Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961: ceiling on land holdings and restrictions on holding or transfer of agricultural land

1. The ceiling: section 63

• No person (who is not a member of a family or has no family) and no family may hold land, as owner, landlord, tenant, mortgagee with possession or otherwise, in excess of the ceiling area (section 63(1)).
• The ceiling is ten units. For a family of more than five members, it is ten units plus two units for each additional member, up to twenty units in all (section 63(2)).
• A tenant under an aquaculture lease permitted by section 5(2)(b) has a ceiling of forty units (section 63(2A)).
• For a family, the ceiling applies to the aggregate held by all members, including stridhana land (section 63(3)). A member’s notional share in joint family land is added to his separate holding (section 63(4)). Land in a revocable private trust counts as the author’s; otherwise as the beneficiaries’ (section 63(5)).

A unit is one acre of A Class land of soil value 8 annas or more, or its equivalent under Schedule I, Part B (5.4 acres of D Class dry land equal one unit). So ten units can mean ten acres of the best irrigated land or fifty-four acres of dry land. “Family” (section 2(A)(12)) means a person, the spouse, and their minor sons and unmarried daughters.

2. Surplus land: sections 64 to 79

• Future acquisition (section 64). Land acquired after 1 March 1974 by transfer, bequest, inheritance, partition or otherwise that takes a person or family above the ceiling is surplus, and sections 66 to 76 apply to it.
• Deemed excess (section 65A) covers transfers made to defeat the ceiling.
• Declaration (section 66). Every person holding ten acres or more of Government- irrigated land, twenty acres of rain-fed paddy land, or forty acres of dry land on 1 March 1974 had to file a declaration by 31 December 1974; later acquirers above those limits must also declare. Failure to declare or a false declaration attracts a penalty imposed by the Tahsildar (section 66A).
• Surrender (section 67). The Tahsildar verifies the declaration and determines the class of the land; the Land Tribunal determines the surplus to be surrendered, and the holder may choose which land to keep within limits.
• Vesting (sections 68 to 71). Surplus land vests in the State free of encumbrances, with special rules for limited owners, usufructuary mortgagees and tenants.
• Amount (sections 72 and 73) payable to the holder, determined by the Tahsildar.
• Bar on alienation (section 74). A person owning land above the ceiling cannot alienate any part of his holding until he has filed his declaration and the surplus has been determined; an alienation in contravention is null and void.
• Disposal (section 77). Surplus land and other land vesting under the Act is granted by the Deputy Commissioner, with seventy-five per cent reserved for SCs and STs, to dispossessed tenants not registered as occupants, displaced tenants, landless agricultural labourers and others in the prescribed order. Section 77A provides for grants in certain other cases.

3. Exemptions

• Plantations (section 104): sections 63 (other than 63(9)), 64 and 80 do not apply to plantations (coffee, tea, rubber, cardamom and the like) and land ancillary to them.
• Section 107 excludes lands of the Government, local authorities and certain institutions.
• Section 109: the Government may exempt land from sections 63 and 80 for industrial development (up to forty units, more where approved by the State High Level or Single Window Clearance Committee under the Karnataka Industries (Facilitation) Act, 2002, as amended by Act 9 of 2020), educational institutions, places of worship, approved housing projects and horticulture. Land not used for the purpose within the prescribed time goes to the Government land bank, failing which the exemption is cancelled and the land forfeited (section 109(1B), inserted by Act 27 of 2014).

4. Restrictions on holding or transfer: Chapter V before 2020

Until 2020, Chapter V had three main bars, all inserted on 1 March 1974:

• Section 79A: no person, family or joint family with an assured annual income from non-agricultural sources of not less than a specified amount (raised over time, finally twenty-five lakh rupees by the 2015 amendment) could acquire agricultural land.
• Section 79B: no educational, religious or charitable institution, company, association or co-operative society (other than a co-operative farm) could hold agricultural land, subject to exceptions.
• Section 80: no sale, gift, exchange or lease of agricultural land was lawful in favour of a person who was not an agriculturist, or who would exceed the ceiling, or who was disentitled under sections 79A or 79B, without the Deputy Commissioner’s permission.

Transactions in breach were reported (section 82), declared void after inquiry, and the land forfeited to the State (section 83).

5. Chapter V after the Karnataka Land Reforms (Amendment) Act, 2020

The Statement of Objects of Karnataka Act 56 of 2020 records that many cases were being registered under sections 79A and 79B, that most were dropped, that confiscation orders were not enforced, and that the High Court (in W.P. No. 16199 of 2019) had directed the Government to simplify the regime. The Act, replacing Ordinance 13 of 2020, made these changes (w.e.f. 13 July 2020):

• Sections 79A, 79B and 79C omitted. The official consolidated text records the omission as effective from 1 March 1974. A savings clause keeps cases already finally disposed of unaffected, and provides that all pending cases under these sections before any court, tribunal or authority abate.
• Section 80 recast as “Restrictions on transfer of certain lands”. No sale, gift, exchange or lease of land is lawful in favour of a person (i) who, in the case of A Class irrigated land, does not use it for agriculture, or (ii) who holds land exceeding the ceiling under section 63 or 64. The requirement of being an agriculturist is gone.
• Mortgages restricted (section 81(2A)). Agricultural land may be mortgaged only to the institutions listed in section 81(1)(a) and (b), such as the Government, specified public bodies, co-operative societies and financial institutions.
• SC/ST granted land protected (section 80A). No condition in the Act is to be relaxed for land granted to SC or ST persons during the period of prohibition under the PTCL Act, 1978.

Section 81A still requires a transferee to file a declaration before the registering authority of the total land held by him, and section 61 still bars transfer of land granted to tenants for fifteen years.

6. Problem

In 2025 a Bengaluru software engineer with an annual salary of ₹40 lakh buys 4 acres of dry land in Tumakuru from a farmer. A revenue officer starts proceedings to forfeit the land on the ground that the buyer is not an agriculturist. Advise.

Issue. Whether a non-agriculturist with high non-agricultural income may lawfully buy agricultural land after 2020.

Law. Sections 79A and 79B have been omitted and section 80 recast by Act 56 of 2020. Section 80 now bars a sale only where A Class irrigated land is not used for agriculture or the buyer would exceed the ceiling.

Application. The land is D Class dry land, so the A Class condition does not apply. Four acres of D Class land is less than one unit (5.4 acres of D Class make a unit), far below the ten-unit ceiling, unless he already holds a large extent elsewhere. His income is no longer a bar. If it were granted land, the PTCL Act would be a separate question.

Conclusion. The sale is lawful and the proceedings should be dropped. He must still apply for conversion under section 95 of the KLR Act, 1964 if he wants to build anything other than a farm house.

How this is examined

“State the provisions relating to ceiling on land holdings” was the Unit IV essay in January 2026; “ceiling on land holding” and “ceiling limit” are short notes (August 2024). “Explain the restrictions on holding or transfer of agricultural lands” (April 2023) must now be answered as in sections 4 and 5, describing the old law and the 2020 amendment.