LEGAL NOTICE

Revoking permissive possession, demanding vacant possession, and demanding a full account

Sent by __________

Date: __________

FROM (the Owner)

__________, __________, __________
__________
Email: __________
Telephone: __________

TO (the Occupant)

__________, __________
__________

SUBJECT — Your unauthorised occupation of __________ at Village/Town __________, Tehsil __________, District __________, Punjab: revocation of the permission under which you entered, demand for vacant possession within __________ days, and demand for a full and true account within __________ days.

Sir / Madam,

TAKE NOTICE as follows.

1. The Owner and the Property

1.1 I am __________, __________, __________.

1.2 This notice concerns __________, measuring __________, situated at Village/Town __________, Tehsil __________, District __________, Punjab, and more particularly described in the Schedule at the end of this notice. That property is referred to below as "the Property".

2. My title to the Property

2.1 I am the owner of the Property, having acquired it by __________.

2.2 The document or order under which I hold is: __________

2.3 My ownership appears from the following record: __________

2.4 An entry in a record-of-rights prepared and maintained under the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 is presumed to be true until the contrary is proved — section 44 of that Act — and a person who disputes such an entry is left to a suit for a declaratory decree under section 45. You have not displaced that presumption, and you cannot displace it by continuing to sit on the Property.

3. How you came to be on the Property, and on what terms

3.1 You are __________.

3.2 You were permitted to enter upon and occupy the Property on or about __________, __________.

3.3 The arrangement on which you were permitted to remain was this: __________

3.4 Your occupation was therefore permissive from the very first day. You entered by leave and licence and not in any right of your own. You have never at any time held the Property adversely to me, and no length of permissive occupation converts a licensee into an owner. Possession that begins with the owner's permission does not become adverse by the mere passage of years; it becomes adverse only upon an open and hostile denial of the owner's title, brought to the owner's knowledge.

3.5 A licence confers no interest in the land. It is a personal permission, revocable at the will of the grantor, and it comes to an end when the grantor revokes it — the position under the Indian Easements Act, 1882 and, so far as that Act does not itself govern the arrangement, under the same principles applied as rules of justice, equity and good conscience. You acquired no interest, no tenancy, no charge and no right of any kind in the Property, and you were never at any time my tenant, whether of a building or of agricultural land.

4. Revocation of the permission

4.1 I hereby revoke, withdraw, cancel and terminate, with immediate effect and absolutely, every permission, leave, licence, authority, indulgence and arrangement — express or implied, oral or written, whenever given and by whomsoever given, whether by me or by any predecessor in title of mine — under or by virtue of which you have occupied, used, cultivated, let out or dealt with the Property or any part of it.

4.2 With effect from the date on which you receive this notice, your occupation of the Property is wholly without authority and without any right, title or interest, and every day of it is a continuing wrong for which you are answerable to me.

4.3 The period of __________ days allowed by clause 7 below is allowed to you as a reasonable time to remove yourself, your family, your servants, your cattle and your goods from the Property. It is an indulgence extended so that you are not put to hardship. It is not an admission of any right in you and it is not an extension of any permission.

5. Your denial of my title, and the date of my knowledge of it

5.1 I have learnt that you now deny my title to the Property and set up a claim of your own. The particulars are these: __________

5.2 I first came to know of that denial on __________. I record that date deliberately and I record it now, because it is the date that matters and because I will not have it invented for me later.

5.3 The legal position is stated so that you understand it before you take advice on it. Article 65 of the Limitation Act, 1963 allows a suit for possession of immovable property based on title within twelve years, and that period runs from the date on which the possession of the defendant becomes ADVERSE to the plaintiff — not from the date on which he entered. Section 27 of the same Act extinguishes the owner's right only at the determination of that period. Your possession, having been permissive throughout, could not and did not become adverse at any time before __________. Any plea by you of adverse possession, of thirty years' occupation, of long enjoyment or of acquiescence is therefore misconceived, is denied in advance, and is answered by the whole of clause 3 of this notice. Possession, to be adverse, must be open, continuous, hostile to the true owner and to his knowledge, and asserted as owner; caretaking is none of those things.

5.4 Nothing in this notice, and nothing done or omitted by me at any time, is or is to be treated as an admission that your possession has ever been adverse to me, or that any period of limitation has begun to run against me.

6. Every document, entry and mutation you rely on is denied

6.1 You are called upon to produce to me, within __________ days of receipt of this notice, a legible copy of every document, order, entry and instrument on the strength of which you claim any right in the Property — including any sale deed, gift deed, will, agreement to sell, receipt, power of attorney, affidavit, family settlement, partition memorandum, mutation, khasra girdawari entry, municipal record or utility record. Produce them now. Do not produce them for the first time in the witness box.

