APPLICATION FOR A CERTIFIED COPY OF THE RECORD OF RIGHTS (FARD / NAKAL JAMABANDI)

Made under Rule 71 and Rule 71-B of the Punjab Land Revenue Rules, framed under sections 155 and 156 of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887, for a certified extract of the record of rights maintained under sections 31 and 33 of that Act.

Before you print this. Print two copies. The counter keeps one and returns the other to you with the token number and the date of delivery written on it — that returned copy is the only thing that lets you chase the file or file a Right to Service appeal, so do not leave without it. Do not buy stamp paper for this: an application to a revenue officer bears no stamp duty. Carry the copying fee in cash in small notes, and carry your photograph identity document. The Annexure at the end tells you which counter to walk into, what it costs and how long it should take; it is guidance for you and is not part of the application.

To

__________
Tehsil __________
District __________, Punjab
(Halqa and revenue estate concerned: Village __________)

From

__________
__________
__________
Mobile: __________

Date: __________ Place: __________

Subject: Application for __________, in respect of land situated in the revenue estate of Village __________, Tehsil __________, District __________

Sir / Madam,

1. Who is applying

1.1 I am __________, __________, resident of __________. My mobile number is __________, and I ask that the SMS intimation of readiness be sent to it.

1.2 I apply in the following capacity: __________.

1.3 I am aware that the record of rights is a public record and that a copy of it is furnished to an applicant on payment of the prescribed copying fee. I ask for no privilege beyond that, and I ask to be told nothing that is not written in the record.

2. The land, and the entry I want copied

2.1 The land to which this application relates lies in the revenue estate of Village __________, Tehsil __________, District __________, Punjab.

2.2 Its particulars, so far as they are known to me, are these:

2.3 Where a row above is left blank, that particular is not known to me. I have given every particular I have, and I request that the entry be traced from those particulars read together with the name standing in the ownership column and the khasra numbers.

2.4 I am aware that under paragraph 7.41 of the Punjab Land Records Manual the khewat number is the number of the owners' holding, arranged in the order of the shajra nasab of the estate, while the khatauni number is the number of the holding of the person responsible for cultivation, self-cultivation (khudkasht) being entered first and tenants-at-will after it. If I have given one number where the other was needed, please trace the entry from the khasra numbers.

3. What I am asking you to issue

3.1 Please issue __________ certified copy or copies of __________.

3.2 Where the record I have asked for is one that is identified by its own number or its own field numbers — a mutation, a rapat in the roznamcha waqiati, a fard badar, a khasra girdawari or a tatima shajra — the identifying particular is in the table at paragraph 2.2. If that row is blank, or if the number I have written there does not answer to the record, please do not reject this application on that ground: trace the entry from the khewat and khasra numbers, from the name standing in the ownership column and from the estate, issue the copy, and write on the acknowledgment the number you have in fact used, so that I can quote it correctly next time.

3.3 Please issue the copy attested in the manner your office attests a nakal — that is, signed and sealed by the officer authorised by the District Collector to issue computerised nakals under Rule 71-B of the Punjab Land Revenue Rules, notified vide No. G.S.R/P.A/1887/Ss.155 and 156/Amd.2009 dated 28-05-2009, or signed by the Halqa Patwari where the copy is made from the patwari's own record under Rule 71.

3.4 Please see that the copy carries on its face the name and hadbast number of the estate, the tehsil and district, the jamabandi year to which the entry belongs, the date of issue, and — where the copy is a computerised or digitally signed one — the verification number and QR code by which its genuineness can be checked. A nakal without the year and the date of issue is turned away by banks and by revenue courts, and I would then have to apply a second time.

3.5 As to delivery: __________.

4. Why I need the copy

4.1 I require the copy for the following purpose: __________.

4.2 I apply for it for that purpose and for no other. I am aware that the purpose makes no difference to what the record says, and that stating it is a courtesy to the office rather than a condition of being given a copy of a public record.

