometimes
7/12 extract — “other rights” column	Tenancy, restrictions, charges, endorsements	Yes — this is the primary source
Mutation register (ferfar) entries	History of every change to the record	Yes — including deleted or disputed entries
Tenancy register / Tehsildar record	Tenancy and 32G proceedings	Yes — the definitive check

The pattern is consistent: buyers who instruct only a conveyancing search get a clean report on a parcel that is not clean.

How to Detect a Tenancy Claim: A Seven-Step Check

Pull the current 7/12 extract for the survey number from the official MahaBhulekh portal, and read the “other rights” column line by line — including entries that appear struck through.
Order the full mutation (ferfar) history, not just the latest entry. A tenancy entry that was deleted is a red flag, not a resolution — you need to know who deleted it and on what order.
Look for the tell-tale endorsements: any reference to the Tenancy Act, to Section 32G, to Section 43, to a “Kul” name, or to a restriction on transfer.
Ask the Tehsildar’s tenancy branch whether any tenancy proceedings, past or pending, exist for that survey number. This is the check most buyers skip.
Trace the heirs. Tenancy rights descend. A tenant who died in 1975 may have grandchildren with a live claim.
Inspect the land physically and ask who actually cultivates it. Possession inconsistent with the record is the single loudest warning signal in Indian land buying.
Obtain a written legal opinion from a Maharashtra revenue advocate specifically addressing tenancy, and make it a condition precedent in your agreement.

How a Tenancy Encumbrance Gets Cleared

There is no single universal cure, and anyone who offers you one should be treated with suspicion. In practice, resolution runs along one of these routes, all of which are fact-dependent:

Completion or regularisation of the 32G position before the competent revenue authority, so that ownership is finally determined on the record.
Obtaining the Collector’s sanction under Section 43 where the land is tenancy-purchased land and the restriction applies, or establishing that the statutory relaxation conditions are met.
A registered relinquishment or settlement with the tenant or the tenant’s heirs, executed by every person with a potential claim — partial releases are worse than useless.
A revenue-court order correcting or deleting an entry, obtained on notice to all interested parties.

Note the forum point: tenancy questions fall to be decided by the revenue authorities under the Act — typically the Tehsildar or Agricultural Lands Tribunal, with appeals through the revenue hierarchy — rather than by a civil suit. That changes who you brief, how long it takes, and what a “settlement” is actually worth. A tenancy entry also survives NA conversion, as explained in NA vs agricultural land in Maharashtra.

The THE EDGE View

Land Intelligence — the shared foundation behind our Land Development, Spotlight, Corporate Advisory and E-Learning verticals — exists precisely because risks like this are invisible to a transactional lens. A Kul entry does not make a parcel unbuyable. It makes it a parcel that must be priced and structured differently, with the resolution completed before money moves, not after.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Kul mean on a 7/12 extract in Maharashtra?

Kul is the Marathi term for a tenant on agricultural land. Where a Kul name appears on the 7/12 extract, usually in the other rights column, it indicates that a person other than the recorded occupant has or has claimed tenancy rights over the land under the Maharashtra Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948. It should be treated as a serious encumbrance until it is formally resolved on the record.

Can I buy agricultural land that has a tenancy entry?

You can, but you should not do so without resolving it first. The tenant or the tenant’s heirs may hold statutory rights that survive your purchase, and a restriction under Section 43 may make your own onward sale difficult. Make resolution of the tenancy entry a condition precedent to payment and completion, and obtain written legal advice on the specific survey number.

Does a title search or encumbrance certificate reveal a Kul entry?

Usually not. An encumbrance certificate covers registered transactions at the Sub-Registrar office. Tenancy rights arise by operation of statute and are recorded in revenue records maintained separately. To detect them you must read the 7/12 extract including the other rights column, the full mutation history, and the tenancy records held by the Tehsildar.

What is Section 32G of the Maharashtra Tenancy Act?

Section 32G is the provision under which the Tribunal issues notices and determines the purchase price payable by a tenant who is deemed to have purchased the land, after giving the tenant, the landlord and other interested persons an opportunity to be heard and after holding an inquiry. Where these proceedings were never completed correctly, ownership of the parcel can remain contested for decades.

Can tenancy-purchased land be sold freely?

Not ordinarily. Section 43 restricts transfer of land purchased under the Act by sale, gift, exchange, mortgage, lease, assignment or partition without the previous sanction of the Collector. An amendment in 2014 relaxed this where a specified period has elapsed and conditions including a prescribed fee and ceiling compliance are met. The exact conditions must be verified against the current statute and with the Collector office for your parcel.

Sources

Before You Pay the Advance, Read the Record

Most tenancy disasters are not sophisticated frauds. They are ordinary purchases where nobody opened the right register. If you are evaluating agricultural land in Maharashtra and the 7/12 has an entry you do not understand, get it read properly before any money moves.

Have our team review your 7/12 and tenancy position →

Written by Girish Chhalwani, Founder & CEO, THE EDGE — 20+ years in Maharashtra land development and land intelligence. This article is general information, not legal advice. Tenancy outcomes are highly fact-specific and vary by district and by the history of the individual survey number; obtain advice from a Maharashtra revenue advocate on your own parcel.

Girish Chhalwani CEO

Girish Chhalwani is a visionary real estate leader and Founder of THE EDGE Developments, known for identifying and unlocking land value through infrastructure-led and future-focused development strategies. With 18+ years of experience across sales, strategy, and land development, he has influenced over ₹8,500 crore in real estate transactions and advised multiple large-scale projects across emerging growth corridors in Maharashtra.

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Kul and Tenancy Rights on Agricultural Land in Maharashtra: The Hidden Encumbrance