Land Law in India 2019030513, 2019030514, 9780367141943, 9780429341946

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Land Law in India

This book is a critical study of the laws regulating landownership patterns. Land and land law are woven into the fabric of our society and are therefore integral to the substantive questions of equality and developmental ideologies of the state. This volume uncovers the socio-economic realities that surround land and approaches the law from the standpoint of the marginalized, landless, and the dispossessed. This book: • Undertakes an extensive survey of existing legislations, both at the union and state level through a range of analytical tables; • Discusses the issues of land reform; abolition of intermediaries and tenancy reform; need for redistribution; ceilings on agricultural holdings; law of land acquisition; legal construction of public purpose and displacement, dispossession, compensation, and rehabilitation to construct a case for redistribution; • Inquires into the phenomenon of landlessness that widely prevails in India today and lays bare its causes. An invaluable resource, this volume will be an essential read for all students and researchers of law, political studies, sociology, political economy, exclusion studies, development studies, and Asian studies. Astha Saxena is an independent research consultant and a doctoral scholar at the National Academy of Legal Sciences and Research, Hyderabad. Her work lies in the field of land reforms. She is exploring the relevance of legislative paradigms towards the realization of socio-economic rights.

Land Law in India

Astha Saxena

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Astha Saxena The right of Astha Saxena to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Saxena, Astha, author. Title: Land law in India / Astha Saxena. Identifiers: LCCN 2019030513 (print) | LCCN 2019030514 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Land tenure—Law and legislation—India. Classification: LCC KNS659 .S29 2019 (print) | LCC KNS659 (ebook) | DDC 346.5404/32—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019030513 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019030514 ISBN: 978-0-367-14194-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-34194-6 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

To the warm embrace of friendships

Contents

List of annexuresx Forewordxi Acknowledgementsxvi PART I

A general introduction to the law of land1 1 The construction of an Indian right to property in land Objectives 3 The distinction between land and property  4 The Indian interpretation of property  8 Property rights and land laws – a distorted debate  9 The composition of a constitutional right to property  9 A combined reading of the constitutional right to property and the legal regime constructed to reform land  11 A five-point argument  12 Land, the law, and a distinction from general property  13 The First Amendment and a constitutional space for land reform laws  16 A possible harmonious interpretation for property rights and land reform  20 Land reform going astray with the subsequent interpretations 22 Reading together the constitutional right to property and the directive principle of redistribution of land  26 2 Thematic sketch of land laws in the country Classification of the law  40 Excess land law  42 The tables – as an instrument of study  44 State models  46

3

40

viii  Contents 3 Land reform and its impact on the existing land tenure system Creating a concept of land reform  50 The Indian land structure  51 The social aspect of land and land reform  53 The concept of land reform, its ideology, programme, and the law  54 Components of land reform and their impact on the tenure 58

50

PART II

Law of land reform67 4 Alteration of the land tenure system: laws relating to abolition of intermediaries and tenancy reform The fundamental concepts of reform  69 Laws abolishing intermediaries and other classes holding estates in land  70 Legal provisions abolishing intermediaries  72 Law reforming tenancies  80 Statutory provisions reforming tenancies  81 Exclusions created by tenancy law – classification of tenants 82 The clause of personal cultivation – insecurity of tenancy tenure 85 5 Law of land redistribution Introduction: need for redistribution and the concept 98 Law imposing ceilings on agricultural holdings  101 The policy of land ceiling  102 The ceiling statutes  105 The general procedure  106 Determination and extent of ceiling limit  107 Statutory provisions imposing ceilings  109 Statutory unit of identification  113 Computation of compensation  116 Vesting of surplus  118 Scheme of redistribution within ceiling law  118 Law conferring rights on tenants to purchase holdings of landowners 123 Law of land assignment  124

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Contents ix 6 Land administration, records, and titling The law of land records, its purpose and functions  136 The Andhra–Telangana legal scenario  138

