India, Feb. 10 -- In popular understanding, land ownership in India is treated as a settled fact. Put simply, it is a matter of having the 'right papers', a registered sale deed, and entries in revenue records. Yet this belief rests on a fragile legal foundation. In reality, land title in India is less a legal certainty and more a working assumption, one that remains perpetually open to challenge. The notion of a clear, absolute

and state-guaranteed land title is, in many ways, a myth.

Unlike several modern jurisdictions that follow a conclusive or Torrens system of title, India has never enacted a comprehensive statute defining or guaranteeing land ownership. There is no single law that clearly establishes what constitutes a land title...