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 landlocked plot is not a dead end. If your land was cut off from the road when a larger holding was partitioned or sold off, an easement of necessity gives you a right of way over the neighbouring land, and twenty years of open use gives you one by prescription as well. Walking in through forest land is not a legal right, and the quickest route is usually the revenue authority, not the civil court.
Prakash Kulkarni's family has farmed the same stretch outside Nagpur for three generations. River on one flank. Forest department land in between. On the other side, a public road, then a neighbour's field, then his own land. There has never been a road to it. For years the family simply walked in and out across the forest land, and nobody stopped them.
In February 2025, a developer took over the neighbouring field and fenced the old walking line. That was the week Kulkarni had started selling parts of his land as plots. Plots need a path. Buyers ask.
He wrote to the gram panchayat. Then to the revenue office. Nothing moved. A local lawyer suggested a suit for permanent injunction, which would have taken years to decide.
By early April 2025 he came to the Chamber of Advocate Sudhir Rao. The first instruction was blunt: stop using the forest route. That route carries its own risk and it was never a right. The office then pulled the old revenue maps, the village records and the plotted layout. Advocate Sudhir Rao's familiarity with easement law and revenue procedure is what turned a hopeless injunction suit into a workable claim, and the matter moved in the client's favour from there.
Key Facts of the Case
- The land is ancestral agricultural land, landlocked, with no recorded access from the public road.
- Entry had historically been taken across adjacent forest department land, which is not a lawful right of way.
- The only other approach runs over a neighbour's private field, and that route was fenced off in February 2025.
- The client had begun selling the land as plots, which raises change of land use (CLU) and layout approval questions.
- No easement of necessity and no village path had ever been recorded in the revenue records.
- The correct claim, once framed, was an easementary right of way over the servient private land, paired with demarcation proceedings before the revenue authority.
The Direct Legal Answer
Do we have a legal right to a path?
Usually yes, but it depends on how the land became landlocked. If it was carved out of a bigger holding by partition or sale, Section 13 of the Indian Easements Act, 1882 gives you an easement of necessity over the land that was separated from yours. If instead the land has always been cut off, your claim rests on prescription under Section 15 of the same Act, which needs twenty years of open, peaceable and uninterrupted use. If neither applies, there may be nothing to argue on the easement point, and the route has to be bought or negotiated.
Can we keep using the forest land as a path?
No. Forest land cannot be put to a non-forest use without the prior approval of the Central Government under Section 2 of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, and continued use invites action under the Indian Forest Act, 1927. Long use does not convert it into a right.
Which authority do we approach other than the court?
The Tehsildar or SDM for demarcation and for any path already shown in the revenue records. The Executive Magistrate where a public way has been obstructed and a nuisance needs removal. The Town and Country Planning authority on the CLU and layout side. And the Consolidation Officer, if consolidation proceedings are on in the village, because a chak road can be provided there.
Does CLU law help with access?
Only partly. CLU permits non-agricultural use; it does not create a road. But a sanctioned layout normally shows the internal access roads, and if the plots around you were approved on a layout, that layout is evidence of where the access was meant to run.
Advice in Such Cases
Consult with Lawyer: The very basic and important step to start is talk to Lawyer / advocate. You should not hesitate in paying his consultation fee i.e. might be in range of Rs. 10,000 to 50,000 depends case to case. He is helping you in this situation to come out. He is expert in the domain and can help you explain the procedure which you might have never explored. A good lawyer can get the issues resolved much faster than you think.
Get the land records before you do anything else. The jamabandi, the khasra or survey numbers, the village map and, if plotting has begun, the sanctioned layout. Access disputes are decided on paper as much as on the ground.
Stop using the forest route immediately, and put your claim to the neighbour in writing so that the denial is on record with a date.
Matters of this kind turn on procedural and evidentiary detail that general practitioners often miss, and advocates who handle easement and revenue matters regularly tend to get quicker results.
Applicable Sections of Law
- Section 4, Indian Easements Act, 1882 — defines an easement, including a right of way.
- Section 13, Indian Easements Act, 1882 — easement of necessity arising when a holding is split by transfer or partition.
- Section 15, Indian Easements Act, 1882 — acquisition of an easement by twenty years of peaceable, open enjoyment.
- Section 25, Limitation Act, 1963 — prescriptive acquisition of easementary rights, read with Article 113 and Article 65 of the Schedule.
- Sections 34 and 38, Specific Relief Act, 1963 — declaration of the right and perpetual injunction against obstruction.
- Section 2, Forest
Section 2, Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 — no forest land may be broken up or put to a non-forest use without the prior approval of the Central Government.
- Indian Forest Act, 1927 — trespass on and unauthorised use of forest land, and the powers of forest officers to act against it.
- BNSS, 2023 — the Executive Magistrate's power to order removal of an obstruction to a public way, where what is blocked is a right of passage the public already has.
- Article 58, Limitation Act, 1963 — three years for a suit for declaration, counted from the date the right to sue first accrues. In an access dispute that date is usually the day the path was blocked.
- State land revenue and consolidation law — demarcation of boundaries, recording of village paths, and provision of a chak road during consolidation.
How a Claim Like This Is Actually Built
The sequence matters more than the strength of the grievance. Follow it in order and each step makes the next one easier.
