Vakil Help Desk News: the Allahabad High Court has held that whether mortgaged land is agricultural (and so outside SARFAESI) must be decided from evidence of its real nature and use, not revenue entries alone.
Vakil Help Desk News, Litigation & Courts. The Allahabad High Court has held that a revenue-record entry describing land as agricultural does not, by itself, take the land outside the reach of the SARFAESI Act. The decision came from Justice Irshad Ali in Smt. Rama Chaurasia v. Debts Recovery Appellate Tribunal & Others.
The borrower had mortgaged land to a bank, which later enforced the security and auctioned the property after default. She argued that the land was agricultural and had never been converted to non-agricultural use, so Section 31(i) of SARFAESI (which excludes agricultural land) barred the bank. The Debts Recovery Tribunal accepted this, but the Appellate Tribunal reversed it.
Upholding the appellate view, the High Court held that the agricultural character of land must be decided from evidence of its actual nature and use, not merely from revenue entries or the absence of a conversion order. The absence of current farming does not automatically mean the land is still agricultural, and the borrower had not shown the appellate findings were perverse. The writ petition was dismissed.
What this means for you
Claiming land is agricultural to block a SARFAESI auction needs proof of genuine agricultural use — a revenue entry on its own may not save it.