136

PART III

Law of land acquisition149 7 Framework of the law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity: a combined working of land reform and acquisition law The legal regulation of land by the state – interaction of laws of land reform and acquisition  151 Compulsory acquisition of land – the framework of law, its functioning and impact on the land structure  156 Legal construction of public purpose  161 The legal choices of procedures available for acquiring land 170 Alternated choices for acquisition  175 8 Displacement, dispossession, compensation, and rehabilitation in matters of land reform and acquisitions An introduction to the essential concepts: public purpose, development, and displacement  187 The development–displacement duo  189 Understanding displacement  190 Compensating the erstwhile landowners and displaced  193 The shaping of a fundamental right to property through deliberations over the compensation clause: an Indian construction of a property regime  194 Purpose and adequacy of compensation: its reasonability, fairness, and justness in computation of amount  197 Statutory principles determining computation of compensational amount: the acts of 1894 and 2013  202 Resettlement and rehabilitation of the displaced  209 9 Concluding remarks: land relationships, landlessness, and the law

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Annexures226 References465 Index481

Annexures

A1 List of abbreviations used in annexures 226 2 Countrywide list of land legislations A 227 A3 Ceiling legislations across India: collection of surplus land 264 A4 Procedure for collection of surplus, compensation, and vesting 275 A5 Disposal of land after vesting: redistribution strategy 285 A6 Provisions regulating allotment 291 A7 Data on ceiling 295 A8 Tenancy legislations across India: rent management 297 A9 Rights of tenants and owners 300 A10 Extinction of tenancy and other provisions 306 A11 Classes of tenants 311 A12 Bargaining power of landowners and tenants 323 A13 Status of tenants under ceiling legislations 354 A14 Status of various players on land 358 A15 Land legislations in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana 373 A16 Land Acquisition Act, 1894, with state amends: types of acquisitions426 A17 Procedure of acquisition 432 A18 Procedure for compensation 437 A19 Allied status on land acquisition 441

Foreword

It is a sine qua non in law that words acquire their meaning from the context in which they are used. This principle stands institutionalized in the definitional section of every statute, which states that unless the context otherwise requires, the meaning as provided in the definition of the term will be followed. A logical deduction being that with a varied context the meaning could change. All persons undertaking the task of interpretation, be it adjudicators or administrators, need to do it in acknowledgement of this principle, especially when we are oft told that ignorance of the law is no excuse. The further question on whose ignorance is inexcusable is usually not asked on the presumption that this lack of knowledge shall only be that of the people, as the makers of the law it is presumed know the law. This treatise by Astha Saxena on land laws in India would cause you to repeatedly question the justifiability of this presumption, as the author provides an evidence-based analysis on how land laws have been both made and interpreted in contextual oblivion. I begin this foreword by drawing attention to the absence of context in the manner in which the right to property came to be interpreted when land reform legislations aimed at ushering in a more equitable system of landownership were challenged in the courts. It seems elementary, especially now, that the apex court should have worked on a contextual exposition of the right to property. Should the right to property and the compensation for extinguishment be read the same way irrespective of the context? Should the right to property be read the same way when the government acquires land from a landowner owning thousands of acres in order to redistribute it to those who have none and when the state acquires the only piece of land a person owns for industrialization or building a dam or a city. The variance in the two situations seems evident. It is also obvious which set of litigants needs the protection of the court. In the context of land reforms, it would be pertinent to ask whether the right to property is only about protecting the entitlements of those who already own property or is it also about making ownership, or rather possession, possible for those who do not have it? This question needed to be asked, especially after independence, as an integral component of providing to every person in the country an opportunity to grow, develop, and prosper.