5. The fee

5.1 I undertake to pay the copying fee properly chargeable for this record, and I request a receipt for whatever is paid, showing the number of pages charged and the head to which it is credited. There are two different fees in this area and I set out both, so that the right one can be applied rather than argued about.

5.2 Where the copy is made from the Halqa Patwari's own record under Rule 71 of the Punjab Land Revenue Rules, the scale is the one at paragraph 3.48 of the Punjab Land Records Manual as published by the Department of Revenue, Rehabilitation and Disaster Management, Punjab, checked on 6 September 2026: a certified copy of a jamabandi, of a fard badar, of a pending mutation, of the interrogatories in a pending mutation, of the counterfoil of a mutation sheet or of the misal haqiat is charged at Rs 20 per page of the original document; a fard haqiat is charged Rs 20 as a fixed charge irrespective of the number of khewats; a tracing of a field map or a tatima shajra is charged Rs 20 per four fields; and inspection of the papers of one quinquennium is charged Rs 20 per inspection.

5.3 Where the copy is a computerised nakal issued under Rule 71-B, that scale is not the governing one. The fee is the amount fixed by the notification No. G.S.R/P.A/1887/Ss.155 and 156/Amd.2009 dated 28-05-2009, which is the provision under which a person authorised by the District Collector furnishes computerised nakals, and neither the 2009 nor the 2016 PLRS Fard Kendra Operational Manual reproduces the figure. I therefore do not assert an amount for a computerised nakal. Please show me the fee on the screen before the copy is printed, tell me the number of pages you have counted, and issue the receipt.

5.4 I am aware that the copying fee under Rule 71 is credited to the head '0029 - Land Revenue - 800 - other Receipts - 07 - Copying and Inspection Fee of patwaris Record', that the patwari retains no share of it, and that nothing beyond the receipted fee is due from me to anybody inside this office or outside it. I am also aware that the mutation fee and the pasting fee shown in the Revenue Department's document-wise fee table are charges on a mutation and on a registered document and are not payable on an application for a copy.

5.5 Where a copy is required for a public purpose by a public officer of the Central Government or of the Government of Punjab within the meaning of section 2(17) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, no fee is chargeable, and this application is to be dealt with on that footing if that is the position.

6. Time limit, acknowledgment, and what to do if the record is not here

6.1 The issue of a certified copy of a land record is a notified service under the Punjab Transparency and Accountability in Delivery of Public Services Act, 2018. The notified limits are one day for a certified copy issued at Fard Kendra level; and at village level two days for a copy running to five pages or fewer, three days for six to fourteen pages, and seven days for fifteen pages or more. Two days are added where the application is presented at a Sewa Kendra, a Suwidha Centre, a Fard Kendra or a Saanjh Kendra.

6.2 Please therefore give me an acknowledgment bearing the application or token number, the number of pages assessed, the fee received and the date on which the copy will be ready. If the copy is not issued within the notified period I shall be entitled to appeal to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate as First Appellate Authority and thereafter to the Deputy Commissioner as Second Appellate Authority.

6.3 If the record for the year asked for is not held at this office — because the jamabandi has been consigned to the district record room, because the estate has been or is under consolidation proceedings, or because the record is held at another tehsil or sub-tehsil — please tell me so in writing, tell me where it is held, and tell me what further application I should make, so that the fee I have already paid is not wasted and I am not sent on a second useless journey.

6.4 If the entry cannot be traced from the particulars in paragraph 2, please tell me in writing what further particular you need rather than returning the application without a reason. The particular most often missing is the hadbast number of the estate, and I will supply it on being asked.

7. What I understand a fard to be, and what I do not claim for it

7.1 I understand that an entry in a record of rights or in an annual record is presumed to be true until the contrary is proved or a new entry is lawfully substituted for it — section 44, Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 — and that this is a rebuttable presumption and not a guarantee of title.

7.2 I understand that if I dispute what an entry says, my remedy is a suit for a declaratory decree under section 45 of that Act read with section 34 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963, and that nothing issued on this application decides anything about ownership.

