Baba Budan Archives · Land & Survey Record
BD-LAND-1889/93-01
A 144-page General and Revenue Secretariat dossier beginning in 1889 with the complaint of Syed Ghouse Shah Khadri alias Khan Bahadur concerning Survey No. 53 of Nagenahalli, Chikmagalur Taluk. The surviving file preserves petitions, survey history, administrative correspondence, an appeal, competing descriptions of the land, and directions for further inquiry.
The Nagenahalli Survey No. 53 Dossier
The cover itself identifies the subject of the file.
The opening cover records 1889, File No. 74-89, and a complaint by Syed Ghouse Shah Khadri alias Khan Bahadur regarding Survey No. 53 of Nagenahalli, Chikmagalur Taluk.
The dossier is not a single judgment. It is a long administrative file containing petitions, earlier survey references, correspondence between district and Inam authorities, appeal material, vernacular enclosures, and later orders. The pages therefore preserve different positions at different stages of the dispute.
Reading rule
No single petition, report or intermediate order should be presented as though it were the entire outcome of the 144-page file. Baba Budan Archives separates the claimant’s assertions, administrative findings, appeal issues and directions for further inquiry.
Was Survey No. 53 Inam or Government Land?
The classification of the tract sits at the centre of the surviving correspondence.
The Claim
Syed Ghouse Shah Khadri challenged the treatment of Survey No. 53 and relied on older survey and Inam material in support of the contention that the disputed land was connected with the Durgah Inam.
The Administrative Position
Other papers in the file record an administrative view that Survey No. 53 had been treated as Government land. The dossier then shows the claimant pursuing review and appeal rather than the matter ending with the first administrative decision.
Older Survey Material
The petition and subsequent inquiry refer backward to nineteenth-century survey records, maps and earlier administrative correspondence. These references are important evidence of what was relied upon, but they must not automatically be treated as original title instruments.
Coffee & Cultivation
The dossier also discusses coffee gardens, cultivation, assessment and enjoyment of the disputed tract. This makes the file relevant to both the Land and Coffee collections.
From Complaint to Appeal and Further Inquiry
The surviving papers show an evolving administrative dispute rather than a single static finding.
The file opens with Syed Ghouse Shah Khadri’s complaint concerning Survey No. 53 of Nagenahalli. The petition relies on earlier survey and Inam material and challenges the treatment of the land.
Correspondence in the dossier records the administrative position that the land had been decided as Government land and transmits supporting records and earlier proceedings.
Syed Ghouse Shah Khadri appealed against the refusal to recognize the tract as Inam. The appeal papers frame factual questions about possession, cultivation, the reputed name of the tract, village boundaries and the relationship of the claimed land to Suraguppa.
The appellate material did not simply convert the claimant’s assertions into an accepted title. Instead, the Inam Superintendent was directed to investigate specified factual questions and report.
Later correspondence continues the inquiry and review process. The file therefore documents an administrative controversy extending beyond the original 1889 complaint.
Evidence and Its Limits
The dossier is strong evidence for the existence and course of the dispute; it must be used cautiously for ultimate title conclusions.
It Establishes
- That Syed Ghouse Shah Khadri alias Khan Bahadur made an 1889 complaint concerning Survey No. 53 of Nagenahalli.
- That the file contains competing positions over whether the tract should be treated as Inam or Government land.
- That older survey, Inam, village-boundary and cultivation material was relied upon during the proceedings.
- That coffee cultivation and possession formed part of the factual background considered in the dossier.
- That an appeal was pursued and that further factual inquiry was ordered.
- That the controversy continued through later administrative correspondence rather than ending with the opening petition.
It Does Not, By Itself, Establish
- That every historical assertion in Syed Ghouse Shah Khadri’s petition was accepted by Government.
- That Survey No. 53 was conclusively recognized as private property merely because it was claimed as Inam.
- That an intermediate description of the tract as Government land necessarily represents the final legal position for all later periods.
- That references to older maps or records are equivalent to possession of those original instruments.
- A modern title determination for Survey No. 53 or adjoining lands.
Selected Pages From the 144-Page Dossier
These are genuine source images extracted directly from the master PDF.
Original image extract policy
These images reproduce selected pages from the genuine 144-page source. They are not reconstructions. The complete PDF remains the master archival source; selected images are used here only to make the principal stages of the record intelligible to website visitors.
Land Classification, Coffee and the Inam Record
The file reveals how historical claims were tested against survey records and administrative evidence.
The Nagenahalli dispute is valuable because it exposes the mechanics of a nineteenth-century land controversy. The claimant invoked older survey and Inam history; officials considered maps, village boundaries, possession, cultivation and previous decisions; an administrative position was challenged; and the appeal generated further factual questions rather than an automatic acceptance of either side’s narrative.
The file is also an important bridge between the archive’s Inam & Muzrai, Coffee History and Land & Survey material. Coffee cultivation appears not merely as an agricultural subject but as evidence within a dispute about the character, enjoyment and assessment of land.
How Baba Budan Archives Presents the File
Master Source
Survey No. 53 Nagenahalli — Syed Ghouse Shah Khadri, General and Revenue Secretariat, File No. 74-89. Surviving master PDF: 144 scanned pages.
Archival Method
Petitions are presented as claims, official correspondence as administrative positions, and appeal directions according to their procedural effect. Where the file cites older records, Baba Budan Archives distinguishes the later reference from the underlying original source.
Dating note
The permanent archive ID BD-LAND-1889/93-01 is retained. The surviving dossier itself contains later material beyond the opening 1889 complaint, so the public page should describe the record as a continuing dossier rather than implying that every page belongs only to 1889–1893.
BD-LAND-1889/93-01 · Directly Examined Dossier
A Land Dispute Preserved as an Administrative Process
Survey No. 53 is significant not because one page supplies a simple answer, but because the 144-page file preserves the process by which competing claims were stated, tested, appealed and investigated. Keeping those stages separate allows the historical record to remain useful without turning a nineteenth-century dispute into a modern title conclusion.