469. H1 Visa Holder owning

agricultural land in India . . .

Questions: Hello, I have a two queries as below. Could you please help? 1) I'm staying in US on H1 VISA for the last 5 years. Being non-immigrant in US, I bought agriculture land in my home town and was registered on my name. 2) So far, i'm transferring money to my India savings account that i opened when i was in india. I'm not using NRE/NRO account. Please let me know what are the consequences of above 2 cases. In first case, can someone file a case on this. If so, what are the consequences of the case? can i transfer the land to my father's name? Thanks in advance for your valueble information. snr Answer: As an H1 Visa holder you are status in India is that of an NRI and NRI’s cannot have resident bank accounts. Your Indian savings account should be designated as NRO account. The Reserve Bank of India allows Non Residents to have a NRO joint account with another person resident in India. So if you wish you can have a joint account with your father for the NRO account. Whether someone can file a complaint, is something I cannot answer. Generally not many people are aware of someones NRI status or what type of land they own and yet quite often close friends, relatives or even real estate brokers may complain to the authorities. If a complaint is filed, your purchase could be questioned by the authorities as it would be against the rules set by RBI. In such cases the sale to you may be declared invalid. If your father is an Indian citizen and resident in India, then you could look into the possibility of transferring the land to him.