Glossary
Sikkim land & survey glossary
Plain-language meanings for the words on your Parcha Khatiyan and cadastral map, what each one is, and which of them you actually need before joining your sheets.
12 terms
- Revenue block
- The unit Sikkim's land records are kept in, in place of the revenue village used in most states. Each block has its own cadastral map and Khatiyan, and every map or record request names the block.
- Cadastral map
- The survey map of one revenue block, showing every plot with its plot number and boundaries. It is drawn across several sheets, so a holding near a sheet edge, or across two blocks, needs more than one sheet joined to be seen whole.
- Plot number
- The number that identifies one plot on a revenue block's cadastral map. It is unique only within its block, so it always travels with the block's name.
- Khatiyan
- The record of rights for a revenue block: each holder, the Khatiyan number, and the plots in each holding with their area. It records who holds the land in the revenue record; title comes from the documents behind it.
- Parcha KhatiyanParcha
- The holder's copy of a Khatiyan entry, naming the holder, the Khatiyan number and each plot in the holding with its area. It is the document a map request starts from, because it gives the block and plot numbers exactly.
- Khatiyan number
- The number of a holding's entry in the revenue block's Khatiyan. One Khatiyan number can cover many plots.
- Mutation
- The change to the Khatiyan that records a transfer by inheritance, gift, partition or sale. Until it is made, the record still names the previous holder.
- Revenue Order No. 1
- The old Sikkim order that restricts the transfer of land held by Bhutia and Lepcha people to others. Whether it applies to a plot is one of the first things to establish, and what it permits is a question for the land revenue office and an advocate.
- Article 371F
- The article of the Constitution with special provisions for Sikkim, under which the state's old laws, including those on land, continue. It is why land law in Sikkim differs from the rest of India.
- Certificate of IdentificationCOI
- The certificate that identifies a person as Sikkimese, often asked for in land matters alongside the older Sikkim Subject certificate. Which documents a particular transaction needs is a question for the land revenue office and an advocate.
- District Collector
- The head of a district's revenue administration, and the office above the sub-divisions for land-record questions they cannot settle.
- Sub-Divisional MagistrateSDM
- The officer at the head of a sub-division, responsible for its revenue administration. Revenue blocks sit within sub-divisions, and many land-record questions go to the SDM's office first.