RTC / Pahani meaning: how to read all 13 columns
RTC means Record of Rights, Tenancy and Crops. Column 9 carries the loans and column 11 the court orders — the two that decide whether the land is safe to buy.
An RTC — Record of Rights, Tenancy and Crops, the Pahani in Kannada — is the revenue record Karnataka keeps for every agricultural survey number. It is not a title document. Two of its columns decide whether the land underneath your purchase is safe: column 9, which carries loans, and column 11, which carries court orders.
Most buyers are handed an RTC, glance at the name in the owner column, and hand it back. The name is the least interesting thing on the page.
What is an RTC, and what is it not?
The RTC is maintained under the Karnataka Land Revenue Act and digitised on the Bhoomi portal, which the state launched in 2000 across 175 taluks. It exists so the revenue department can tax land and track what grows on it.
That origin matters. The RTC answers who is in possession and what is happening on this land. It does not answer who legally owns it. Ownership is proved by the registered title chain — the sale deeds — and an RTC is corroboration, never substitute.
Treat a clean RTC as necessary and nowhere near sufficient.
Which columns actually matter?
The RTC runs to thirteen columns. Most record cropping patterns and irrigation that will never affect your purchase. Four decide the outcome.
Column 9 — liabilities. Bank and cooperative society loans against the land. This is the column that catches people. A loan recorded here attaches to the survey number, not to the individual, so it does not leave when the owner does. A cooperative bank charge that nobody thought to clear is among the commonest reasons a Karnataka land transaction collapses after payment.
Column 11 — remarks and court orders. Stay orders, injunctions, pending litigation. An entry here means someone has asked a court to freeze dealings in this land. Nothing else in your due diligence will tell you this.
The owner and extent columns. These must agree exactly with the survey number and area on the sale deed. A mismatch of even a few guntas is worth stopping over — see how to read a survey number for what the parts of that number mean.
The land classification column. If it still reads as agricultural and the property is a building, you need the conversion order. Construction on unconverted agricultural land is not regularised by the fact that it exists.
How do you pull an RTC?
Go to the Bhoomi portal, choose View RTC and MR, and enter District, Taluk, Hobli, Village and Survey Number. The output is free to view.
Two practical notes. Pull the RTC yourself rather than relying on the copy the seller hands you — a PDF is trivially edited and you have no way to tell. And pull the historical RTCs, not only the current one. The sequence of past entries is where a loan that was quietly created and released, or an owner who briefly appeared and vanished, becomes visible.
What an RTC will never show you
It will not show unregistered agreements, family arrangements, oral partitions, or claims under the PTCL Act where the land was originally granted. A Saguvali Chit in the title history is a separate and serious check — see Saguvali Chit and PTCL land.
It will not show anything about the building. Approvals, occupancy and khata are municipal matters and live in an entirely different set of records.
The RTC is one instrument in the kit. Read columns 9 and 11 first, read the history, and then go and check everything the RTC is silent about.
Frequently asked questions
What is an RTC or Pahani in Karnataka?
The RTC — Record of Rights, Tenancy and Crops, called the Pahani in Kannada — is the revenue record maintained for every agricultural survey number in Karnataka under the Land Revenue Act. It records who holds the land, what is grown on it, what loans sit against it and what court orders restrain it.
Which RTC column shows a bank loan on the land?
Column 9. A loan recorded there attaches to the survey number, not to the person, so it survives a change of owner. A cooperative bank entry in column 9 that nobody has cleared is one of the most common reasons a Karnataka land sale unravels after money has changed hands.
Does an RTC prove ownership of the land?
No. An RTC is a revenue record for tax and crop purposes, not a title document. It is strong corroboration and its absence is a red flag, but ownership is proved by the registered title chain — the sale deeds — not by the Pahani.
Do apartments in Bengaluru have an RTC?
Usually not in the buyer's name. The RTC belongs to the agricultural survey number the project was built on, and it matters to you as part of the title chain behind the building, not as a document you will hold after purchase.