UP land records: reading the khatauni on Bhulekh

What is Bhulekh, and who runs it?

Bhulekh (भूलेख) is the Government of Uttar Pradesh's online land-records portal — upbhulekh.gov.in — run by the Board of Revenue, UP (Rajaswa Parishad); the village record itself is written and maintained by the Lekhpal (the village accountant) under the Tehsildar. If you have used a Haryana or Rajasthan land-records site, treat this as an unrelated system with its own login flow and its own field names. (One caution worth stating: upbhulekh.gov.in is the confirmed live host; a "bhulekh.up.gov.in" address is sometimes cited, and we do not treat it as canonical without a live check.)

What records can you pull, and what are they called?

The portal serves the khatauni — the record of rights, prepared per village, listing the tenure-holders (bhumidhars), their khata and shares, and the gatas they hold; the khasra, the plot-wise register, where a plot number is the gata number; and the khata or khewat, the holding account grouping a holder's gatas. Fixing this vocabulary before you read a single row is the whole game: the gata is UP's word for the survey/plot number, and a broker who calls it a "khasra number" from another state is reading from the wrong book.

• Khatauni — the record of rights (bhumidhars, khata, shares, gatas).
• Khasra — the plot register; a UP plot number is the gata number.
• Khata / khewat — the holding account grouping a holder's gatas.
• Real-Time Khatauni — the live copy reflecting the latest mutations.
• Unique code (विशेष कोड) — a per-plot code to cross-check an online copy.

What is the "Real-Time Khatauni"?

It is UP's live view of the record — a khatauni that reflects the most recent mutations rather than a static snapshot, and it carries a unique code so an online copy can be cross-checked against the database. It is genuinely useful for orientation: you can see the current holders, the gatas and the shares before you visit anyone. What it is not is a certified copy — which matters, and is the next question.

Is the online copy good enough to act on?

No — for a transaction or a court, you need the certified copy. The online / Real-Time Khatauni is informational; a certified, court-valid khatauni is issued by the Tehsil (the Tehsildar's revenue office). Read the free copy to orient yourself and to note the gatas, shares and any recent mutation; rely on the certified one for anything that binds. We flag that the exact disclaimer wording should be confirmed on the live portal — the principle (online informational, certified from the Tehsil) is well established.

What should a buyer actually check on the record?

That the seller is the recorded bhumidhar for the exact gata numbers under sale, and — crucially in UP — that the seller's tenure class is "bhumidhar with transferable rights" and not a non-transferable class (the khatauni-khasra guide explains the classes); that the area and land class match what is being sold; that the gata ties correctly to the plot on Bhu-Naksha; and that the mutation (dakhil-kharij) chain is complete. UP's transferability question is unique to its bhumidhari system, and it is read before the price.

How does this differ from other states' records?

In name and machinery entirely. The record of rights is "khatauni" here, not "jamabandi"; the plot is a "gata"; the tenure-holder is a "bhumidhar", a class created by UP's own land-reform law, not a "khatedar" (Rajasthan) or a Haryana revenue tenant. The portal, the authority (Board of Revenue, UP) and the vocabulary are UP's own — and every UP fact on this site is sourced to a UP authority, this guide included.