How to read a 7/12 extract (Satbara)
The two forms a 7/12 is made of, what the other-rights column is really telling you, and why the name on it may not be the person selling.
The 7/12 is called that because it is two village forms printed as one page. Form VII records the holding, who holds it and what is charged against it. Form XII records cultivation, what has been grown, season by season. Read together they are the closest thing Maharashtra has to a summary of a piece of agricultural land, which is why every buyer, bank and court asks for one.
The parts of the page
- Gat or survey number
- The parcel's identity, with the Pot-Hissa suffix where the holding has been split. This is what any map request will be keyed on.
- Area and assessment
- The recorded extent and the revenue charged on it. The settlement register, the Akarband, is what the area figure traces back to.
- Occupant / holder
- Who the record says holds the land. Note the word: what the register states, which is not always who is in possession or who is offering to sell.
- Other rights
- The column that carries everything encumbering the land: loans charged against it, tenancy entries, court orders, notes of disputes. It is the column people skim and the column that most often kills a purchase.
- Crop entries
- Season-by-season cultivation. Often the best evidence on the page of who has actually been working the land.
The name on it may be out of date, and that is normal
A transfer only reaches the 7/12 when the mutation, the Ferfar, is entered and certified. Until then the extract still shows the previous holder, however long ago the sale happened. That is why checking the mutation register matters as much as reading the extract: it tells you whether the change you were told about actually went through, and whether anyone objected while it was pending.
One piece of land, or one person's land
The 7/12 describes one piece of land. If what you want is everything one person holds in a village, that is the 8A extract: the holder's account, listing every Gat number under their name with the total area. Buyers often need both: the 8A to see the scale of a holding, the 7/12 for each parcel in it.
And then the part it cannot do
A 7/12 will not show you where the land is. It names a Gat number and states an area; it draws nothing. The boundary, the thing most disagreements are actually about, lives on the Gaav Nakasha, and a holding of several Pot-Hissas lives across several sheets of it.
Put those sheets together along the boundaries they share and you get the drawing the extract implies: one continuous map of the whole holding, at full resolution, ready to print or to hand to a valuer.
🔗 Maharashtra land & survey glossary →Frequently asked questions
What does the other-rights column on a 7/12 mean?+
It records what is charged against the land: loans, tenancy entries, court orders and notes of dispute. It is the column a buyer should read first, because it is where an encumbrance that survives the sale will be written.
What is the difference between a 7/12 and an 8A extract?+
The 7/12 is one piece of land. The 8A is one person's account for a village: every Gat number they hold there, with the total area. One answers 'what is this land', the other 'what does this person hold'.
Why does the 7/12 still show the seller's father's name?+
Because the mutation recording the inheritance has not been certified. Until the Ferfar is entered the extract shows the earlier holder, and everyone reading the record downstream will see the same thing.