SC suggests use of Blockchain to ease land registrations

Buying property in India has long felt like navigating a puzzle without knowing whether all the pieces belong to the same box. On Friday, the Supreme Court said it is time to end this ordeal, as it called for a fundamental restructuring of the country's land registration system, and asked the Law Commission of India to examine the use of Blockchain technology to move towards conclusive land titling.

- Utkarsh Anand

A bench of justices PS Narasimha and Joymalya Bagchi said that the present framework, where only documents are registered and not the title itself, has produced uncertainty, litigation, and trauma for buyers, and that the time has come for a transparent, tamper-proof, technology-driven alternative.

"Property purchase has not been easy ... it is not difficult to find people grudgingly telling us that it is in fact traumatic," observed the bench, noting that nearly 66% of all civil litigation in India today is linked to land disputes.