xii  Foreword Unfortunately, as Astha Saxena convincingly argues, the land reforms context of the first set of right to property cases was totally lost on the Indian Supreme Court (Part I Chapter 1). If compensation for expropriation had to be pitched at full market value then the redistribution enterprise would sink even before it was floated. Should not the Court have placed an obligation on the propertied to contribute to the equitable development of the newborn independent nation; instead of making the matter of land reforms an exclusive obligation of the state, which it should undertake from its own resources. Such zealous protection of the rights of the people is not to be seen when land is acquired and people are evacuated for building dams or power projects or industrial estates. The Supreme Court does speak of rehabilitation and compensation but providing for it is not made a precondition to the execution of the development projects. Instead, in this round, the people who are losing home and hearth are blithely told that if the nation prospers, they would also benefit, hence they should not be impediments in the development of the country. In the land reform cases, payment of less than full compensation would have made the litigants a little less prosperous. In comparison, the evacuees of developmental projects were often rendered homeless and destitute. The litigants in the land reform cases had the wherewithal to support equitable development, which the project oustees did not possess. If they lost land, they lost livelihood, lifestyle, and social and cultural capital. However, this loss which was integrally connected to the land on which they lived was not seen as loss, hence not worthy of compensation. It could be contended that the reason the developmental dimension of land reform legislations was missed out by the courts is because the legislations were in the main acquiring but not redistributing. And without redistribution, there was really no land reform. Saxena’s survey of the various land reform legislations bears this out. If the Supreme Court had stepped on the need for redistribution, it would have formed an alliance with the disadvantaged and the dispossessed and ensured that reform did not remain an on-paper exercise alone. However, to do that the Court could not interpret the right to property without looking at the social context within which the right was being asserted, by whom and against whom. In the constitutional division of legislative power, land figures in List II, which means that the making of laws on land lies within the jurisdiction of state legislatures, and there is no one uniform Indian land law. To understand land laws in the country, the laws of each state need to be studied separately. The mammoth nature of this exercise has directly impacted on legal writing and research, thus whilst there are commentaries and treatises on the land laws of each state, there is no one book which speaks to the land laws of the country. Without this information it is not possible to analyze how the law reform approach of one state differs from another. Is there a strategy tried by one state which can be replicated by another? Astha Saxena has painstakingly threshed these state statutes to provide both information and analysis on legislative regulation of land across states. She has tackled

Foreword xiii the problem of bulk by presenting the data in tabular form and using the prose of the chapter to draw out the significance of the data. Along with providing evidence for her own analysis, Saxena’s tables provide opportunity to other scholars to further advance the discourse. The analysis emerging from her data brings home the necessity of this exercise. People’s connection to land is not mediated only through ownership, nor is this relationship necessarily a formally documented exercise. Both the law of property and the right to property is a more formal affair. Consequently, those whose connection to land is not formally recorded tend to end on the losing side, especially as they lack both social capital and legal resource. A law should not be understood by just reading the appropriate legislations or the relevant judgments. It needs to be firstly read and not just also read on how it impacts on the lives of the people. Insofar as land laws impact on the livelihood, social interaction, identity, and culture of the people, they cannot be studied and understood dehors the context. Even as the book in hand is an analysis of the land laws in India, it is an analysis which is not restricted to the word of the law but the word as affecting the lives of the people. Landlords, tenants, sharecroppers, landless labourers, ancillary workers all figure in this discourse because the author recognizes that the lived situation of each player alters the context of the law. Thus, for example, Saxena finds that most statutes “only recognize a couple of upper-class tenants excluding from their purview all other classes who generally constituted the mass of tenants.” Again the Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 1952 allows land to be allotted to a zamindar who did not own land. The pool of land from which this allotment could be made included land surrendered by tenants and land abandoned by tenants. This provision, Saxena points out is evidently oblivious of the power dynamics subsisting between zamindar and tenant. If zamindar is beneficiary by law, would it be very difficult in the real politic of rural life to have the tenant surrender or abandon. In order to understand whether the process of land reform in fact improved the lives of the intended beneficiaries requires an empirical checkout, but it also requires laws which are in harmony with the alleged objective. If policy speaks of providing land to the cultivator, but the law devalues the contribution of the cultivator and defines personal cultivation as assuming risk of cultivation and personal supervision, personal labour, which is the most critical function performed by a cultivator, is either downplayed or excluded. If this is the nature of the norm, then reality can hardly be otherwise. Similarly, the law prohibits beneficiaries from alienating the land bequeathed on them, without ensuring that the land bequeathed to the beneficiaries was of the cultivable kind. If that is not the case, then the embargo operates as a technique of disempowerment. Saxena finds that due to the paucity of cultivable land, very often beneficiaries are given wasteland. Yet the embargo on alienation is retained without a second thought. Laws relating to land cover a wide canvas. Land reform itself encompasses multiple steps. In order to redistribute land, it would be necessary to