6.2 Every mutation entered, applied for, attested or sanctioned in your favour or in favour of anyone claiming through you in respect of the Property is denied, disputed and challenged, and I reserve the right to have it set aside. A mutation is a fiscal entry made under sections 34 to 37 of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 for the purpose of the revenue record. It neither creates nor extinguishes title, and sanctioning it transfers nothing which the underlying instrument did not itself transfer.

6.3 If you claim under an agreement to sell, a general power of attorney, a will, or any combination of those, you claim under nothing. In Suraj Lamp & Industries (P) Ltd. (II) v. State of Haryana, decided on 11 October 2011, the Supreme Court held that such transactions do not convey title and are not a valid mode of transfer of immovable property, which passes only by a registered deed of conveyance, subject to the limited protection of section 53A of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882. No such bundle of papers makes you the owner of my Property, and I will say so wherever it is produced.

6.4 If you hold any original title document of mine — a registered sale deed, a mutation copy, a jamabandi nakal, a partition award, an allotment letter or a receipt — you hold it as my bailee and you must return it to me with your reply.

7. Demand for vacant and peaceful possession

7.1 You are called upon to quit, vacate and deliver to me vacant, peaceful and physical possession of the whole of the Property, free of your belongings, your cattle, your family and every person claiming through or under you, within __________ days of the date on which you receive this notice.

7.2 Possession is to be delivered __________, together with every key, lock, gate remote, meter card, tubewell starter, connection document and paper relating to the Property, against a written receipt.

7.3 You must leave the Property, its structures, fittings, fixtures, trees, tubewell, motor, pipes and boundary walls in the condition in which they now stand. You must not dismantle, remove, sell or damage anything.

7.4 If any crop sown by you before the date of this notice is standing on the land, tell me so in your reply and I will deal with it reasonably. You must not sow, plant or contract for any further crop, and you must not let the land to any cultivator for any further season.

8. Demand for a full and true account

8.1 You are called upon to render to me, within __________ days of the date on which you receive this notice, a full, true and complete account of everything received by you, or by anyone on your behalf, out of the Property or on account of it, for the entire period of your occupation. The account must cover, without limitation: rent and licence fee from any occupant inducted by you; theka, batai and any share of produce; the proceeds of sale of every crop, including sales through any arhtiya or commission agent; compensation, enhancement and interest on any acquisition of any part of the Property; rent for any mobile tower, hoarding, godown or shop; insurance, subsidy and relief of any kind; and the proceeds of any sale, lease or mortgage of any part of the Property.

8.2 So far as I am presently aware, the position is this: __________

8.3 The account must be supported by documents, and you must produce with it: the khasra girdawari entries for the whole period; every theka or lease writing; every J-Form, arhtiya account and mandi record; the bank statements of every account into which any such money was received; every receipt issued by you; and the records of every acquisition proceeding in which you received or claimed compensation.

8.4 You are liable to me for mesne profits — the profits which you have received or which you might with ordinary diligence have received from the Property, together with interest, as defined by section 2(12) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 — for the whole period of your unauthorised occupation, past and continuing, and I will claim them, with an inquiry under Order XX Rule 12 of that Code, from the date this notice takes effect until the date you deliver possession.

9. What you must not do from today

9.1 You must not sell, gift, exchange, mortgage, lease, licence, agree to sell, execute any power of attorney in respect of, or in any other manner alienate, encumber or part with the Property or any part of it, or any purported interest of yours in it.

9.2 You must not apply for, move, pursue or obtain any mutation, correction, entry or change of name in respect of the Property in any revenue, municipal, electricity, water or other public record. A copy of this notice is being sent to the Tehsildar, and any such attempt will be met with an objection on that file.

9.3 You must not raise, extend or alter any construction, change the use of the Property, cut or remove any tree, remove earth, dig, or install or remove any tubewell, motor or connection.

9.4 You must not induct any tenant, licensee, cultivator, caretaker or other person into the Property, and you must not part with possession of any part of it to anyone.

9.5 Any person who deals with you in respect of the Property does so at his own risk and with full notice of this notice and of my claim. He will acquire nothing. Once a suit is instituted, section 52 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 will in any event bind him.

