BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court has formulated guidelines to be adhered to by the executing courts, local bodies, and the registering authorities to ensure that decrees for specific performance on the ground of non-issuance of e-khata are enforced effectively.
Justice Sachin Shankar Magadum passed the order recently, allowing the petition filed by P S Ashok Kumar from Tumakuru, challenging the endorsement dated August 28, 2025, issued by the District Registrar declining to register the sale deed for want of e-khata.
The court noted that the authorities' approach in declining to facilitate the execution of a decree for specific performance on the ground of non-issuance of e-khata is wholly unsustainable both in law and on first principles governing the execution of decrees.
The situation that has repeatedly surfaced before this court discloses a systemic incongruity, a grey area in the administrative framework wherein the executive machinery, instead of acting in furtherance of a binding judicial determination, operates in a manner that effectively renders the decree in-executable, the court noted.
HCs Guidelines:
In all cases where a decree for specific performance has attained finality and the original owner/judgment-debtor has failed to execute the sale deed, the executing court shall be at liberty to appoint a court commissioner to execute the sale deed on behalf of the judgment-debtor.
Where the property in question requires e-khata as a precondition for registration, the executing court may, either suo motu or on an application by the decree holder, direct the competent local authority to process issuance of e-khata for the limited purpose of facilitating execution of the decree.
The competent local authority shall not refuse issuance of e-khata merely on the ground that the application is not made by the original owner/judgment-debtor. In such cases, e-khata may be issued in the name of the original owner/judgment-debtor. In the name of the court commissioner representing the judgment-debtor for the limited purpose of execution, so as to enable compliance with the decree.
If there are arrears of property tax or any statutory dues payable in respect of the property, the competent authority shall quantify the same and permit the decree holder to remit such dues without insisting upon payment by the judgment-debtor.
Upon payment of such dues by the decree holder, e-khata shall be issued within a time-bound period, not exceeding two weeks from the date of application or compliance.
The decree holder discharges such dues, and shall be at liberty to recover the same from the judgment-debtor in appropriate proceedings, particularly where the amounts are substantial.
Upon issuance of e-khata, the jurisdictional sub-registrar shall not refuse registration of the sale deed executed by the court commissioner, provided the document is otherwise in compliance with the provisions of the Registration Act, 1908 and applicable rules.
The registering authorities shall treat a sale deed executed by the court commissioner on par with a sale deed executed by the judgment-debtor himself and shall not insist on his personal presence or his consent.
All authorities shall bear in mind that their role is to act in aid of the decree and not to create impediments that would defeat the enforcement of a lawful adjudication.
