The difference between a 7/12 and an 8A extractसातबारा आणि ८-अ

The document everyone calls the 7/12 is two village forms read as one: Village Form VII, the record of rights, and Village Form XII, the crop register. In Marathi it is the सातबारा (satbara). It is built around a piece of land, and it sets out who the revenue administration recognises on that land, on what terms, and what else is recorded against it.

The 8A answers a different question. Village Form VIII-A, written in Marathi as ८-अ (8A) and issued as the खाते उतारा (khata utara), is the holding register. It is built around a holder, or more precisely around that holder’s account in one village, and it sets out the land entered under that account together with the revenue assessed on it.

Both forms are maintained under the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code, 1966 and the Maharashtra Land Revenue Record of Rights and Registers (Preparation and Maintenance) Rules, 1971, historically by the village तलाठी (talathi). Both are revenue records rather than documents of title. Section 157 of the Maharashtra Land Revenue Code, 1966 gives entries in the record of rights a presumption of correctness, and a presumption is something that better evidence can rebut. So neither extract settles ownership on its own; each records what the village office has entered. A closer reading of the 7/12 itself is in the guide to reading a 7/12 extract.

The 7/12 opens with a survey number or gat number. One copy covers one parcel, and it names every person the record shows against that parcel. A seller with several parcels in one village has a separate 7/12 for each of them.

The 8A opens with a khata number, the account number the village record gives a holder. One copy covers one holder in one village. It lists the survey or gat numbers entered under that account, the area against each, the total area of the holding, and the land revenue assessed on it. That listing is the reason for the name khata utara, the account extract.

The 7/12 also carries the इतर हक्क (itar hakka) column, the record of rights other than occupancy: charges, tenancies, restrictions on transfer, and remarks carried over from old mutations. Those remarks cite फेरफार (ferfar) mutation numbers, which is how a reader follows an entry back to the decision behind it. The 8A carries none of that. It is a summary of holding, so it stays silent on how each parcel came into the account.

The two extracts meet at one fact, the holder and the parcel, and part company on everything else. The 7/12 goes into detail on a single parcel. The 8A covers one holder across the village.

A buyer handed a single 7/12 sees only the parcel on offer. The 8A widens the view to the seller’s recorded holding in that village, and patterns surface there that one 7/12 cannot show.

• Parcels nobody mentioned. The khata lists land beyond the plot being sold. That is not wrongdoing in itself, but it shows what else in the same holding can be mortgaged, partitioned or sold, and it gives you further survey numbers to check.
• A total that does not agree. If the areas on the 8A do not reconcile with the 7/12 extracts, something is unrecorded: a share in a joint holding, a partition carried out on the ground and never entered in the register, or a clerical error in one of the two records.
• Co-holders you were not told about. One khata can name more than one person. A name on the 8A that the seller did not mention raises the question of who must sign for a transfer to be complete.
• A parcel that is missing. The parcel you hold a 7/12 for may not appear on the seller’s khata at all. The two records then disagree about who holds it, and that has to be explained before the rest of the file is worth reading.

None of these is a finding on its own. Each is a question, and the answer is usually in the mutation register, where a partition, an inheritance, a sale or a correction would have been recorded. The ferfar history is the place to look for it.

Work through the pair in a fixed order, and write down what does not match.

1. Match the khata number. Find it on the 7/12 and check that the 8A in front of you is headed by the same number and the same village. Extracts from two different accounts say nothing about each other.
2. Match every survey number. Take each survey or gat number listed on the 8A and obtain the 7/12 for it, not only for the parcel on offer.
3. Compare the areas. Parcel by parcel first, then the 8A total against the sum of the 7/12 areas. Record every difference, however small.
4. Match the names character by character, across both extracts and against the identity documents of the person selling. Marathi spellings of one name vary between entries, and a variant can conceal a different person.
5. Check the 8A total against what the seller says is held. A description of the holding that runs larger or smaller than the record points at something the record has not yet absorbed.
6. Check that both copies are current and digitally signed. An extract issued in an earlier year says nothing about the position today, and an unsigned print says nothing about the register.

The state publishes the record in two different ways, and the difference matters. bhulekh.mahabhumi.gov.in shows the 7/12 and the 8A on screen for information only; those views are not issued copies. digitalsatbara.mahabhumi.gov.in issues digitally signed extracts of the 7/12, the 8A and ferfar, each one carrying a QR code and a verification number.

The verification number is what makes a copy checkable, because a PDF can be edited and a print can be assembled out of parts. Where an extract reached you through a seller or an agent, check its verification number before you weigh anything it says.

For a parcel under negotiation, ask for the signed set together: the current 7/12 of the parcel, the 8A of the person selling, and the ferfar extracts for every mutation number the 7/12 cites. Where the 8A and the 7/12 disagree, the village office and the mutation register are where the disagreement is resolved, and a licensed advocate reads the result. The wider order of checks is set out in the guide on verifying a land title in Maharashtra.