Can a Non-Farmer Buy Agricultural Land in Karnataka in 2026? (79A/79B Repeal Explained)

TL;DR

• Yes — any Indian citizen can buy agricultural land in Karnataka. The 2020 amendment to the Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961 repealed Sections 79A, 79B and 79C (the bars on non-agriculturists, high-income buyers, and companies/trusts), and the Supreme Court reaffirmed that repeal in August 2025 — with retrospective effect from 1974.
• You no longer need agriculturist status, a farming background, or an income cap to register a sale. IT professionals, salaried buyers, companies, trusts and societies are all eligible.
• The repeal liberalised who can buy — not what the land can be used for. You still need DC conversion under the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964 before any non-agricultural use or construction.
• The repeal does not wash out a seller's pre-2020 illegal acquisition. If an earlier owner bought as a fake "agriculturist" or violated tenancy/grant law, that defect can survive in the upstream chain and surface decades later.
• Other restrictions are untouched: the PTCL Act (SC/ST granted land), tenancy-origin land, inam/Bhoodan grants, and ceiling limits all still apply. Title verification is non-negotiable.

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Can a non-agriculturist or IT professional buy agricultural land in Karnataka after the 79A/79B repeal?

Yes. As of 2026, there is no statutory bar on a non-agriculturist purchasing agricultural land in Karnataka. The Karnataka Land Reforms (Amendment) Act, 2020 (which began as an Ordinance in mid-2020 and was passed by the Assembly later that year) deleted Sections 79A, 79B and 79C of the Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961. The Sub-Registrar will register a sale deed in your favour regardless of your profession or income.

A common myth needs addressing up front: the repeal is not a loophole or a temporary relaxation — it is a full statutory deletion, and it has been tested in court. In R. Raghu v. G.M. Krishna (2025 INSC 1040), the Supreme Court in August 2025 held that the bar contained in Sections 79A, 79B and 79C of the 1961 Act stood repealed in 2020 with retrospective effect from 01.03.1974, and treated an objection about a buyer misrepresenting himself as an agriculturist as having lost its significance. So the eligibility question is genuinely settled.

What did 79A, 79B and 79C actually bar?

Before 2020, these sections were the wall that kept "outsiders" out of farmland:

In practice, the old regime forced buyers to either prove farming income or risk the land vesting in the government. That entire apparatus is gone. A note of caution on policy direction: the State has periodically floated restoring 79A/79B, but as of 2026 no such reinstatement has been enacted. Always check the current position before a large acquisition.

What did the 79A/79B repeal NOT change?

This is where most stale articles mislead buyers. The repeal opened the door on eligibility. It left a long list of land-use and land-category controls fully intact. Treat the repeal as one green light among several you still need.

You still need DC conversion for any non-agricultural use

Agricultural land remains agricultural land. To build a house, a layout, a factory or anything non-agricultural, you must obtain conversion ("DC conversion") under Section 95 of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964. Buying the land does not convert it. Karnataka has been streamlining this process — recent rules introduce deemed-approval timelines and exemptions for lands inside approved master plans — but conversion is still a separate legal step with its own fees and approvals. Until conversion, the revenue record continues to classify the parcel as agricultural.

Restrictions that survive the repeal

None of these were touched by the 2020 amendment. A "clear to buy" eligibility position is not the same as a clear title.

How does a pre-2020 illegal acquisition create a defective upstream title?

This is the nuance that separates a careful buyer from an exposed one. The repeal cleared the rule going forward and even back to 1974 for the bar itself — but it cannot retroactively legalise transactions that were void for other reasons in the chain of title. A defect in how a previous owner acquired the land can survive the repeal and ride downstream to you.

Consider the failure modes:

• The fake-agriculturist purchase. An earlier owner may have acquired the land before 2020 by falsely declaring agriculturist status or fabricating farming income. While misrepresentation objections of the 79C kind have lost force after the repeal, any other irregularity attached to that transaction (forged supporting records, a benami arrangement, a transaction already set aside by an authority) does not disappear.
• Granted-land violations (PTCL). If, anywhere upstream, SC/ST granted land was sold without the required government permission, that transfer was void from the start. The PTCL Act lets grantees or their heirs seek restoration even after long gaps. The 2020 repeal of 79A/79B does nothing to cure this — PTCL is a different statute.
• Tenancy and ceiling defects. Land that originated in a tenancy grant or that breached ceiling limits may carry conditions or pending proceedings that a buyer inherits.

This is why a clean present-day eligibility position is not enough. You are buying the entire history of the parcel. A 30-year chain of title is the only way to see whether a buried defect is waiting to surface. For the wider taxonomy of how these problems hide, see our guide to common title defects in Indian real estate.

What records and checks confirm I can safely buy a specific parcel?

