The five documents that decide whether land is safe

Five documents decide whether a plot is safe to build on: the colony's registration, the sanctioned layout plan, the diversion order, an unbroken chain of registered sale deeds, and the khasra numbers with the land use the master plan permits there. Read each one yourself. A photocopy handed across a table is a claim, not a check.

Why the paper decides, not the land

In 2025 an audit of the Indore registration department's own record room turned up suspicious documents, and an FIR followed over registries estimated at around one hundred crore rupees. The papers spanned decades, and in some of them the sellers' fingerprints were missing from the registers. Documents relating to eighteen properties were placed under investigation.

The point of that story is not any one office or person. It is that a registry can look complete and still not be real, and that the land underneath it is usually perfectly fine. What decides whether you can build is the paper.

Five papers, in this order

The order matters because each document rests on the one above it. A perfect sale deed for a plot in a colony that was never approved is a perfect record of a problem.

1. Colony registration — कॉलोनी का रजिस्ट्रेशन

Is the colony itself approved? Under the state's colony rules a colonizer must be registered, and no development or sale of plots may begin before permission to develop the colony has been granted. Everything below this line depends on it: a plot cut from an unapproved colony inherits that status however many times it is resold.

2. Sanctioned layout plan — पास किया हुआ नक्शा

The approved drawing of the colony: which plots exist, with what numbers and sizes, and which land is road, garden and public use. Your plot has to be on this sheet as a plot. If it sits where the sheet shows a road or an open space, the sale deed does not change what the sheet says.

3. Diversion order — डायवर्जन आदेश

Agricultural land has to be converted to non-agricultural use before it can lawfully be a housing plot. The order that did so is a document with a number and a date, issued under the Land Revenue Code, and the revenue record should reflect it. Houses standing nearby are not evidence of diversion; the order is.

4. The chain of registry — रजिस्ट्री की कड़ी

Not only the last sale deed, but the line of owners behind it, unbroken from the person who first held the land to the person selling it to you. Every transfer in that line — purchase, inheritance, partition, gift — should have its own registered document. A forged or missing link anywhere breaks everything after it, including a deed in your own name.

Registered documents can be searched through the state's registration portal, and an encumbrance search on the same records shows whether a loan or a charge already sits on the plot.

5. Khasra and land use — खसरा और भू-उपयोग

The survey numbers the colony actually stands on, and what the master plan permits on them. The khasra ties the colony to a specific piece of the village map; the master-plan zone says what may be built there. If the khasra numbers on the diversion order, the layout and the sale deed do not match each other, one of the documents is describing a different piece of land.

And one habit

Read them yourself. A photocopy passed to you across a table is not a check; it is the seller's claim about what the record says. The check is the record: the order from the authority that issued it, the registered deed from the registration office, the khasra from the land-records portal. Where a document has a number, look that number up at its source.

The five at a glance

Every colony carries its own paper trail

Ten offices hold these documents between them. On the map each registered colony has one public page with its boundary, its sanctioned layout, its master-plan zone and the documents on file for it. As of September 2026 that is 1,161 colonies and projects and 13,352 documents from verified government sources and verified RERA-registered brokers.

Open the colony's page, read what is on file and what is not, and send it to whoever is signing with you. Then check the paper before you count the money.

Questions people ask

What documents should I check before buying a plot in Indore?

Five: the colony's registration and permission to develop, the sanctioned layout plan, the diversion order, the full chain of registered sale deeds, and the khasra numbers with the master-plan land use.

What is a diversion order and why does it matter?

It is the revenue authority's order converting agricultural land to non-agricultural use under the Land Revenue Code. Without it the plot is still farmland on the record, whatever is built next to it.

How do I check the chain of ownership of a plot?

Trace every transfer back from the seller through the registered documents at the registration office, and run an encumbrance search on the same records for loans or charges.

Is a registered sale deed enough proof that land is safe?

No. A deed can be registered for a plot in an unapproved colony, on undiverted land, or with a forged link earlier in the chain. It is one of five documents, not the whole check.

What is a khasra number?

The survey number of a piece of land on the village map in the revenue record. The khasra on the diversion order, the layout and the sale deed should all match.

Where can I see a colony's documents in one place?

Each registered colony has a public page on the Indori Zameen map with its boundary, sanctioned layout, master-plan zone and the documents on file for it.

Where the facts come from. The facts and figures in this post come from verified government sources and verified RERA-registered brokers.

Indori Zameen is a private platform. It is not a government body and is not affiliated with one — always confirm a record with the concerned authority before you commit money.