Khata Shows the Seller, EC Shows Someone Else: Whose Name Counts?

Quick answer: for title, the Encumbrance Certificate prevails. The usual explanation misses the reason, though. A khata is a municipal tax entry. An EC lists every deed registered against the property. They respond to separate questions, so they may honestly differ. The direction of the gap is what counts. When the khata is simply older than the EC, the cause is a delayed mutation and nothing to worry about. When the khata names the seller but the last registered sale in the EC went to another person, assume the title has failed until the seller proves otherwise. Officers may mutate a khata on the strength of a GPA, an agreement or a will. None of those three passes ownership.

Two papers, two names, a single property. Buyers usually find this out late. The token amount is being discussed, the seller sounds sure, and then the khata gives one name while the Encumbrance Certificate (EC) gives a different one. Online advice says 'the EC is right, get the khata changed'. That holds for the easy situation and can badly mislead you in the hard one. Below, the two situations are separated so you know which you are facing before any money moves.

Why the khata and the EC cannot be compared directly

Property in India is handled through different systems that do not talk to each other, and neither office informs the other of what it has entered.

• Registration (Sub-Registrar's office): a registered sale, gift, mortgage or partition becomes an instrument in the register. The Encumbrance Certificate lists such instruments for a chosen period. Read one after another, they show the chain of registered ownership. For example, A sold to B in 2009, B mortgaged to a bank in 2014, and B sold to C in 2021. This comes nearest to a public trail of title in India.
• Municipal / revenue (municipality, panchayat or tehsildar): the khata, which has other names in other states but the same function, shows who is assessed for property tax and linked to civic services. Mutation, an administrative step, changes the name in the tax rolls.

This clears up most of the alarm: neither paper gives title. A registered deed moves ownership, and the EC just notes that the deed exists. The khata notes who pays tax and was never proof of owning. The Supreme Court repeated the point in 2026. In Jamnabai (Jamnabai and Others v. Vasudev and Others), a revenue entry was said neither to create nor to extinguish title, and to serve a fiscal purpose only. Revenue records also confer no ownership, ruled the Court in Vadiyala Prabhakar Rao (Government of Andhra Pradesh was the respondent), cited as 2026 INSC 450. So skip the question of which paper owns the property. Ask which paper sits nearer to the registered title and why the two differ.

Which paper is right depends on the direction of the gap

The same complaint covers two quite different situations, with opposite levels of risk.

Case 1: the khata trails the EC (usually fine)

Here the EC lists the seller as the latest registered buyer, while the khata still bears the earlier owner's name. This is the ordinary, harmless version. The sale to the seller was registered, but nobody finished the khata mutation, often because the seller never filed after purchase. The remedy is routine. The seller applies for khata transfer with the registered sale deed, the previous khata, the recent EC, tax receipts and ID. The registered deed is the anchor and the khata merely needs to catch up. Nearly every article online deals with this case only.

Case 2: seller on the khata, someone else on the EC (a title failure until shown otherwise)

Few writers explain this risky mismatch. The seller produces a khata in his own name, which looks like proof of ownership. When you pull the EC, the latest registered transfer went to a third party and the seller is nowhere in the registered chain.

Do not take 'the khata proves it is mine' at face value. A khata can carry the name of someone with no registered title, as mutation officers may act on papers that move no ownership. Imagine the seller got into the tax rolls via a GPA, an agreement to sell that was never registered, an affidavit, or a will. The khata would show his name confidently while the registered title stays with the person named in the EC. In that setting the EC is truthful and the khata is misleading.

How a khata ends up with a non-owner's name

Once you see the mechanism it is easy. For immovable property worth Rs. 100 or more, ownership moves only by registered deed. The legal basis is Section 54, in the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, together with Section 17, in the Registration Act, 1908 (a deed must be registered). A GPA, an agreement to sell or a will cannot do the job. The Court was explicit in the Suraj Lamp & Industries case against Haryana, reported at (2012) 1 SCC 656, ruling that so-called GPA sales and sale-agreement transfers give no title and are not conveyances.

Mutation faces no such registration test. Revenue and municipal staff commonly accept a GPA, agreement, family arrangement or merely an application as grounds for mutation, because a khata exists for collecting tax, not for proving title. Hence the repeated judicial line that mutation neither creates nor ends title: Jamnabai (2026), and before it Sawarni v. Inder Kaur, (1996) 6 SCC 223 and Jitendra Singh (M.P.), decided 2021. The name in a khata tells you who pays tax, and that is all.