xiv  Foreword obtain land which can be redistributed. This is done with changing ownership patterns – by placing ceilings on the quantum of landownership and then to identify beneficiaries and redistribute. The manner in which land records are maintained and transfers recorded is an administratively significant step in the process. If equitable landownership is to be promoted then there needs to be harmony between all steps of the process. However, Saxena’s analysis shows a disconnect between abolition of landownership and redistribution. Most states have separate statutes addressing the matter of ownership reform and redistribution. As a result, whilst zamindari (or other landownership systems) is abolished or ceiling on ownership of land has been fixed, the concomitant procedure whereby the excess land is to be redistributed does not take off. And without redistribution, often the original owners continue to hold the land because the government cannot assume possession without an express notification and the issuance of this crucial notification is inexplicably (or maybe not) delayed. A legal procedure where abolition of ownership, identification of beneficiaries, and actual redistribution takes place as one integral whole has been found to be the most effective. In the main this seamless procedure has not been created by state legislations, with the land laws of the state of Jammu and Kashmir providing a salutary counter example. The author’s documentation and analysis of the land reform part of land laws shows an unwilling or inept state in the manner in which it is conducting land redistribution: loose definitions, incomplete procedures, giving with one hand and taking back with the other sort of pattern. This ineptitude is rapidly shed when it comes to invoking the power of eminent domain and acquiring land from the people. Some of the rough edges of this power could have been smoothened if the judiciary had subjected the invocation of public purpose to strict scrutiny and examined as Saxena points out the “morality and fairness of state assertions.” Instead, by according finality to the declaration of the government, the court made public purpose equivalent to the wish of the government. Such like finality the courts refused to bestow to the issue of compensation even when the executive was repeatedly asserting it. Often times the duplicity or ineptitude in public practice cannot be discerned because it happens in different spaces and is lost in the prodigiousness of legislative and judicial production. Astha Saxena has threshed the needles from the haystack to enable informed understanding of land laws in India. By looking at land legislations across states she has brought to the fore the models of land laws prevailing in the country. This information allows for inter-state comparisons on land legislations and development of comparative state law as a necessary area of teaching and research in a federal polity. It is about time that the exclusive obsession with central legislations is abandoned and legislative efforts of state legislatures looked at more closely. Astha Saxena responds to the legitimate criticism often levelled against academic writing by not trading in generalities but by providing evidence for

Foreword xv every proposition she makes. Her exposition on land reforms does not just say that the Indian state did not do its legal homework whilst implementing land reforms, she provides evidence of the absence of that homework in the comprehensive tables and their attendant analysis. The fact that the state of Andhra Pradesh introduced legislation repealing the same statute more than once is a particularly glaring example of mechanical law-making, where the state got hoisted on its own petard. Power conferred without limits can result in misuse is again not stated but shown in Chapter 7 in the cavalier manner in which the urgency provision in land acquisition is invoked by state governments. This book emerges out of a project based in the Centre for Legal Philosophy and Justice Education, NALSAR University of Law, which explored knowledge-based interventions to promote socio-economic rights. Knowledgebased interventions, it was realized, encompass not just well-reasoned legal petitions and research support to legal institutions but also the production of critical legal writing which does not just reproduce what the law is doing but reflects and worries about what it ought to do. To engage with this ought scholars generally and legal scholars more particularly need to develop a moral compass which helps them determine the impact of legislative, adjudicative and scholastic choices on the excluded populations in the polity. This body of writing is not check-box activity which is undertaken to earn points for career advancement. In fact, every time scholars indulge in such like mechanical writing, they reinforce the inequities of the status quo. Calling out inequity, injustice through evidence-based expositions is in my view an obligation of all ethical legal scholars. The indeterminacy inherent in law is a resource used by the powerful in society to push for legal interpretations which protect their interests and strengthen their hand. The nuance and subtlety which informs legal argumentation in the field of tax laws or corporate governance can be referred to as a ready example. Such indeterminacy is as much available for the disempowered, only they do not possess the legal resources required to develop the apposite ratiocination. Even so, the arguments developed for the victims of the Bhopal catastrophe is one example where such an effort was consciously undertaken. The need to look at land laws from the standpoint of the landless, the dispossessed, the evacuated, the socially excluded and marginalized is the motivation of this book. The values of neutrality and objectivity are espoused by those whose interests are protected by existing systems and structures. When practised against the excluded, they only perpetuate and legitimize exclusion. Whether the inequities in a system should be challenged, ignored, or reinforced is not just a governance preference but also a scholastic choice. This study has been undertaken in acceptance of the moral obligation that winners of the social lottery have towards those who were not so lucky. 19th May 2019 Hyderabad Amita Dhanda