10. What will follow if you do not comply

10.1 If you do not deliver vacant possession and render the account within the periods stated above, I will institute, without further notice, a civil suit before the court of competent jurisdiction at __________, Punjab, for possession of the Property, for a declaration that I am its owner and that every document, entry and mutation set up by you is void and not binding on me, for cancellation of any such instrument, for a mandatory and a permanent injunction, for accounts, for mesne profits, past and future, with interest, and for costs. My right to possession rests on my title and is enforceable under section 5 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963 in the manner provided by the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908.

10.2 I will pursue, on the revenue side, objections and appeals against every entry and mutation obtained by you, before the Assistant Collector, and thereafter before the Collector, the Divisional Commissioner and the Financial Commissioner (Revenue), Punjab, within the periods of thirty, sixty and ninety days respectively fixed by sections 13 and 14 of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887.

10.3 Where the facts disclose an offence — and the fabrication of a will, the fabrication or misuse of a power of attorney, impersonation before a registering officer, the misappropriation of money entrusted to you, or the use of a forged document each may — I will move the police, and I will pursue the offences made out under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, including criminal trespass, criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery and the use as genuine of a forged document.

All of this will be entirely at your risk as to costs and consequences.

11. No waiver, no tenancy, no admission

11.1 Any sum you may tender or pay after the date of this notice, and any sum I may receive from you for any period after that date, will be received and appropriated solely towards mesne profits for the use and occupation of the Property, and never as rent. It will not create a tenancy, revive any permission, or confer on you any right of any kind.

11.2 Any correspondence, meeting, family discussion, mediation or panchayat that may take place is without prejudice to my rights, does not suspend the periods fixed by this notice, and will not be treated as acquiescence in your occupation.

11.3 My silence, absence from India, delay in visiting the Property, or failure to object to anything at any earlier time is not and never was consent, abandonment or acquiescence, and it confers no right on you.

12. Reservation of rights

Nothing in this notice gives up any right, claim, cause of action or remedy available to me — under the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, the Specific Relief Act, 1963, the Limitation Act, 1963, the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887, the Punjab Tenancy Act, 1887, the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, the criminal law, or the general law. Every such right and remedy is expressly reserved, including my right to claim mesne profits for the entire period of your occupation and to have any instrument set up by you cancelled. Nothing in this notice is to be read as an admission that you are or ever were a tenant of the Property, whether of a building or of agricultural land; if you assert any such status you are put to strict proof of it, and I reserve every remedy that the correct forum affords me against a tenant, including the remedies of a landlord before the Rent Authority and before the Revenue Court.

13. Treat this notice seriously

This is a formal legal notice served before the institution of proceedings. Keep it. Take legal advice on it promptly and reply within the periods stated. A reply, even a reply denying everything, is better for both of us than silence; silence will be produced in court, and it will be read for what it is.

Yours faithfully,

_____________________________
__________
Address for reply: __________
Email: __________ | Telephone: __________

SCHEDULE OF THE PROPERTY

All that property, being __________, measuring __________, situated at Village/Town __________, Tehsil __________, District __________, Punjab, described as follows:

__________

Recorded as follows: __________

COPIES SENT TO

• __________
• The Tehsildar, Tehsil __________, District __________, Punjab — for information and for record on the mutation file relating to the Property
• The Halqa Patwari of Village/Town __________, Tehsil __________, through the Tehsildar
• The Deputy Commissioner, District __________, Punjab

NOT PART OF THE NOTICE — INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE SENDER

Detach and destroy this page before you serve the notice. It is written for you, not for the occupant.

Nothing here goes on stamp paper

This notice needs no stamp paper, no e-stamp certificate, no registration and no notary. Plain paper or the advocate's letterhead is correct and complete. Punjab has moved off physical stamp paper altogether — e-stamp certificates are issued through Stock Holding Corporation of India Ltd as the Central Record Keeping Agency under the Punjab e-Stamp Rules, 2014, and denominations below Rs. 500 can be generated by the citizen at www.shcilestamp.com — but none of that machinery is engaged by a demand letter. If a typist offers to "do it properly on stamp paper", he is selling you something the notice does not need.

Pull the khasra girdawari before you post, not after

This is the check that decides whether you are even in the right forum, and it is the one most owners skip. Go to https://jamabandi.punjab.gov.in/ and take out the jamabandi, the mutation register, the roznamcha and the khasra girdawari for the khewat. It is free to view. Then get a certified nakal from the tehsil Fard Kendra or the Sewa Kendra — both channels are in use following the April 2025 decision to shift that work, so ask your tehsil which counter is running before you travel.