7.3 I understand that a copy of an entry in the record of rights is not a deed, is not a conveyance, and does not by itself transfer, create or extinguish any right in the land; that the revenue chain moves entries and not title; and that a fard produced in a sale or a loan is treated as current only for a short period after its date of issue.

7.4 I understand that if what I want is the record corrected rather than copied, this is the wrong application. A correction of an entry made while preparing the current consigned jamabandi is a fard badar decided by the Circle Revenue Officer; a correction reaching back into earlier jamabandis is a fard badar decided by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, under paragraph 7.29 of the Punjab Land Records Manual; and paragraph 7.30 of that Manual forbids the use of a mutation to correct an entry already incorporated in the jamabandi.

7.5 The particulars given in this application are true to the best of my knowledge, information and belief, and I have concealed nothing material.

8. Enclosures

An application handed in without its enclosures is the commonest reason a nakal is refused at the counter. Tick each line before you join the queue.

☐ Self-attested copy of my photograph identity document.

☐ Any earlier fard, jamabandi extract, mutation copy or registered deed for this holding that I already hold, so that the khewat and khasra numbers on it can be matched against the register. Not compulsory, and its absence is not a ground for refusal, but it is the quickest way for the operator to find the entry.

☐ Whatever paper I hold in proof of the capacity described in paragraph 1.2 — for example the registered deed, the agreement to sell, the death certificate and heirship papers, the tenancy entry, the mortgage document, the power of attorney, or the bank's requisition. Not compulsory for a copy of a public record, but it settles the question if it is raised.

☐ The copying fee, in cash, and this application in duplicate.

Yours faithfully,

_______________________________
__________
__________
__________
Mobile: __________
Date: __________ Place: __________

For office use

Application / token number: ____________________ Date of receipt: ____________

Record traced: Khewat ____________ Khatauni ____________ Jamabandi year ____________

Number actually used for the mutation, rapat or fard badar asked for: ____________________

Pages charged: ____________ Rule applied: Rule 71 / Rule 71-B Fee received Rs ____________ Receipt number: ____________

Date the copy will be ready: ____________ Issued by (designation): ____________________

ANNEXURE — HOW TO FILE THIS IN PUNJAB, AND WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

This annexure is guidance for you. It is not part of the application above, you do not have to hand it in, and no officer needs to see it.

Everything in this annexure was verified on 6 September 2026. Fees, counters, portal service lists and Right to Service limits are the fastest-ageing content on this page. The single figure most worth re-checking before you travel is the copying fee, and the counter will tell you in ten seconds.

A. The three ways to get a fard, and which one to use

One — online, and this is now the ordinary way. The Punjab Land Records portal at jamabandi.punjab.gov.in, run by the Department of Revenue, Rehabilitation and Disaster Management, covers all twenty-three districts. You can view a jamabandi by owner name, by khewat, by khasra or by khatauni; view a mutation by its number; view a roznamcha by rapat or waqiati number; view registered deeds; and request a Digitally Signed Copy of Fard. The same portal takes online requests for Mutation of Inheritance, Mutation on the basis of a Deed, Oral or Family Partition (Takseem), Fard Badar, Rapat and Subscription. The Easy Jamabandi initiative launched on 13 June 2025 added delivery of a jamabandi over WhatsApp, online intkal, rapat entry and fard badar, and a subscription that alerts you to any change in your own landholding at Rs 500 a year per holding; the Government said at that launch that jamabandi copies themselves would be free. A digitally signed copy carries a digital signature and a QR code, and sections 4 and 5 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 give an electronic record and an electronic signature the same legal effect as writing and a signature — so a bank or an office demanding a separately tehsil-attested paper fard on top of it is asking for something the law does not require.