Acknowledgements

The process of research and writing, especially for a new entrant to academia, is filled with self-doubt and anxiety. The phase is long and often feels without an end. One nevertheless goes through it – sometimes painfully, sometimes reluctantly – but there are also those times when one just sparklingly flares through it. And in both of those moments of self-doubt and spark are those people who surrounded me with their faith and love. Therefore, an acknowledgement to their consistent labour is but a small manner of expressing sincere affection towards them. This is not merely an acknowledgement for them but also for affirming and celebrating those relationships that continue to fill me with warmth. My experience in the writing of this book has been endearing, and that has a lot to do with the people who comforted me each time I dwelled in the impossibility of its completion. Perhaps it is the vulnerability that one faces while doing such work that opens so many possibilities of cultivating lifelong relationships. I hope I am able to bring all those people here with me. Amita Dhanda, who has had such relentless faith in me that I was forced to believe in myself. She taught me to think for myself, to move beyond the fear of exposure, and to take responsibility for my work and my life. She never gave up on me – even when I showed extremely mediocre skills of articulation and writing and instead made me learn to critique myself. And whilst all of this, she showed me how to break the boundaries of hierarchy – by transforming our relationship from a teacher–student to a cherished friend and colleague. She has been integral to all the thoughts and arguments that have gone into this book. Anindita Mukerjee, who is the most wonderful friend one could hope for. Through her unique sense of wit and an immensely fresh perspective on life, Anindita ensured that I survived my time on this project. As the holder of the cutest Maruti 800 and a beautiful house in Hyderabad, she created a space of comfort for me – something that allowed me to be at ease with the world. She heard and read every little idea that I had for the book and taught me to better articulate myself.

Acknowledgements xvii Ravikumar, a friend and a Zumba instructor, whose life-affirming attitude and proficiency in de-stressing people with fitness training maintained my mental health throughout the time I was working on this project. Ananda Amritmahal – that kind stranger (I have had a chance to meet her only once) who agreed to invest her time into editing my work as I struggled with the technicalities of the English language. She corrected all my faults and yet was able to, albeit silently, both secure the work (as it was) and my confidence. Michael Lipton, who reviewed parts of this work with utmost dignity for a young scholar trying to articulate things differently. His handwritten comments on a print out of my draft will remain my most cherished possession. Faizan Mustafa, who taught me the value of inner strength in research work and helped me strengthen the preliminary arguments of this work. Ramesh Sharma and Shomona Khanna, two extremely warm people who have opened many windows of opportunities for me. With their perceptive comments on this work, they exposed to me some of the ground realities of the subject – allowing me to concern my academic knowledge with the realities of peoples’ lives. Sruti Chaganti, who provided me with her extremely valuable insights to the functioning of land law at a time when I was only beginning the work and was barely aware of its diversity. Her classification of the subject formed the basis of my preliminary research without which I would have been lost in the gamut. Bina Agarwal whose sharp comments on the introductory part of the work helped me substantiate my narrative. And saving the best for last, my mother, Suman Saxena who uncovered for me the realities of living a quiet, domestic, feminist life. My grandfather, M.C. Saxena whose conviction in me has known no boundaries. My father and brother, Manoj and Akshat Saxena who have always filled me with a sense of fun and frolic, keeping alive the child inside me. And Tejus Subbanna, my dearest friend and partner who taught me the art of detailing – to work on each small attribute of this project (and everything else) patiently and passionately. With his extraordinary sense of everyday feminism, among other things, he helped me maintain my sense of parity.