So a seller holding merely a GPA given by the true owner can get the khata shifted to himself and cite it as 'proof', yet stay absent from the EC, since a GPA is not a registered conveyance. That absence is not a portal fault. It is the register saying he never received registered title.

A five-minute check: delay or defective title?

Follow these in sequence. The cost is a few hundred rupees and the answer is clear.

• Go through the EC entry by entry, not only the final line. Note the latest registered instrument and its named buyer. If that is the seller, you have Case 1. If someone else, Case 2.
• Request the registered deed under which the seller claims to have acquired the property. A real one appears on the EC and bears a registration number. If all he can show is a GPA, agreement, will or 'the khata itself', no registered acquisition exists and the khata has nothing behind it.
• Get the mutation record and see its basis. The register or khata extract usually names the paper behind the entry. Words such as 'Mutated on GPA dated...' or 'on agreement dated...' should alarm you, while a reference to a registered sale deed number is reassuring.
• Apply for certified copies of the key deeds using Section 57 of the Registration Act, 1908 (the right to certified copies). Only a copy certified by the Sub-Registrar shows that the registered instrument is genuine; the seller's photocopy cannot.
• If a third party holds registered title, the seller has to repair his own title first, since no one can convey what he lacks. Either the true owner sells to you directly or the seller first obtains a registered deed in his own name before selling on.

Karnataka 2024-26: a mismatch can now stop the registration

In Bengaluru or any BBMP/GBA area this has moved beyond due diligence into a registration barrier. From 1 October 2024 a verified e-Khata is required to register a property, and the Kaveri 2.0 system refuses to register a sale when the e-Khata is absent or fails to match. A difference in owner name, address or dimensions has to be settled through the verification process before registration and not afterwards. Where the khata name and the sale papers conflict, the seller goes to the zonal Assistant Revenue Officer (ARO) with the sale deed and ID and files a written correction. If it hangs for more than 30 days, it goes up to the Zonal Deputy Commissioner (Revenue).

As a buyer in Karnataka you will be stopped at the Sub-Registrar's counter by a Case 2 mismatch. It irritates you in the harmless version, but in the dangerous one the system protects you by turning down a sale by someone who cannot demonstrate clean title.

Gaps in an EC: why clean is not the end of the check

Even after settling the name issue, bear in mind where the EC is blind, because that is where a Case 2 problem tends to hide:

• Unregistered instruments cannot be seen. The EC shows registered documents alone. A GPA, an unregistered agreement or an oral family arrangement the seller depends on will not be there. Their absence does not mean clean. It means not recorded in this register.
• In Karnataka the online EC starts in April 2004. The instant EC from Kaveri takes in registrations only from 1 April 2004. If the seller's registered deed is older than that, you need the hybrid pre-2004 EC search, otherwise he may seem missing when he is not.
• Court cases are never listed. Neither a pending suit nor a lis pendens claim is a registrable instrument. A clean EC therefore stays silent on litigation affecting the property, and only a distinct name-based litigation search will show it.

Steps to take before paying

• Pull a 30-year EC for the right survey number and read the entire chain rather than only the newest entry.
• Match the seller's registered sale deed against the final transfer listed in the EC. Should the seller not be the last registered owner, pause and sort this out ahead of any advance.
• Check what the mutation was based on. A khata mutated on a GPA, agreement or will proves no ownership.
• Insist on certified copies of the key deeds (Section 57, Registration Act) in place of photocopies.
• Run a CERSAI search and a litigation search by name too. An equitable mortgage and a pending case both stay hidden from the EC.
• In Karnataka, make sure the e-Khata is verified and agrees with the deed, or registration will be refused.

A khata bearing the seller's name feels comforting but says little about ownership. The register that carries weight is the EC, and when the two conflict, it points to the holder of registered title. Your remaining job is to discover the reason: a delay in paperwork, or a seller who never owned the property.

Confirm the title before you pay

Names that differ between khata and EC are precisely what a standard title search is meant to catch. LegiScore traces the whole registered chain, gets the EC for the correct survey number, examines how the mutation was done, and carries out the CERSAI and litigation searches that an EC lacks. The outcome is a single report on whether this seller can really transfer the property. Order a title search report before paying any advance.