Farmland in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh

Which office decides what: A member of a tribe that the Code treats as aboriginal needs written permission from a revenue officer of at least Collector rank to sell land outside a notified area, and in a notified area the bar on sale to a non-tribal is absolute (section 165(6); Supreme Court, April 2025). The Supreme Court accepted in April 2025 that an Additional Collector can grant that permission under a valid work-allocation order (Lawyer E-News, April 2025). Sale deeds are registered through the Registration Department, which launched the Sampada 2.0 online registration system in October 2024 (The Statesman, October 2024).

Section 165 and tribal land: The April 2025 judgment concerned 6.29 hectares in Ratlam district outside the notified tehsils; the sale went through because the Additional Collector had given written permission, the price was above market value and a 10-year bar on changing the land’s use was attached under section 165(6-ee) (Supreme Court, April 2025). The High Court had earlier upheld the same sale and noted the Patwari’s report, the sellers’ need to fund a marriage and settle loans, and the land they kept (High Court, October 2023). Permission is a gate, not a formality: a sale with no permission is exposed. Under section 170B a transfer made by fraud can be reverted to the tribal owner or heirs, and the Supreme Court in March 2019 held that a civil court could not revisit a Collector’s 1985 section 170B order that had survived a writ petition (Supreme Court, March 2019).

Wills and indirect transfers: In February 2025 the High Court held that “transfer” in section 165(6) is not confined to sale and covers a Will of tribal land in favour of a non-tribal, so Collector permission was needed there too (High Court, February 2025). A buyer cannot assume that an inheritance document or a power of attorney avoids the permission step. There is a narrow carve-out: in October 2024 the High Court, relying on an older Division Bench ruling, held that sections 165(6) and 170 do not apply to Nazul land in an urban area, and sent the question of whether a given parcel was Nazul or Abadi back to the Additional Commissioner (High Court, October 2024).

Diversion and the Code: Turning farmland to another use is a diversion. A June 2022 High Court order refers to land “diverted under section 172” to non-agricultural purposes, and the Supreme Court has described section 59 as allowing reassessment of land revenue on a change of use, with a premium that the Sub-Divisional Officer may impose (High Court, June 2022; Supreme Court, August 2008). We could not read the current text of sections 172 and 190, so this page does not describe their procedure or fees, and a seller’s diversion order should be read in full, not taken on trust.

Ceiling on holdings: The Madhya Pradesh Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1960 caps how much one holder or family may hold and provides for acquiring surplus land. In the 2021 case the Supreme Court quoted section 7(b) as allowing a family of five or fewer 54 acres, and set aside surplus declarations where a pending suit had not been disclosed (Supreme Court, January 2021). A legal-database copy of the Act lists three tiers for a family of five or fewer: 18 acres of two-crop irrigated land, 27 acres of one-crop irrigated land and 54 acres of dry land, and says land cannot be transferred before the final ceiling order without the Collector’s written permission, unless the holder is within the ceiling (legal database text of the 1960 Act). Treat those figures as the Act’s text as published there, and have a lawyer check the current schedule before buying a large holding.

Who may buy: None of the court orders or Act texts we opened bars a buyer simply for not being a farmer; the limits that turned up were the tribal-land permission in section 165(6) and the ceiling on holdings. We found no state notice listing other buyer conditions, so confirm with the Registration Department and the Collector’s office that none applies to the district you are looking at.

Registration and stamping: The Indian Stamp (Madhya Pradesh Second Amendment) Act, 2025 was published on 17 December 2025 and changes how short-stamped documents are handled, including a penalty of 1% of the deficient portion per month (TeamLease RegTech, December 2025). Duty rates are covered in the stamp duty section below.

Land records: Madhya Pradesh land records (khasra and the B-1 extract) are issued through the state’s MP Bhulekh portal. We could not open that portal for this page and found no independent description of its current fields or fees, so ask the seller for a fresh extract and compare the survey number, area and recorded owner with the sale deed.

NRI and OCI buyers: The Reserve Bank’s Master Direction under FEMA 1999 excludes agricultural land, plantation land and a farm house from what NRIs and OCIs may buy, in Madhya Pradesh as elsewhere (RBI Master Direction FED 12/2015-16, updated to September 2022). They can buy other immovable assets such as residential or commercial sites, and inheritance is treated separately in the Direction. Benami-law exposure was not checked against the Act text for this page, so take legal advice before using a nominee.