Part I

A general introduction to the law of land

1 The construction of an Indian right to property in land

Objectives With this book, I seek to achieve a range of distinct but connected objectives. The first, and probably the widest, is to read, assess, and analyze the law of land in India. Our analysis will be predominantly legal with a specific reference to agrarian land. Instead of narrowing the line of enquiry to a group of land laws or to laws belonging to one state, we shall tour the land laws of (almost) all states in the country and attempt to ascertain the nature of Indian land law, if the subject may be called so. Through the scheme of the following eight chapters, we would seek to understand the manner in which land is regulated by law and the consequences that follow such regulation. Secondly, and hopefully, I would attempt to make land laws seem less boring. Especially in a society like India, land, its relations, and its law have shaped a tremendous amount of the societal–political–economical dynamics. Land law is usually read severed from such realities and, therefore, is rather unpopular among law students. Moreover, the use of vernacular terminology in the drafting of these legislations does not aid them to gain any nationwide popularity. I would also attempt to undo some of the common confusions and misconceptions in Indian land law: that land and property are almost the same thing, that as a legal system it is bogus (and not really important), and that land acquisition is the only form of land law that exists in our country. The third objective, which would also be one of the central themes of the following discussion, is to present land as a dynamic, humane entity that is intricately associated with the lives of people, instead of limiting it to the legal idea of property. I would argue that in an agrarian economy, land tends to possess a certain character to its existence. Even when it is to be regulated within the realm of property rights, it fits the bill with great difficulty and not without dire consequences. The law of land, therefore, has the excessively complex task of understanding the sociology of land, if it seeks to regulate it in any effective (and not counterproductive) manner. The legislations that are regulating land need to incorporate the people who build their lives and relationships around that piece of land. They need to be careful

4  A general introduction to the law of land about keeping land close to its people, where it belongs. As we go through the following eight chapters, we would assess the manner in which law perceives and regulates this relationship between land and people. Land’s close association with socially, economically, and politically relevant facts necessitates such an outlook. The fourth, and the most significant objective of this work, is to make a case for redistribution. I would argue that the construction of an Indian right to property in land cannot remain restricted to liberal notions of individualism and security against the state. The nature of land demands that the principles of equality and fairness are built into its distribution and access. Land is a socio-economic entity and, therefore, the right emerging from it would also necessarily consist of similar characteristics. The agenda of redistribution that the law undertook and then demolished from the 1940s to the 1960s must receive serious reconsideration. I probably seem quite ambitious in my anticipated achievements through this book; but the recent political climate has necessitated an urgent need for the legal community to re-examine its resource allocation systems. Capitalistic tendencies have been infiltrating our economy more than ever, and land is a resource that they all desire to possess. It is not that land was, at any point of time in history, not a subject of contestation between different classes of people, but recent economic developments have widened the class gaps to such an extent that no fair competition is possible. The traditional social structures that were built on a foundation of oppression and constructed around the right to possess land, are now flourishing in contemporary forms with monetary infestations. Especially where land is a source of sustenance, the need for a reassessment of the law is pressing.

The distinction between land and property The land–property dimension, with which I begin here, is a rather slippery slope. The property regime consists of multiple terms, the distinctions between which are mostly unclear: for example, ownership, possession, titling, estate, public land, real property, right to land, eminent domain and sovereignty; land and property are often used interchangeably; it is uncertain whether land rights are distinct and different from property rights, and relationships that people construct around land (which we could call land relationships) are regularly construed as those that are based on property rights (which I would argue to be a problematic legal perspective). It is astonishing to observe how a complicated entity such as land is wrapped within a legally constructed concept of property, which in itself is founded on no consistent ideology.1 Property is claimed to be a multifaceted, sometimes self-contradictory, and internally irreconcilable notion which is manifested in plural and yet inseparable cultural discourses.2 When such a legal concept strikes chords that do not quite resonate with land and its multifarious dimensions, there is inevitably a lot of noise.