Now read the girdawari. If it records the occupant as the cultivator of your land, he may be a tenant within the meaning of the Punjab Tenancy Act, 1887 — occupancy (marusi) or tenant-at-will (gair marusi) — and if he is, his ejectment is not a civil suit at all. Section 77 of that Act gives Revenue Courts exclusive cognizance of the suits it lists, and the proviso to section 77(3) requires a civil court in which such a matter surfaces to endorse the plaint and return it under Order VII Rule 10 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 for presentation to the Collector. Ejectment on the statutory grounds runs under section 9 and the section 14A procedure of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953, before the Assistant Collector First Grade. Section 117 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 also takes leases for agricultural purposes outside the whole of Chapter V of that Act, so a section 106 notice to quit is no answer either. Settle the forum with counsel before the plaint is drawn; a year lost on a returned plaint is a year in which he stays where he is.

And if a mutation has already been sanctioned against you, the appeal clock is running and it is short: thirty days to the Collector, sixty to the Divisional Commissioner, ninety to the Financial Commissioner (Revenue), Punjab, under section 14 of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887, each running from the date of the order. Speak to counsel about that appeal in the same week you send this notice, not after the reply comes.

Post it properly, because this is the part that wins or loses the case

1. Registered post with acknowledgement due, to the occupant at the Property and at every other address you have for him. A separate cover to every person named, at every address you hold for that person — the notice says on its face that you did this, so do it.
2. Keep the postal receipt and the tracking printout the same day, and photograph them.
3. When the acknowledgement due card comes back, keep it. Staple it to your office copy.
4. If a cover returns marked "refused", "not claimed" or "left without address", keep it SEALED AND UNOPENED. A refused or unclaimed registered cover is good evidence of service and an opened one is worth much less.
5. Email a scanned copy as well, from the address printed on the notice, and keep the sent item.
6. If everything fails, affix a copy to a conspicuous part of the Property in the presence of two independent adult residents of the village or mohalla — the lambardar or a panch is the conventional choice — get them to sign a short report on the spot recording date, time and exact place, and photograph the affixed copy with the date visible.

If your date of knowledge is more than twelve years old, the form will stop you

That is deliberate, and it is the one place this form refuses to print. Article 65 of the Limitation Act, 1963 gives twelve years from the day possession became adverse, and section 27 extinguishes the right at the end of that period rather than merely barring the suit. A notice sent in the thirteenth year does not revive an extinguished title; it puts your own written admission of the date into the occupant's hands. If the form refuses your dates, that is the moment to see a lawyer, not the moment to close the gap by guessing a later date of knowledge. An owner who backdates his ignorance to save the case has built a perjury problem into his own plaint.

The six-month question, and it is urgent

If you were physically dispossessed — a lock broken, a gate barred, your goods put out — within the last six months, section 6 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963 gives you a summary suit for possession in which title is not in issue at all. It must be filed within six months of the dispossession, no appeal and no review lies from the decree, and it cannot be brought against the Government. That window does not pause while you correspond. See a lawyer this week. This notice belongs to the ordinary title-based route under Article 65 of the Limitation Act, 1963, which has twelve years; do not spend the short remedy waiting for the long one.

If you are abroad, do the power of attorney now

Somebody in Punjab will have to receive possession, sign a receipt, lodge the complaint, engage counsel and verify the plaint. That needs a written power of attorney. Executed abroad, it must be executed before and authenticated by a Notary Public, a Court, a Judge, a Magistrate, an Indian Consul or Vice-Consul, or a representative of the Central Government — section 33(1)(c) of the Registration Act, 1908. In G. Kalawathi Bai v. G. Shashikala, 2025 INSC 851 (15 July 2025) the Supreme Court proceeded on the footing that this authentication is required even where the attorney both executes and presents the document, because he is an agent in both capacities; read that judgment before anyone cites it in a pleading, because it may be, or may include, a reference to a larger bench arising out of the conflict with Rajni Tandon (2009). Either way the practical course is the same — authenticate the power in every case. Punjab Sub-Registrar counters frequently prefer Indian consular attestation to a bare apostille, so take the consular route if you can. Then get it stamped within three months of the day it first reaches India, under section 18 of the Indian Stamp Act, 1899, before the Collector of Stamps, who in Punjab is the Deputy Commissioner of the district. Note the date of arrival on the file.

