How to read a Delhi Khatauni: Khasra, Khata, Girdawari and Lal Dora
What the Khatauni for a Delhi revenue village records, why the Girdawari matters more here than the farming it describes, and what a buyer should check before relying on either.
Delhi's textual land record reads like Haryana's or western UP's, because it came from the same settlement tradition — Khata, Khasra, Khatauni, Girdawari, Intkal. What makes it unusual is that most of the land it describes stopped being farmland decades ago, while the record kept describing it as farmland. Reading it well means knowing which parts still mean what they say.
The parts
- Khasra number
- One parcel in the revenue village. The legal description of the land, whatever is standing on it now.
- Khata / Khewat
- The holding that groups the Khasra numbers held by one person or set of co-sharers. Co-sharers are common and are why a 'single plot' can have six names against it.
- Khasra Girdawari
- The seasonal inspection of each Khasra: what was grown, and who was in possession. In Delhi it is far more often used as evidence of possession than as an agricultural record.
- Gair Mumkin
- Classified as not cultivable — roads, drains, ponds, built-up plots. Large parts of a Delhi village are Gair Mumkin, and the sub-classification tells you what is actually there.
What to check, in order
- Whether Intkal has completed. Until mutation is entered, the Khatauni still names the previous holder — which is the single most common gap between a sale deed and the record.
- How many co-sharers a Khata carries. A sale from one co-sharer of an undivided holding is a different transaction from a sale of a defined parcel, whatever it is called.
- The Girdawari entries. Who has been recorded in possession, and for how long, is often the practical question in a Delhi dispute, and the Khatauni alone does not answer it.
- Whether the Khasra falls inside or outside the Lal Dora. The Shajra shows the line; the answer changes how the property is treated.
The record describes a village that no longer looks like one
This is the part that catches people out. A Khatauni can describe a Khasra number as agricultural land of so many bighas and biswas, while the ground carries four floors of flats. Both are true in their own register: the revenue record describes the parcel, not the construction. What the record is good for is establishing what the parcel is, who holds it, and where its boundaries run. What it cannot tell you is whether what has been built on it was permitted.
Which is why the map matters as much as the text here. Pull the Khatauni for the numbers, get the Shajra sheets those numbers fall on, and join them — then the holding is a shape you can compare against the ground, rather than a list of numbers that no longer resemble anything visible.
🔗 Delhi land & survey terms, explained →Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between the Khatauni and the Jamabandi in Delhi?+
Both are records of rights for the village and in Delhi the terms are used alongside each other rather than as strict alternatives, because the record-keeping shares an origin with Haryana and Punjab practice. In practice, ask the tehsil for the current record of rights for the Khasra number and you will be given the right document.
Why does my Khatauni call built-up land agricultural?+
Because the revenue record describes the parcel and its classification, not what has been constructed on it. Changing the classification is a separate process. The record being out of step with the ground is normal in Delhi and is not, by itself, evidence of anything wrong.
What does Gair Mumkin mean?+
Not cultivable — the category covering roads, drains, ponds and built-up plots. The sub-classification is the informative part: Gair Mumkin Abadi is settled land, Gair Mumkin Rasta is a road or path.