Property Demarcation Dispute: Can You Build?

One of my clients recently had a case which I am explaining below and if you are stuck in such similar situation, here is what to do.

Note: Due to attorney-client privilege, I cannot disclose complete case details or identify the actual parties involved. However, I am sharing the essential facts and legal approach so that if you find yourself in a similar situation, you can understand the available solutions and legal remedies.

TL;DR: A property demarcation dispute does not have to freeze your construction for years. You can ask the civil court for a court-supervised measurement of the plot, an interim injunction protecting your possession, and permission to continue building while the title suit runs. Police threats change nothing if your sale deed and building approvals are in order.

The sale deed was registered in February 2020. Full consideration paid. Mutation done. Sanctioned plans in hand. Then Suresh Kulkarni told the Deshpande family that the boundary line was not clear and no construction could begin until it was fixed.

Five years went by. Every surveyor who reached the plot on the outskirts of Indore was turned away at the gate. Kulkarni's son Nitin called Anil Deshpande's father repeatedly, and those calls were recorded. The shouting was routine. Anil's parents, both past sixty and not comfortable with paperwork, stopped sleeping properly.

When the family finally started digging, with a housing loan running and approvals filed, Kulkarni filed a civil suit. He also brought policemen to the site who hinted that building would land everyone in jail. That threat was hollow, but it worked on the parents.

The family had already spent months with a general practice lawyer who kept telling them to wait. They approached the Chamber of Advocate Sudhir Rao in early May 2025. Advocate Sudhir Rao's office moved for a court-supervised measurement of the plot and an interim order protecting the family's possession, and the matter finally moved. Advocate Sudhir Rao's familiarity with demarcation and injunction practice in property matters is what secured the order in the client's favour.

Key Facts of the Case

• Land purchased and sale deed registered in February 2020; full consideration paid to the seller, Suresh Kulkarni.
• Mutation and revenue records transferred into the buyers' names, with property tax being paid by them.
• Seller refused demarcation for five years and obstructed every private survey attempt.
• Seller's son threatened the buyers' father; the family holds video and audio recordings of the threats.
• The family holds sanctioned building plans and is servicing a housing loan on the property.
• The seller filed a civil suit after construction began, which the buyers read as a delaying tactic.
• Police were summoned to the site at the seller's instance; the title documents sit with the family, and the seller's suit is contested.

The rest of this note is the law. The facts above are one family's facts, and the outcome in your case will depend on your own documents.

Boundary and title are two different questions

Kulkarni's suit was about a line on the ground. The family's answer is about a registered deed. Those are not the same dispute, and courts do not treat them the same way.

A registered sale deed transfers title. Once it is registered, the transfer is complete as between seller and buyer — that is the scheme of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882, read with the Registration Act, 1908. Mutation entries and property tax receipts are evidence of who is in possession and who is paying. They are useful. They are not, by themselves, proof of ownership, and a revenue officer cannot decide title.

So when a seller says the boundary is unclear, the court is being asked a question of fact: where does the line physically run, and does it match the deed and the revenue sketch? That question is answered by measurement, not by argument.

Why five years of obstruction is itself relevant

A seller who refuses demarcation for years, then objects the moment construction starts, is in an awkward position. Courts notice delay. Not always decisively, but it goes into the balance.

Can a court settle a property demarcation dispute while construction continues?

Usually, yes. Nothing in the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 or the Specific Relief Act, 1963 says work must halt the moment a neighbour files a suit. What halts work is an injunction, and an injunction is granted only if the plaintiff shows a prima facie case, irreparable injury and a balance of convenience in his favour.

Where the deed is registered in your name, the revenue records carry your name, and a building plan is sanctioned, a bare plea of an unclear boundary is thin ground for stopping you. The likelier order is a measurement, with you free to build in the meantime — often with a note that anything built during the suit is at your own risk.

Read that note carefully. An interim order is not a verdict. If the measurement goes against you, you can be directed to remove what stands on land that is not yours.