And one trap. Do not bolt a power of sale onto a litigation power for convenience. Item (f) of entry 48 of Schedule I-A, as substituted by the Indian Stamp (Punjab Amendment) Act, 2023 (Punjab Act No. 2 of 2024, gazetted 15 January 2024), charges 2% of the consideration or of the Collector rate, whichever is higher, on a power of attorney to sell immovable property given to a person who is not a family member — family member being defined there as spouse, child, parent, sibling, grandparent and grandchild. A power to sell given to a nephew or a cousin attracts that 2% on the Collector rate for the revenue estate, which the Deputy Commissioner of the district publishes tehsil and sub-tehsil wise on revenue.punjab.gov.in, most recently for the year 2026-27 by Endst. No. 01/01/2020 ST2/5959 dated 30 April 2026.

Who signs, and in what capacity

If you are signing yourself, put your own name in "Name of the person signing" and leave "The capacity in which someone other than the Owner signs" blank. The notice then goes out over your name alone, which is exactly right, and it will not say that you are signing on behalf of yourself. Fill the capacity field in only when the signature is somebody else's — your attorney under a written power, or your advocate on your written instructions. In either of those cases the original authority has to be available to be produced, because an unauthorised signature is the first thing the other side will attack and the easiest.

What they will say to you, and the short answers

• "You are an NRI, you cannot own agricultural land." Wrong where it came to you by inheritance. RBI FED Master Direction No. 12/2015-16 (updated 6 June 2022) bars an NRI or OCI from PURCHASING agricultural land, plantation property or a farm house at para 3.1.1, but paras 3.1.3 and 3.1.4 permit acquisition of any immovable property by inheritance.
• "Thirty years' possession makes it mine." Only if it was adverse for twelve of them. Permissive possession is not adverse, and it turns adverse only on an open denial that reaches you. That is what clause 5 of the notice is for.
• "I have a will and a power of attorney from your father." That bundle conveys nothing: Suraj Lamp & Industries (P) Ltd. (II) v. State of Haryana, 11 October 2011.
• "The fard is in my name now." A mutation is a fiscal entry, not a transfer. Section 44 of the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 makes the entry presumptive only, and section 45 sends the disputant to a declaratory suit.
• "I built the house with my own money." That does not make him the owner, but it is not nothing either: section 60 of the Indian Easements Act, 1882 can make a licence irrevocable where the licensee executed work of a permanent character on the faith of the permission and spent money upon it. That is why the form asks what he built. Answer it honestly and take advice before you post.
• "I am your tenant, you cannot throw me out." If that is even arguably true the forum changes and this notice is not the instrument. Check the khasra girdawari and check when the letting began, and see the paragraph above on the Revenue Court.

Where to complain, and what each place can actually do

This paragraph is for owners living outside India. If you live in India none of it is open to you, and you should have left the NRI machinery field on the form blank: your route is the Station House Officer for the area and the civil court, and nothing else.

The Department of NRI Affairs, Government of Punjab runs a helpline on 1100, from abroad +91-411-1905-1100, with psnri@punjab.gov.in and WhatsApp 9056009884, and designates a Nodal Officer for NRIs in every district. The Punjab Police NRI Wing is headed by an ADGP at Phase-7, SAS Nagar (Mohali), on 0172-2260042 and 0172-2260043, adgp.nri.police@punjab.gov.in and complaintcell.nri@punjabpolice.gov.in, with notified NRI police stations exercising independent jurisdiction across the whole State and online complaints at https://pgd.punjabpolice.gov.in/. The Punjab State Commission for Non-Resident Indians, Block A, Room 6, Punjab Civil Secretariat-2, Sector 9, Chandigarh, 0172-2741330, has the powers of a civil court for summoning and evidence — but what it issues is a recommendation, and a recommendation is not a decree. And NRI Sabha Punjab, at the Divisional Commissioner's office complex in Jalandhar, is not a government body at all: it is a society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 on 20 March 1998, chaired ex officio by the Divisional Commissioner, which is why everyone assumes otherwise. Use it for facilitation. Never route relief through it.

Never take the Property back yourself

Do not change the locks. Do not cut the electricity, the water or the tubewell connection. Do not send men to the gate. Do not organise a crowd, and do not let a well-meaning relative do any of it on your behalf. Possession is recovered from the occupant voluntarily or from a court, and from nowhere else. Self-help against even a plain trespasser turns a strong civil file into a criminal complaint against you, and it is the commonest single way a good NRI property case is lost.

Receipt block — for hand delivery only

Get this signed on your office copy:

I, __________, acknowledge receipt of the original of the Legal Notice dated __________ in respect of the property at Village/Town __________, Tehsil __________, District __________.

Signature: __________________ Date: __________ Time: __________