When Access Meant Everything
In the rural topography of Jammu & Kashmir, land is not just an economic asset—it is legacy, livelihood, and identity. But as landholdings shrink and rural populations grow, invisible lines of conflict begin to emerge over something as basic—and as essential—as the right of way. These conflicts fall squarely under the domain of easement laws, which, while robust on paper, are increasingly facing erosion in practice across the countryside of Jammu & Kashmir.
Easements—legal rights that allow one landowner to use another’s land for a specific purpose—have always played a vital role in maintaining rural harmony. Be it a footpath through a neighbour’s orchard, a water channel across someone’s rice field, or a cart track through a meadow—these informal yet essential liberties have kept the social fabric of Kashmir’s villages intact for generations.
But today, as communal trust diminishes, land value rises, and legal enforcement remains weak, these easements are turning into battlegrounds—both literal and legal.
The concept of easement is codified under The Indian Easements Act, 1882, which extends to Jammu & Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370. The law defines easement as a right which the owner or occupier of certain land possesses for the beneficial enjoyment of that land, to do and continue to do something, or to prevent something being done, in or upon the land of another.
Easements may be of various types:
Right of Way (footpath, cart track, etc.)
Right to Air and Light
Right to Water (irrigation channels, drainage)
Right of Support (for buildings or structures)
They may be acquired in one of the following ways:
- Express Grant (written, registered agreements),
- Implied Grant (arising from necessity or custom),
- Prescriptive Rights (uninterrupted use for 20 years or more),
- Customary Easements (local customs that acquire force of law).
In rural J&K, the majority of easements—especially right of way—are based on customary use and prescription, with few written agreements or court decrees to rely on.
Traditionally, easement rights in Jammu & Kashmir evolved organically. A farmer’s bullock cart that routinely crossed a neighbour’s field to reach the main road; a villager who used a spring on adjacent land for generations; an irrigation kul (water channel) that passed through multiple plots—such usages were part of lived experience, seldom questioned or codified.
The Wajib-ul-Arz, a document prepared during the settlement process in colonial times, often recorded village-level customs, including easement paths, shared resources, and water rights. But over time, these records have been neglected, and many Jamabandis (land records) no longer reflect these traditional rights accurately.
The Patwari, Lumberdar, and Girdawar were historically the custodians of these customs. Their verbal arbitration resolved most conflicts. But with the formalization of land administration and a sharp decline in the credibility of tehsil-level revenue courts, these institutions are no longer able to uphold or interpret customary easements effectively.
Today, conflicts over right of way are among the most common disputes in rural courts of Jammu & Kashmir. In hundreds of villages across districts like Anantnag, Pulwama, Baramulla, and Rajouri, the following pattern is emerging:
Blocked Footpaths: A landowner fences their property and blocks traditional paths, arguing they were never legally sanctioned.
Encroached Cart Tracks: Routes used for decades are encroached upon, often with concrete walls or trees planted to obstruct access.
Severed Irrigation Channels: With new land use patterns and construction, old irrigation paths are blocked, leading to crop loss and community tension.
Case Study 1: The Kurigam Conflict
In Village Kurigam, Tehsil Qazigund, two families clashed over a 5-foot-wide path historically used by one household to access their fields. The landowner through whose orchard the path ran suddenly denied access, citing no written deed. Despite oral testimonies and decades of continuous use, the revenue officer refused to attest the easement due to lack of documentary proof. A civil suit was filed, but is pending for years.
Case Study 2: Water War in Baramulla
In a small hamlet near Sopore, the owner of a downstream field blocked a historic kul to divert water for his private orchard. The upstream users protested, claiming prescriptive easement rights. Despite multiple appeals to the irrigation and revenue departments, no administrative action was taken.