- Fix the record first. Pull the old settlement map, the jamabandi, the khasra or survey numbers, the mutation entries and the sanctioned layout if plotting has started. Whether the land was ever connected, and when it was severed from the road, is proved from these documents and hardly from anything else.
- Stop the forest route. File nothing while you are still walking across forest land. It weakens the very claim you are making, and it hands the other side an argument.
- Put the claim in writing. A dated letter to the neighbour asserting the right of way and asking for access. If he refuses, you now have a denial on record with a date, which is what a court wants to see and what starts the limitation clock.
- Move the revenue authority. An application for demarcation before the Tehsildar or SDM, and a request to show the path, if any, in the village records. This is faster than a suit and costs a fraction.
- Then the civil court. A suit for declaration of the right of way plus a perpetual injunction against obstruction. If the obstruction is recent, an interim application can be moved with the suit, but an interlocutory order is not a final right.
- Handle the plotting side separately. Change of land use and layout approval are the planning authority's business. Access shown in an approved layout is useful evidence, but a CLU order by itself does not create a road.
- Keep purchase on the table. If the land was never severed from a larger holding and twenty years cannot be shown, the honest answer is that there may be nothing to argue, and the practical route is to buy a right of way or exchange a strip of land.
Can a landlocked plot claim an easement of necessity over a neighbour's land?
Yes, if the severance test is met. The question a court asks is narrow: was your land once part of the same holding as the neighbour's, and did that holding have access to the road before it was split by sale, partition or family arrangement? If it did, Section 13 of the Indian Easements Act, 1882 steps in and the neighbour cannot deny you a way in. If your land has been cut off since before any such split, Section 13 will not help, and you are thrown back on Section 15 — twenty years of open, peaceable and uninterrupted use, treated as of right.
Two things trip people up. The first is the word "peaceable". If the neighbour has objected on and off over the years, or if he locked a gate five years ago, the twenty-year period can be treated as broken and the clock restarts. The second is that prescriptive rights are acquired against the specific path, not against the neighbour generally. You cannot show twenty years of walking one way and then demand a different alignment because it suits your plots better.
And a caution on the forest route. Use of forest land, however long, does not ripen into a right of way. Non-forest use of forest land requires prior Central Government approval, and continued trespass is an offence under the Indian Forest Act, 1927. The route you have used for years may be the one route you cannot claim.
What to Bring to the Chamber
Access disputes are won or lost on documents, so bring what exists rather than what you remember.
- The sale deed, partition deed or family settlement by which your land and the neighbouring land came to be separated. This is the single most important paper.
- The current jamabandi, khasra or survey numbers, and the village map or settlement map.
- Any layout plan submitted or sanctioned, and any change of land use application filed.
- Copies of letters written to the gram panchayat, the revenue office, the planning authority or the neighbour, with the dates of despatch and any reply.
- Photographs of the fencing or obstruction, with the date they were taken, if available.
- A one-page note in your own words: when the land came to you, how the family entered it, and the month the route was blocked.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does this take?
A demarcation application before the revenue authority is usually a matter of months, depending on the district and the pendency. A civil suit for declaration and injunction is a different scale — it goes through framing of issues, evidence and argument, and the honest range is years, not weeks, even before appeals. That timeline is the reason the revenue route is tried first.
Can I break the fence and go in?
No. That converts a civil dispute into a criminal one, and it damages the impression a court forms of you. An interim order or a revenue direction is worth waiting for.
Is there a deadline I am running against?
For a declaration of the right, three years from the date the right to sue first accrued, which in an access case is normally the date of obstruction. Do not sit on a blocked path for five years and then expect the suit to be entertained without an argument on limitation. There are other limitation entries that may apply depending on how the case is framed, and which one applies is a question for your lawyer on your facts.
Will the court fix the width of the path and its alignment?
It can fix a reasonable way in to the land, and the way in is meant to be convenient rather than generous. A cart track for agricultural use and a twenty-four-foot road for a plotted colony are not the same thing, and asking for the second when you have claimed the first is a common way to lose credibility.
What if the neighbour's land is also under some restriction?
Then the position changes. Government land, assigned land, tribal land and ceiling surplus land each carry their own rules about who may deal with the land and how. Say so at the first meeting rather than after the suit is filed.
Should I approach the police?
Only if there is a breach of the peace or a criminal act such as mischief or criminal trespass. Police cannot declare a right of way, and treating this as a police matter usually wastes the time you need for the civil or revenue proceeding.
Do I need a lawyer at all?
For a plain demarcation application, a competent local practitioner may be enough. Once the question is whether an easement of necessity exists, or whether twenty years of use has been established, the framing decides the case. That is where a badly drafted plaint becomes a five-year problem.
Where to Send It
Write to /contact-us or book a consultation at /book with the deed or partition that created the landlock, the khasra or jamabandi, any notice you sent or received with its date, and a two-line note on when the access was blocked. If the papers do not support an easement claim, you will be told that at the first meeting rather than after a suit is filed.
This is general information about Indian law and is not legal advice on your own situation. Access disputes turn heavily on local records and on facts that can only be assessed after reading your documents. Please consult an advocate before acting.
Advocate Sudhir Rao, Supreme Court of India