Indian right to property in land 5 It is a fundamental characteristic of land that it can both provide food and give space for a home. Besides of course, all the other communitarian and private needs that it caters to.3 Relations around land are, therefore, also most fundamental in their nature. They determine who would have the power to make use of land and how others would be placed with respect to that parcel of land. If everyone requires food and a home, then essentially, land relations would determine the distribution of basic resources in a society. Owing to this fundamental quality, land represents a manifestation of power in a society4 – the person who gets to use it the most or dictate how others would use it, acquires, in essence, a socio-political power that is also one of the main factors regulating the flow of the economy. All land relations in India are, thereby, heavily associated with the class–caste dynamics of a particular region. Distribution of land, then, would be a dominant feature of the nature of these relationships; the more unequal the distribution of land, the more unequal would be the relations surrounding it. Relationships built around the idea of property, on the other hand, are a person’s relationship with another with respect to anything5 that is capable of being owned – and the capacity to own a thing is bestowed on a person by law. The legal system of property rights is constructed to create a system of relational aspirations – with a notion of private ownership at the core of its functioning. A person owning a particular thing has, in her bundle of rights, the particular right to exclude all others from interfering in her enjoyment of that thing. This allows her to remain secured from any intervention, either from the state or any other individual, and her individual liberty is ensured. The difficulty arises in this system where her ownership is to be interfered with: where the state claims eminence in its domain over the use of that thing or where any other individual claims a better title to her object of property. Property relations, therefore, revolve around the dynamics of the right of ownership over a thing – the thing is a commodity which is capable of being bought and sold, and the relations around that commodity are dominantly economic. When land relations are construed as property in law, much is lost in translation. Notions of private ownership, exclusive control, and individual liberty form the core of all land relationships, and any other social or cultural associations are pushed to the periphery. Neither do such property relations even consider the impossibility of actually owning lands at individuated levels,6 nor do they understand the basic need for equity in their interactions.7 Ownership in land, especially private, cannot be construed as a single unique relationship between a person and a material resource, but is, in fact, an open-textured relationship many aspects of which need to be politically and consistently determined.8 When land relations are property, the distribution of basic food and shelter is entirely market driven, and any welfare actions of the state are also ultimately dictated by such market tendencies. Land becomes an exclusive commodity which is a bountiful, perpetually profit-making resource, instead of a

6  A general introduction to the law of land multifarious resource that perpetually secures livelihoods and therefore also centres on the culture of humanity and its sustainability. From the multifarious senses in which land is perceived and utilized in reality, the legal concept of property is able to meagrely acquire only one or a maximum of two meanings. When I say that land is social and is deeply associated with people, I imply a variety of things. First and foremost, I mean to state that people build relationships around land that are not merely economic and social but also ancestral and emotional. As against the popular notions of ownership, whether private or common, the idea of belongingness to lands is prevalent among indigenous populations.9 Land is not merely the source of their livelihood but also of their knowledge and life. Secondly, I mean to suggest that since the relationships are both social and economic, there are multiple ways in which these relationships overlap with one another and for law to engage with such overlapping is a difficult endeavour, especially when its perceptions are limited to thinking in the paradigm of property. These relationships often overlap with one another without being necessarily conflicting, until they fall within the realm of property law. Thirdly, I also mean to press the distinction between speaking in terms of land on one hand and land relationships on the other. When we perceive land singularly and merely as a resource towards development, not only do we undermine the people that have formed relationships around it but we also undermine the conception of rights that are built into land. Those rights are always secondary to the notion of eminent domain and are, thereby, customized to suit the bill. The moment we severe people from land, it is easier to unilaterally argue the ultimate power of the state to decide on the best use of land.10 The strength of a right to land lies in the inclusion of the right holder along with her political and social identity into the legal perceptions. Fourthly, and most importantly, I press on this association for the fact that it requires the law to perceive land differently from any other form of property, for otherwise the legal reality generated from the process is far from its social reality and often only multiplies the already existing confusion in land matters rather than effectively regulating it. Further, construing land as property is an archaic perception of legal philosophy.11 Land has been, in fact, one of the classic examples used in any study of property law and hence the synonymy. However, if, for the moment, we do not press the distinction any further and assume that the legal regime of property rights can be exercised to regulate land relations, then, we may be able to at the least construct a distinct area for land within the property dimensions. I am speaking here of a conceptual space within the ideology of property rights that does not hold on to a flattened understanding of land as property; instead, it dares to undertake the task of keeping the law as close to social realities as possible. This could be premised on a sustainable understanding of land, one that humanizes the resource instead of separating people from their land.

