Justice Devdas directed the principal secretary of the state revenue department to immediately issue a circular directing all the tahsildars in the state that no such action shall be taken in the matter of change in the revenue entries. The Karnataka High Court has held illegal the practice of tahsildars immediately changing revenue entries (names of owners in land records) after an assistant commissioner, appointed under the Karnataka Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prohibition of Transfer of Certain Lands) Act, passes an order directing resumption and restoration of land to the original grantee or their legal heirs, without waiting for the appeal period to lapse. “The recent trend, as noticed by this court, is that immediately after the orders are passed by the assistant commissioner, the revenue entries are changed without even waiting for the appeal period to lapse. This kind of practice is totally illegal and cannot be sustained in the eyes of law,” a single-judge bench of Justice R Devdas said in its order passed on January 19.