What you can ask the civil court for

• A local commissioner to measure the plot. Order XXVI Rule 9 of the CPC lets the court appoint a commissioner to make a local investigation and report. A commissioner's report, with a sketch and the boundaries marked on the ground, carries far more weight than a private surveyor's note.
• An interim injunction protecting possession. Order XXXIX Rules 1 and 2 of the CPC. This is the order that keeps the other side off the land while the suit runs.
• Preservation or inspection of the property. Order XXXIX Rule 7 of the CPC deals with the detention, preservation and inspection of the subject matter of the suit.
• A declaration of title. Section 34 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963, where the other side's claim clouds your title.
• A permanent injunction. Section 38 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963, at the end of trial.
• Recovery of possession. Section 5 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963. If you were dispossessed without due process, Section 6 offers a summary remedy, but it must be filed within six months of the dispossession and it decides possession only, never title.

The limitation clock matters. A suit for possession of immovable property based on title has a long limitation period, but a suit for a declaration is governed by a much shorter one, and a Section 6 suit by six months. Miss the shorter ones and the remedy is gone even if your case is strong.

Can the police stop your construction?

No. The police have no authority to decide a boundary or a title question. An officer who tells you to stop work is acting outside his power, and that instruction is not an order you are legally bound to obey. That said, arguing with a policeman at a site is a bad idea. Take the name, the time, and the station, and put it in writing later.

What the police can act on is a breach of the peace. If a complaint alleges a likelihood of violence, the Executive Magistrate can begin proceedings under Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 — the provision that replaced Section 145 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973. It is a limited, urgent power: the Magistrate can attach the property or place it with a receiver until the civil court decides the rights. It settles nothing about ownership.

Threats of injury are a separate matter. Criminal intimidation is an offence under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and a complaint lies before the Magistrate. Your recordings are the strength of that complaint. Preserve the originals, do not delete anything, and note the date and time of each call.

How to answer the seller's suit

• File the written statement in time. Under Order VIII Rule 1 of the CPC the written statement is due within 30 days of service of summons, extendable at most to 90 days from service. Do not let this run out; the cost of that delay is real and hard to undo.
• Plead your documents, not your grievance. Deed, registration, mutation, tax receipts, sanctioned plan, photographs of possession.
• Ask for a preliminary issue. Whether the plaint discloses a cause of action, and whether the suit is barred, are questions that can be decided before a full trial.
• Apply for the commissioner early. The earlier the measurement, the earlier the factual fog clears.
• Do not counter-attack for its own sake. A retaliatory criminal complaint that fails makes the main case weaker.

Documents to keep ready

• The registered sale deed, the registration receipt, and the index copy.
• Mutation records and the revenue sketch (khasra, khatauni or the equivalent in your state).
• Property tax receipts and electricity or water connection bills in your name.
• The sanctioned building plan and the approval letter.
• Photographs and videos of possession, with dates.
• Call recordings, call logs, and any messages from the other side.
• A copy of the suit, the summons, and any notice received.
• Loan documents from the bank, if construction is financed.

How long this actually takes

An interim injunction application is usually heard within weeks of filing, sometimes within days if the urgency is pleaded properly. A commissioner's measurement and report commonly takes two to six months. The main suit, if it goes to full trial, can run for years — that is the honest position in most Indian civil courts, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

Which is why the practical goal is rarely a decree. It is an interim order that lets you build, use and hold your land while the suit grinds on.

Where the case may be weaker

If the sale deed is unregistered, if possession was never handed over, if the revenue records still carry the seller's name, or if construction has already crossed onto land that the deed does not cover, there may be very little to argue on the injunction application. On those facts the realistic advice is to negotiate a boundary or buy the strip in dispute, not to litigate. No one can promise the outcome of an injunction application, and a lawyer who does is not doing you a favour.

Frequently Asked Questions

What to send us

If you are facing a boundary dispute and construction has been stopped, the first step is small. Send the registered sale deed (or the index copy if the original is with the bank), the latest mutation or revenue record, a photograph of the plot as it stands today, and a two-line note saying what has happened and what the other side has done. If a suit or a notice has been received, attach that too, with the date it was served — the date drives every deadline that follows.

You can write through /contact-us or book a consultation at /book. Advocate Sudhir Rao handles criminal defence and property-related criminal complaints, including matters where police pressure is being used in a civil dispute. For matrimonial and family matters, Adv. Jyoti Rao, an associate, handles those briefs.

One practical thing before you write: do not sign anything the other side puts in front of you, and do not agree to a fresh boundary line at the site in front of witnesses, however reasonable it sounds at the time. Anything said or signed at the plot becomes evidence later.

Advocate Sudhir Rao, Supreme Court of India