Hyderabad: The Telangana Revenue Department on Wednesday issued a formal notification for the regularisation of sadabainama land deals, a move that could potentially benefit around 9.8 lakh applicants across the state. The notification covers unregistered land sale agreements filed between October 12 and November 10, 2020, under the provisions of Section 6(1) of the Bhubhag Bharati Act, 2025.
Applicants must be small or marginal farmers who submitted documents showing possession of the land before June 2, 2024. Additionally, the land must have been under their continuous control for no less than 12 years. Eligibility will be verified using sadabainama documents alongside pattadar passbooks that show active cultivation.
Legal hurdles earlier halted sadabainama land deals
The regularisation of sadabainama land transactions has a long and complex history in Telangana. In 2016, the then state government undertook a similar exercise, limited to deals executed before June 2, 2014, and applicable only outside urban areas. A second round of applications was invited in 2020. However, a legal setback followed after amendments to the Revenue Records Act (ROR) in October 2020 did not include clauses for regularisation.
This omission triggered multiple court cases. The judiciary ruled that only those applications filed under the 1971 version of the ROR Act would be valid. The court’s directive led to a complete halt in processing sadabainama applications and stalled the government’s intended reforms. Although the government had considered bringing in an ordinance, the plan did not materialise.
Political leaders, including Chief Minister Revanth Reddy and Revenue Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy, repeatedly pledged to resolve the issue. During the 2023 Assembly election campaign and afterwards, they promised to bring justice to sadabainama farmers. Recently, the High Court permitted the issuance of 13-B proceedings, enabling the government to move forward with the regularisation.
To replace the defunct 2020 law, the Congress-led administration introduced the Bhubhag Bharati Act, 2025. This new Act reintroduced regularisation provisions through Section 6 and designated Revenue Divisional Officers (RDOs) as the competent inquiry authorities. Under this framework, if the state decides to allow new applications, it will collect only the stamp duty applicable on the date of the original submission, not current market rates.
Once regularisation is complete, applicants will receive legal ownership rights, updated land passbooks, and the ability to register or mutate their holdings. This is expected to benefit farmers and also generate revenue for the government through legal transactions.