Two — the Fard Kendra counter at the tehsil or sub-tehsil. The Fard Kendra is the computerised counter set up by the Punjab Land Records Society (PLRS, Jalandhar), through which the revenue staff update the record and the public are given nakals. It issues nakals of the jamabandi, of mutations, of the roznamcha, of the khasra girdawari, of a fard badar, of the field book, of the mussavis and of the shajra nasab. It works Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and takes requests only up to 4:00 PM so that delivery can be completed the same day. Copies are furnished by a person authorised by the District Collector, under Rule 71-B of the Punjab Land Revenue Rules, notified vide No. G.S.R/P.A/1887/Ss.155 and 156/Amd.2009 dated 28-05-2009. Ask for the Assistant System Manager if the operator cannot help you. Some tehsils keep a printed arji of their own for a nakal; if the counter hands you one, fill in that form and attach this application behind it rather than arguing about which paper is correct — the particulars, the fee request and the acknowledgment request all still stand, and a clerk who has his own form on top of them will process the file.

A warning about which counter actually exists. In April 2025 the Government decided to close the Fard Kendras and shift their work to the Sewa Kendras, a decision that affected around 950 computer operators engaged on the PLRS project. Yet punjab.gov.in was still saying there are 157 Fard Kendras on a page last updated 04-09-2026. Both cannot be current everywhere, and which of them is true in your tehsil is a local fact. Telephone the tehsil, or look your service up on esewa.punjab.gov.in, before you drive there. The addressee block of this application is a choice field for exactly that reason — set it to the counter that exists where you are going.

Three — the Halqa Patwari, in the village. The patwari holds his own copy of the jamabandi (the Parat Patwar), the register of mutations, the roznamcha waqiati and the khasra girdawari, and Rule 71 of the Punjab Land Revenue Rules is the provision under which he allows inspection and grants certified extracts. This is the route for an old jamabandi that is not on the portal, for a girdawari entry, and for a village where the computerised record has a gap — land records are digitised for 12,500 of Punjab's 12,993 villages, so the remaining five hundred are a counter visit whatever the screen says. The patwari sits on a roster, so ask when. Address him by his halqa and his village, not by the tehsil alone, or the paper lands on the Office Kanungo's desk instead; the addressee block of this application prints the village and the hadbast number for that reason.

B. What it costs

There is no stamp duty on this application and there is no registration fee. Those charges belong to deeds, not to applications, and a tout offering to sell you stamp paper for a fard is selling you nothing.

What you pay is a copying fee, and which fee depends on which counter you are at.

At the patwari, under Rule 71. Paragraph 3.48 of the Punjab Land Records Manual, as published by the Department of Revenue, Rehabilitation and Disaster Management, Punjab and checked on 6 September 2026, sets the scale: Rs 20 per page of the original for a jamabandi copy, a fard badar, a copy of a pending mutation, the interrogatories in a pending mutation, the counterfoil of a mutation sheet and the misal haqiat; Rs 20 as a fixed charge for a fard haqiat irrespective of how many khewats it covers; Rs 20 per four fields for a tracing of a field map or a tatima shajra; and Rs 20 per inspection for the papers of one quinquennium. The money is credited to head '0029 - Land Revenue - 800 - other Receipts - 07 - Copying and Inspection Fee of patwaris Record'. The patwari keeps none of it and is forbidden to supply copies of papers that are not in that table.

At a Fard Kendra, under Rule 71-B — and here the honest answer is that the figure is not published. A computerised nakal is charged under Rule 71-B, notified vide No. G.S.R/P.A/1887/Ss.155 and 156/Amd.2009 dated 28-05-2009, and the notification is what fixes the amount. Neither the 2009 nor the 2016 PLRS Fard Kendra Operational Manual prints it. Press reporting and ordinary counter practice both put a computerised jamabandi nakal at around Rs 20, which is the same order as the Rule 71 scale, but that is practice and not a citation, and this page does not assert it as the rate. Ask the operator to show you the fee on the screen before he prints, and take the receipt. The receipt is what settles the question, and paragraph 5.3 of the application asks for exactly that.

