Immovable and Movable Property under the Registration Act, 1908: Benefits Arising Out of Land, Things Attached to the Earth, Standing Timber, Growing Crops and Grass, and the Wide Definition of a Lease

Whether a document must be registered usually turns on whether it deals with immovable property. Section 2(6) answers that question for this Act, and it answers it broadly: besides land and buildings, it includes hereditary allowances, rights of way, light, ferry and fishery, and any other benefit to arise out of land, together with things attached to the earth or permanently fastened to anything so attached. Three things are expressly excluded, standing timber, growing crops and grass, and Section 2(9) puts them into movable property. Section 2(7) then defines a lease more widely than the Transfer of Property Act does.

What Section 2(6) includes and excludes, and the width of the definition of a lease

1. The Definitions

Sections 2(6), 2(7) and 2(9), Registration Act, 1908

(6) “Immovable property” includes land, buildings, hereditary allowances, rights to ways, lights, ferries, fisheries or any other benefit to arise out of land, and things attached to the earth, or permanently fastened to anything which is attached to the earth, but not standing timber, growing crops nor grass;

(7) “Lease” includes a counterpart, kabuliyat, an undertaking to cultivate or occupy, and an agreement to lease;

(9) “Movable property” includes standing timber, growing crops and grass, fruit upon and juice in trees, and property of every other description, except immovable property.

2. A Benefit to Arise Out of Land

The words any other benefit to arise out of land carry the definition far beyond the soil itself. A right to take something from the land, or to profit from it, is treated as immovable property, so a document creating such a right for value of Rs. 100 or more requires registration.

📖 Ananda Behera v. State of Orissa, AIR 1956 SC 17

Facts: The petitioners had paid large sums for the right to catch and appropriate fish from specified sections of a lake, under oral arrangements with the former proprietor. After the estate vested in the State, they claimed that their rights survived.

Held: The Supreme Court held that a right to catch and carry away fish is a profit a prendre, and in India is regarded as a benefit arising out of land, and therefore immovable property. As the transactions were of value above one hundred rupees and were oral, they were ineffective for want of a registered instrument.

Ratio: A profit a prendre, such as a right to take fish from a lake, is a benefit arising out of land and so immovable property, and a transaction creating it requires a registered instrument.

📖 Shantabai v. State of Bombay, AIR 1958 SC 532

Facts: A document executed by a proprietor purported to give his wife the right to enter certain forest areas and to cut and take away bamboos, teak and other trees over a period of years. The estate then vested in the State, and she asserted her rights under the document.

Held: The Supreme Court held that what the document conferred was more than a right to the cut timber: it was a right to enter the land and take produce from it over time, that is a benefit to arise out of land, and therefore an interest in immovable property. The document, being unregistered, could not convey it.

Ratio: A right to enter land and take its produce over a period is an interest in immovable property requiring a registered instrument. Standing timber sold for immediate felling stands differently, since the Act expressly excludes it.

3. Things Attached to the Earth, and the Three Exclusions

Attached to the earth covers things rooted in it, such as trees and shrubs, things embedded in it, such as walls and buildings, and things attached to what is so embedded for the permanent beneficial enjoyment of it, such as doors and windows.
Permanently fastened brings in machinery bolted to a factory floor for permanent use, as distinct from a machine merely resting on the ground.
Standing timber means trees fit for use in building or repairing, intended to be cut and used as timber, not trees intended to remain and draw nourishment from the soil.
Growing crops and grass are excluded because they are cut and carried away in the ordinary course, and their sale is a commercial dealing in produce.
Section 2(9) completes the picture by putting those three, and fruit upon and juice in trees, into movable property, so a document dealing with them alone does not attract Section 17.

4. Comparison with the Other Statutes

	Registration Act, s. 2(6)	Transfer of Property Act, s. 3	General Clauses Act, s. 3(26)
Approach	An inclusive definition with express exclusions	Only a negative definition: immovable property does not include standing timber, growing crops or grass	Includes land, benefits to arise out of land, and things attached to the earth or permanently fastened to anything attached to the earth
Benefits arising out of land	Expressly included	Not stated, but read in	Expressly included
Practical effect	The widest of the three for deciding whether registration is required	Used for the substantive rules of transfer	Fills gaps where a statute is silent

5. The Wide Definition of a Lease

Section 2(7) includes a counterpart, a kabuliyat, an undertaking to cultivate or occupy, and an agreement to lease.
The Transfer of Property Act is narrower. Section 105 defines a lease as a transfer of a right to enjoy property for a term, and an agreement to lease is not itself a transfer.
The consequence is that a document that is only an agreement to lease may still fall within this Act's definition, and so may require registration where Section 17(1)(d) applies, that is a lease from year to year, for a term exceeding one year, or reserving a yearly rent.
The courts have read the phrase agreement to lease as confined to a document that creates a present and immediate right to the demised property, rather than a mere contract to grant a lease in the future, and the point should be checked against current authority in any particular case.

6. The Position Stated Shortly

Section 2(6) includes land, buildings, hereditary allowances, rights of way, light, ferry and fishery, and any other benefit to arise out of land.
It also includes things attached to the earth or permanently fastened to anything so attached.
It excludes standing timber, growing crops and grass, which Section 2(9) treats as movable property.
Ananda Behera: a right to catch fish is a profit a prendre and so immovable property.
Shantabai: a right to enter land and take its produce over time is an interest in immovable property.
The definition is wider than that in the Transfer of Property Act, which is only negative.
Section 2(7) defines a lease widely, including a counterpart, a kabuliyat and an agreement to lease.