Eligibility is the law; safety is the diligence. For any Karnataka agricultural parcel, run these source-level checks before you pay an advance or sign a JDA/MoU. They map to the four pillars of a proper Title Search Report.

1. Bhoomi RTC (Pahani). Pull the RTC for the survey/hissa number. It shows the recorded owner, extent, land classification, crop, and crucially the mutation references. Read Column 11 carefully — it flags loans, charges and other entries that hint at encumbrances or disputes. Our walkthrough of how to read a Bhoomi RTC and its Column 11 red flags covers the traps.
2. Mutation (MR) extracts and the chain of title. Trace each transfer back through mutations and the deeds behind them — ideally a 30-year ownership chain. Look for gaps, sudden ownership jumps, partition or inheritance entries, and any name that signals granted/tenancy origin.
3. Encumbrance Certificate via Kaveri 2.0. Get the EC across the full period to surface registered mortgages and transfers. Note its limits — an EC only shows registered instruments, so read what an Encumbrance Certificate does NOT show before you treat a clean EC as a clean title.
4. Granted-land / PTCL status. Confirm whether the parcel is or ever was government-granted (SC/ST) land. This is the single most overlooked killer in agricultural deals.
5. Conversion and zoning. Check the DC conversion order (if any), and overlay the parcel against zoning/master-plan and notified-acquisition layers before you assume any non-agricultural use is possible.
6. Litigation. Search eCourts and the relevant courts for live disputes over the survey number or the parties — partition suits and grant-land cases are common.

What these portals CANNOT tell you

Be honest about the limits, because a clean printout is not a clean title:

• An RTC is a fiscal record, not a title document. It records possession and revenue, not ownership in the strict legal sense, and it can lag or carry stale entries.
• An EC only reflects registered instruments. Unregistered agreements, oral family arrangements, fraud, forged powers of attorney, and disputes that never reached the registry are invisible to it.
• No portal verifies PTCL/grant origin reliably for you. Establishing whether land was granted, and on what terms, often needs the grant order and physical record verification at the taluk office.
• Portals do not interpret. They surface data; they do not tell you whether a decades-old mutation behind a fake-agriculturist purchase makes today's title shaky. That judgment is legal work.

This is precisely the gap Deedwise is built to close: the platform pulls Bhoomi RTCs, Kaveri ECs and deeds, K-GIS overlays, CERSAI charges and court records, translates the Kannada, reconstructs the chain, and drafts a 4-pillar report — but a qualified lawyer reviews and signs the final opinion. AI gathers and drafts; a lawyer decides. For where that line sits, see AI vs lawyer for property title verification.

Frequently asked questions

Can an IT professional or salaried person buy agricultural land in Karnataka in 2026? Yes. Since the 2020 repeal of Sections 79A, 79B and 79C of the Karnataka Land Reforms Act, there is no income ceiling or agriculturist requirement to buy agricultural land. The Supreme Court reaffirmed the repeal in August 2025 (R. Raghu v. G.M. Krishna, 2025 INSC 1040). An IT professional, salaried buyer or Indian-citizen NRI can register a sale deed for farmland.

Can a company or trust buy agricultural land in Karnataka now? Yes. The repeal of Section 79B removed the bar on companies, trusts, societies, and educational, charitable and religious institutions holding agricultural land in Karnataka. They can now acquire it, subject to all the usual title checks and any conversion/zoning rules for their intended use.

Does the 2020 repeal mean I can build on agricultural land without conversion? No. The repeal changed who can buy, not what the land can be used for. Any non-agricultural use or construction still requires DC conversion under Section 95 of the Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964. Karnataka has introduced faster deemed-approval timelines and some exemptions, but conversion remains a separate legal step.

If an earlier owner bought the land illegally before 2020, am I safe now that 79A/79B are repealed? Not necessarily. The repeal removes the 79A/79B bar itself, even retrospectively, but it does not legalise transactions that were void for other reasons — for example a sale of SC/ST granted land without permission (PTCL Act, 1978), a tenancy-condition breach, or fraud in the chain. Such a defective upstream title can survive and surface years later, which is why a full 30-year chain-of-title check matters.

Do PTCL (SC/ST granted land) restrictions still apply after the repeal? Yes. The PTCL Act, 1978 is a separate statute from the Land Reforms Act. Its restrictions on transferring granted land without government permission are completely unaffected by the 2020 repeal of 79A/79B, and grantees or heirs can seek restoration of wrongly transferred granted land even after long periods.

What is the single biggest risk when buying agricultural land in Karnataka today? Granted-land (PTCL) origin hidden in the chain of title. A parcel can look clean on the current RTC and EC yet trace back to SC/ST granted land that was sold without permission, making the transfer void. Verifying grant status at the taluk level — alongside a 30-year chain of title and a lawyer-reviewed Title Search Report — is the best protection.