These are not isolated cases. With almost every village in J&K having informal easement arrangements, a lack of enforcement is creating friction that local governance structures are unable to han
The Revenue Department, Irrigation Department, and Rural Development Department are often caught in jurisdictional confusion when easement rights are contested. Add to that the understaffed revenue courts, lack of training in easement adjudication, and the disappearance of records such as tatima shajras (field sub-maps), and the result is near-complete paralysis in resolving rural easement disputes.
Moreover, since most easements are never registered, they are hard to enforce unless the claimant has:
Continuous and uninterrupted use for 20 years or more,
Evidence of necessity,
Village-level acknowledgement of customary usage.
Courts demand these elements, but villagers seldom maintain such documentation. Burden of proof, under current judicial interpretation, falls on the claimant—a difficult task in the absence of supportive revenue records.
Even mutation entries do not always reflect easement rights, as they deal with ownership, not usage. Therefore, when land is sold, the new buyer often claims ignorance of the easement, leading to sudden disputes and fencing of access ways.
In theory, Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) can mediate such disputes. But in practice, most Panchayats lack legal knowledge or revenue training. Some are even accused of siding with influential landowners. As a result, the promise of local dispute resolution often falls flat.
There have been a few pilot initiatives in districts like Budgam and Kishtwar where Tehsildars and Patwaris were instructed to document traditional easements during the Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme (DILRMP), but such practices are not yet institutionalized.
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), mediation, and Lok Adalats are being explored but lack specific guidelines or templates for easement-specific reconciliation. Without legal clarity, such processes remain ad hoc.
Section VI: Digital Maps, but No Ground Truth?
With digitization of Jamabandis and the rollout of BhuNaksha (cadastral mapping system), a unique opportunity exists to record easements clearly on digital maps. But so far, the focus has been solely on ownership boundaries, not usage rights.
What’s missing is:
Digital recording of footpaths, kul routes, and common access points,
Mapping of customary paths through GPS-assisted village surveys,
Community vetting of such digital maps to ensure local authenticity.
The Survey of Villages Abadi for Ownership and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas (SVAMITVA) scheme can be extended to include easement overlays, but such a move requires policy direction.
Section VII: Suggested Reforms – A Way Forward
To revive the spirit and functionality of easement rights in rural Jammu & Kashmir, the following reforms are urgently needed:
- Village-Level Easement Mapping
Conduct surveys in every village to map traditional right of ways and irrigation channels. Use drone imagery, GPS tools, and community validation to record these digitally.
- Revenue Records Integration
Incorporate easement rights into Girdawari, Tatima, and Jamabandi entries. Easements should be tagged to both servient and dominant tenements for future transparency.
- Easement Registry and Gazette Notification
Create a separate Easement Registry at the tehsil level and allow villagers to voluntarily register long-standing rights of way, supported by Panchayat or Lumberdar attestations.
- Legal Awareness Campaigns
Educate rural populations through Panchayats, schools, and local media about their easement rights and the procedures for enforcement.
- Strengthening Tehsil-Level Courts
Designate special revenue officers with training in easement law. Fast-track cases that involve access to basic needs like irrigation and pathways.
- Dispute Prevention Through Sale Deeds
Mandate that all sale deeds and mutation entries declare existing easements. This reduces scope for conflict with new buyers.
- Revive Wajib-ul-Arz Principles
Bring back the practice of village-level custom documentation during every settlement revision and digitize such customary easements.
Restoring the Rural Lifeline
In rural Jammu & Kashmir, easement rights are not merely legal privileges—they are the threads that stitch daily life together. Without assured access to one’s fields, water, or homes, land ownership loses its meaning. The fading recognition of these rights has created invisible walls in village society, walls that can only be broken with policy innovation, ground-level reform, and community participation.
As Jammu & Kashmir strides towards modernization of its land records and revenue systems, it must not forget the simple footpaths and watercourses that have defined its rural ethos for centuries. The law may be from 1882, but the right to passage is eternal. And it must be protected, not just in codes and courts—but in the hearts, maps, and fields of our villages.
The writer is a legal affairs columnist and specializes in land and governance issues in Jammu & Kashmir.
