HYDERABAD: The usage of blockchain technology in maintaining land records might prove difficult for the State if one has to go by the questions raised by Justice V Ramasubramaniam, judge of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh High Court. After ambitious steps were taken up to purify land records and digitise for the purpose of maintaining online records through Dharani website -Integrated land records management system, the State has been mulling to use blockchain technology.
The goal was to create a trail of owners who had and would have possession of the title deed. However, even before the full-fledged website is ready to be operational, Justice Ramasubramaniam said there can be a problem with the record maintenance if the name of the area or locality changes in days to come.
“Take, for instance, the SP road. Now, it is known as SP road but in the coming years if the name is changed to some other name in memory of some leader. Where is the technology for this in Blockchain technology,” Ramasubramaniam told Express.
He was speaking at a conference, here, on the regulatory use of cryptocurrencies. “In the blockchain technology, are you creating a new set of records? How do they merge with old records,” he wondered. “The ledger on which the technology will become immutable, how will you alter when such changes are to be made.”
It may be noted that blockchain technology maintains a system of records in a ledger by using cryptocurrency and every time a new transaction is made it is added in a chain like distribution. But such distribution cannot be altered. Giving another example, the Judge stated there is another possible problem with usage of blockchain technology.
“If somebody is an owner of a huge property of 2,000 square yards. The owner dies and his children want to demolish and put up an apartment complex, it becomes a fragmented hole. How will you fit this fragmented hole in an immutable register,” he pointed out.“A lot of these cases would come up,” Ramasubramaniam said who has been in the High Court Judicature of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh for two years now.
“The land records do not tally, the description of the property in the original documents in the previous century and if it does not tally with the present, disputes arise,” he added, concluding that blockchain technology will not be of much help.
‘Regulatory oversight required for tech’
Justice Mohan Peiris observed that, “A legal distinction should be drawn on cryptocurrency and a financial instrument. The entire concept requires regulatory oversight”.