One further caveat on the Rule 71 scale. The Punjab Land Records Manual is a consolidated document of uncertain vintage, and the Revenue Department's own fees page on revenue.punjab.gov.in still reproduces an older, paise-denominated version of the same paragraph 3.48 table — sixty paise per khatauni holding and so on — which has plainly been overtaken but has not been taken down; checked 6 September 2026.

Three things you should not be charged on this application. The mutation fee of Rs 600 and the pasting fee of Rs 200 shown in the Revenue Department's document-wise fee table (retrieved 6 September 2026; the table itself carries no date or notification number) are charges on a mutation and on a registered document, not on a copy; the mutation fee is recovered by the Revenue Officer at attestation and only from the person in whose favour the mutation is made, under paragraph 7.33 of the Manual and section 38(2) of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887. And a court-fee stamp is not prescribed for a copying application, is not normally demanded at a Fard Kendra, and should not be bought in advance. If a particular clerk asks for one on a petition addressed to the Tehsildar, the stamp vendor sitting outside the tehsil sells it, and the Reader to the Tehsildar will tell you the denomination.

If the copy is wanted for a public purpose by a public officer of the Central Government or of the Government of Punjab within section 2(17) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, it is supplied free of charge.

C. How long it should take

The issue of a certified copy of a land record is a notified service under the Punjab Transparency and Accountability in Delivery of Public Services Act, 2018 and the Rules of 2018. The limits are one day at Fard Kendra level, and at village level two days for a copy of up to five pages, three days for six to fourteen pages and seven days for fifteen pages or more. Two days are added where the application goes in at a Sewa Kendra, a Suwidha Centre, a Fard Kendra or a Saanjh Kendra. If the limit passes, the First Appellate Authority is the Sub-Divisional Magistrate and the Second Appellate Authority is the Deputy Commissioner. Take your acknowledgment with you, because an appeal without a token number is an appeal about nothing.

One caution. The Easy Jamabandi launch of 13 June 2025 announced its own timelines — mutation within thirty days of registration or of an inheritance request, fard badar in fifteen days, a rapat in one day for a court order and seven days for a loan. It has not been established whether those are notified service limits under the 2018 Act or promises made at a launch, and the thirty-day mutation figure sits alongside a notified Right to Service limit of forty-five days for attestation of an uncontested mutation. For a copy application this does not bite, because the copying limits above are the notified ones. For a mutation it does, because it decides whether an appeal can be filed on the shorter period.

D. What you get back, and how to read it

A fard reproduces the jamabandi entry: the khewat and khatauni numbers, the names in the ownership column with their shares, the names in the cultivation column, the khasra or killa numbers with the area of each, the land revenue and cesses, and the column of other rights and encumbrances, which is where a mortgage, a lease, a court attachment or a decree is noted.

Two things about it catch people out. The jamabandi is prepared quinquennially — once in five years — and mutations on which final orders are passed up to 15 June, or a later date approved by the Director, Land Records, go into the new jamabandi (Punjab Land Records Manual, paragraph 7.56, tracing to Financial Commissioner's circular No. 30 dated 4 December 1909). So a mutation sanctioned last month will very often not appear in the jamabandi you are handed. Ask separately for the nakal intkal and for the register of pending mutations, and read the two together. And the entry is presumed true only until the contrary is proved (section 44, Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887); the record moves entries, while title is decided by a civil court on a suit under section 45 read with section 34 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963.

E. The chain of officers, so you know who to ask for

The Halqa Patwari keeps the record and makes the entries. The Field Kanungo, the girdawar, supervises a circle of patwaris and validates the patwari's entry in the computerised system before the Parat Patwar and Parat Sarkar copies are generated. The Office Kanungo sits at the tehsil, distributes the Parcha Yadasht received from the Sub-Registrar, and holds the consigned Parat Sarkar copies. The Circle Revenue Officer — a Tehsildar or a Naib-Tehsildar, all of whom are appointed Assistant Collectors of the second grade — sanctions or rejects mutations and decides a fard badar confined to the current jamabandi; the estates of a tehsil are divided between the Tehsildar and the Naib-Tehsildar each year, the division changing on 1 October, so which of the two is yours depends on the estate and the year. The Sub-Divisional Magistrate decides a fard badar that reaches into earlier jamabandis, is Chief Administrator of the Fard Kendra, and is First Appellate Authority under the Right to Service framework. The Deputy Commissioner is Collector of the district by virtue of office and is Second Appellate Authority. Appeals under section 13 of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 lie to the Collector within thirty days, to the Commissioner of the Division within sixty, and to the Financial Commissioner (Revenue) within ninety — section 14. Ask for a designation, never for a name.

