The Assam Jamabandi: kept by Patta, sold by Dag

A Patta in Assam is best read as an account rather than a plot. It carries a Patta number, the names of one or more pattadars, and the Dags, the survey numbers, that fall under it, along with the area and the land revenue. Where a family holds jointly, one Patta can name several co-pattadars, each with an undivided share, and can gather several Dags scattered across the mouza, so the account and the plot are rarely the same thing.

The Dag is the plot, and it is what a buyer actually purchases. A single Dag under a shared Patta may belong, on paper, to several co-pattadars at once, none of them holding a marked-off piece of ground but each holding a fraction of the whole. So the buyer's question is narrower than who holds the Patta: it is which Dag, and whose share of it, is being sold, and whether that share has ever been separated from the rest.

This is why the Jamabandi is read against the Chitha and the seller's papers, not on its own. The Jamabandi names the pattadars and the Dags; the Chitha follows each Dag's history; the sale must then tie down the one Dag and the one share the buyer is taking. A Patta that reads cleanly at the account level can still hide an undivided, unpartitioned Dag with three other co-pattadars who never agreed to sell, which is exactly the tangle a careful buyer isolates first.

Reaching the record is quick; the care is isolating the Dag and the share from the account.

On Dharitree

Then isolate

Ownership is kept at the Patta level; a purchase happens at the Dag, and often the share.

Four confusions send most Assam record checks wrong.

Most states let a buyer treat one holding as one plot. Assam does not, because the Patta is an account that can gather several Dags and several co-pattadars, so ownership is recorded at a level above the plot a buyer actually takes. Read only at the Patta level and the deal looks simple; read down to the Dag and the share, and the co-pattadars, the fractions and the unpartitioned plots that decide the purchase come into view. So the Jamabandi opens the enquiry rather than closing it. It names the pattadars and lists the Dags; the Chitha carries each Dag's history; the registered deed carries title; and a partition, where a Dag is shared, is what turns an undivided fraction into a piece a buyer can hold alone. Isolate the Dag, fix the share, and only then does the account on Dharitree become a plot you can safely buy.