How to apply for mutation (Dakhil Kharij) online in West Bengal

Registration and mutation are two different acts

This is a costly and very common misunderstanding in West Bengal property, and it costs people years rather than money.

Registration happens at the registration office. It records that a transfer took place between two parties, and it produces the registered deed you keep in a file at home. Mutation — *Dakhil Kharij* in everyday Bengali usage — happens through the land and land reforms administration. It updates the revenue record so that the department itself recognises you as the holder of that land, bills you for it, and shows your name when anyone searches the Khatian.

One does not trigger the other. A deed registered a decade ago, never mutated, leaves the Khatian still reading the seller's name today. That is not a portal bug and no amount of re-searching will change it — the record says what it says until a mutation case is filed, decided and published.

When mutation is needed

Mutation is not only for purchases. Any event that changes who holds the land, or in what shares, is a reason to file — and the ones that get forgotten are the ones that were not commercial transactions.

Inheritance is the largest category of neglect. Land passes within a family, nobody files anything because nothing was bought, and two generations later the Khatian still names someone long dead. Inherited land generally needs a succession or Warish process establishing who the heirs are *and* a mutation to write them onto the record; one without the other leaves the job half done.

• Purchase — after the deed is registered, mutation moves the record to the buyer
• Inheritance — usually a Warish or succession process first, then mutation for each heir's share
• Partition among co-sharers — the record has to reflect the divided holdings, not the joint one
• Gift — a registered gift deed still needs mutation, exactly like a sale
• Court decree or other order affecting the holding — take the order itself to the office

Where mutation filing sits on Banglarbhumi

The portal separates *doing* things from *looking things up*, and the boundary catches people out — but not in the way most guides describe it. The menus themselves open freely, and the District and Block dropdowns genuinely populate before you have signed in. That makes the portal feel open. It is not: request an actual record or an actual case, and the portal takes you to its sign-in page.

Mutation Application sits under Online Application, alongside Conversion Application, Warish Application, Land Revenue(Khajna) Application, Mobile Number update Against Khatian and Fees Payment. That whole menu is login-gated. If you open it without signing in, the portal responds with “Please Login and then click Citizen Services” — which is not an error, just the account gate.

So you need a banglarbhumi.gov.in account before you can file. Expect to need one for the follow-up too: Mutation Case Status takes a case number, but plan on the portal asking you to sign in before it returns anything.

• Mutation Application — under Online Application, login required, this is where you file
• Mutation Status — under Online Service Status, login required, lists your own online submissions
• Mutation Case Status — looks up a case by its number; expect to be signed in
• Online Fees Calculator — where the portal shows the current fee for your case

What is commonly asked for

Treat what follows as the shape of a typical file, not as an authoritative checklist. Requirements vary with how the land came to you, with the district, and with what the office already holds — and a list copied off a website is not a substitute for asking the office that will actually process your case.

The general principle is easy to hold in your head: the file has to show *what happened*, *to which land*, and *that you are who you say you are*. Every document is doing one of those three jobs.

• The registered deed, and often the prior deed of the person who transferred to you
• The existing Khatian / parcha or ROR for the plot, showing the current recorded holder
• Mouza name and JL number, and the Dag number(s) affected — with sabek and hal numbers if you have both
• Khajna (land revenue) receipts, ideally an unbroken run — these evidence possession as well as payment
• An identity document, and often a photograph and a contact mobile number
• For inherited land, the succession / Warish documentation establishing the heirs
• For partitioned land, the partition deed or decree

Fees, and why no honest guide quotes a number

Price your case with the Online Fees Calculator before filing, so you know what to expect at the payment step rather than meeting the figure for the first time mid-application.

Anyone quoting you a flat mutation fee — a website, a middleman, a forwarded message — is quoting something they have not checked today. Use the calculator, then pay through the portal's own Fees Payment option or the eChallan Generation route, and keep whatever receipt or challan reference comes back. That reference is frequently what the office asks for when you follow up.

For the same reason this page does not tell you how long a mutation takes. It depends on the district, on whether notice has to be given, and on whether anyone objects. What you can do is track it — through the Mutation Case Status screen, signed in — rather than predict it.

What happens after you file

Rather than memorise a stage list — the wording differs between offices and is not worth guessing at — it helps to know the shape the process takes, because that tells you what any given status implies.

A mutation case is received and recorded, which is when your case number starts returning results. It is then examined, with notice given to interested parties where the law requires it, so that objections can be raised and heard. Finally it is decided, and if allowed, the record is corrected and the updated Khatian published. Checking where a case has reached goes through the status screens in detail.

Two things follow. A case sitting in the middle phase may be waiting on a period or on another person rather than on an officer, so silence there is not necessarily neglect. And a case can show as decided before the new Khatian appears in a record search, because publishing the corrected record is a separate step from ordering it.

Online, or through the BL&LRO office?

Both routes are real, and the online one is not automatically better. Filing through the portal saves a trip and gives you a submission you can see under Online Service Status. It also demands a working account, documents you can scan legibly, and a case that fits the form's assumptions.

The office route is often easier for exactly the cases that matter most: land inherited through several generations, holdings where sabek and hal dag numbers do not line up cleanly, records where the name is spelled differently from your identity document, or anything where a co-sharer might disagree. In those cases a conversation across a desk often resolves what a rejected online submission would send you back to the start on.

Whichever route you take, the case ends up in the same place and is tracked the same way.

• File online when the transfer is straightforward, your documents are clean and your account works
• Go to the BL&LRO for inherited, partitioned, contested or old-record cases
• See an advocate before filing if the title itself, the shares, or another claimant is in question

Checking the case afterwards

Once filed, keep the acknowledgement. The case or application number on it is the only key you have, and it is what the status screen is keyed on — not your name, not your Khatian.

Track the case through the Mutation Case Status screen, signing in when the portal asks. Our separate guide on checking mutation status covers the trap of the two similarly named status screens in detail. Once the case is disposed of, check the record itself through Know Your Property using your Mouza and Khatian or Dag number.

Because that check gets repeated over months, some people prefer an app to the portal's dropdowns and per-search CAPTCHA. Bhumir Tathya is our own app — we build it at Devikon. It is free, unofficial and Android-only, presents the record lookups in Bengali and English, and keeps records you have already viewed readable offline. It does not bypass government authentication or fees, and it cannot: it signs in with your own banglarbhumi.gov.in account, and filing a Mutation Application still happens on the portal under that same login. A record saved in the app shows the position as it stood when you viewed it, so re-check it before relying on it for anything that matters.