F. What this application is not for, and where to go instead

• You want the entry corrected. That is a fard badar, and there is an online request for it on jamabandi.punjab.gov.in. Paragraph 7.29 of the Punjab Land Records Manual splits it: the Circle Revenue Officer decides a correction confined to entries made in preparing the current consigned jamabandi, and the Sub-Divisional Magistrate decides one that reaches into earlier jamabandis. Paragraph 7.29 also says the parties need not be heard, which is worth knowing before you sit waiting for a notice that is not coming. Paragraph 7.30 bars using a mutation to correct a jamabandi entry.
• You want the record to show your name after a purchase, a gift or a death. That is a mutation (intkal), reported to the Halqa Patwari and attested by the Circle Revenue Officer, and it is a different application. After a registered sale the Sub-Registrar sends the Parcha Yadasht to the tehsil and the mutation should begin by itself; after a death somebody has to report it, and section 39 of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 puts a fine of up to five times the mutation fee on a failure to report within three months.
• You want a copy of a registered sale deed. That comes from the Sub-Registrar under section 57 of the Registration Act, 1908, not from the revenue record. A fard tells you what the record says; the deed tells you what the parties wrote.
• You want to know whether the land is mortgaged or attached. The other-rights column of the fard shows what has been entered in the revenue record, which is not the same thing as the register of registered documents. The Non-Encumbrance Certificate, issued through the Non-Encumbrance Certificate Issuance System on rcms.punjab.gov.in, is the document for that, and its notified time limit is three days.
• You want the boundary fixed on the ground. That is nishandehi, demarcation, applied for through the Land Demarcation System on rcms.punjab.gov.in, with a notified limit of forty-five days.
• You want the holding divided. Partition by mutual consent has a notified limit of thirty days and goes in as a takseem application; a contested partition goes to a revenue officer of at least Assistant Collector first grade, because section 126 of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 bars an Assistant Collector of the second grade from partition proceedings.
• The land is shamlat deh. A claim of right, title or interest in land vested, or claimed to be vested, in a Gram Panchayat goes to the Collector under section 11 of the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1961, with an appeal to the Commissioner within sixty days; section 13 of that Act bars the civil court. Note that shamilat deh expressly includes land entered in the ownership column as Jumla Malkan Wa Digar Haqdaran Arazi Hassab Rasad, Jumla Malkan or Mushtarka Malkan — so a fard showing your share under one of those descriptions is not the plain co-ownership it looks like.
• The estate is under consolidation. Objections and appeals run on the timetable of the East Punjab Holdings (Consolidation and Prevention of Fragmentation) Act, 1948 — thirty days to object to the draft scheme, fifteen days to object to repartition, one month to appeal to the Settlement Officer (Consolidation), sixty days to the Assistant Director of Consolidation, and six months to apply under section 42 — and the record you are holding may be about to be replaced.

G. One caution about looking the law up yourself

Be careful what you land on. A large share of the search results for "Punjab land revenue" are the land revenue law of Pakistan's Punjab province, whose Act and rules carry different years, different section numbers and a different identity document, and the numbering looks plausible enough to mislead a careful person. This application is written on the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887, and the official sources for it are revenue.punjab.gov.in, plrs.org.in, jamabandi.punjab.gov.in and rcms.punjab.gov.in. If the page you are reading is not on one of those four, check the year of the Act before you rely on a word of it.