Indian right to property in land 7 The idea of property has been strongly propagated on the grounds that its secured existence can lead to the ethical development of a person.12 The existence of property for a person is considered to probe elements of selfassertion and prudence;13 a legal construct for persons to have the opportunity to lead a dignified existence in society. Property is associated with ideas of liberty – liberty for people to realize their full potential and achieve self-fulfilment.14 In a scenario where such a relationship between person and property is established, it has been asserted by the Hegelian approach15 that this necessarily introduces a distributive element in the idea of property. One cannot argue on one hand that property owning is necessary for the ethical development of individuals and then, on the other, affect unconcern about the moral and material plight of those who have none. Inequality in property relations would immediately infuse a disparity of liberty in the society; property owners would have the capacity to claim the rights of liberty and non-owners would necessarily remain without any such rights. And therefore, we need to infuse a concept of substantive equality in the ownership and development of land, even if we are to continue within the paradigm of property. If this argument was to be used for the right to property in land, it would immediately meet a contradiction of legitimacy – a distribution of property rights would essentially mean limitation of the rights of existing landowners, the ones who legitimately claim ownership of land under the existing legal system. The moment this interference is attempted, it is vehemently argued that it would undermine the very idea of private property, which is grounded on the principle of granting freedom to the owner to do as she pleases with the object of her property. However, this argument is far from being central to the pragmatic concerns of a society. All rights, especially those relating to property, while interacting within the dynamics of relationships, are subject to one limitation or another. Such limitations are generally founded on the ideas of equality and fairness. The rights of property owners, under any equitable legal philosophy, cannot be allowed to feed on the lives of non-owners. By implication, the right to property in land would necessarily be read against the background of a general right to subsistence16 – a right that cannot be restricted by constructed notions of ownership of property and should rather dictate such ownership patterns. Land is a fundamental, sustainable environmental source of subsistence; it is closely integrated with the life and livelihood of people and therefore, demands equality in its distribution. The claim of legitimacy of landownership can only go as far as the law is framed to protect it: if the law is dominantly framed by landowners, then the claim stands to lose even that ground for lack of representation. The politics of representation has historically restricted the process of legislative drafting to owners of property17 and therefore, it is no surprise that laws are drafted so as to recognize only a single dimension of the right to property, viz. one that provides security against external intervention. Among all the

8  A general introduction to the law of land possible understandings of property relations, the one that has been popularly chosen is the one that protects existing property owners while proactively resisting any claims of redistribution.

The Indian interpretation of property The status of private property rights,18 especially with relation to land, is one of bewilderment – a property owner does not know for sure if her right of ownership19 is conclusive and legally durable. One is also unsure if one owns land in the real sense of the term, for the state can at any time legitimately exercise its powers of eminent domain20 and make a superior claim over one’s land. The amount of compensation (which seems to be the only substantive content of constitutional property rights) is a dubious figure as it lies mostly within the discretion of the administration21 and within a redistributive regime,22 the nature of relationship that one would have with a non-owner is continually fluctuating. The ideas of freedom and liberty have been associated with the concept of property rights23 but in the absence of any equity in distribution patterns of land, such association seems precarious.24 Property rights in land in an agrarian economy have conveyed a sense of self-fulfilment25 in the minds of property owners and a democratic welfare state generally seeks to maintain equilibrium in the distribution of this sense of fulfilment amongst its people, for it claims to undertake the affiliation of economic and political equality very seriously.26 A propertyowning democracy can function in no manner but one based on the equality principle. The regime of private property rights cultivates the dynamics of power structures within a polity.27 In India, it is land and land relations that have governed this power structure for centuries now. The owners of land often have had both money and power to regulate the life and livelihoods of others, and the political–legal system is constructed to make the state an institution that protects the will and purpose of those owners.28 The state also decides who would be entitled to such ownership. While securing the status of land and property owners, the state simultaneously attempts to provide the security of a source of livelihood to the non-owners, and since land is a limited resource, the only manner of achieving a fine balance between these two functions is the redistribution of land that will ensure access of land to its cultivators. The present chapter is further meant to provide a constitutional background to the legal regime involving the interaction of property rights and land legislations. It would address the issues that concern interpretation of private property rights within a legal system that was initiated with the idea of equality in access to land, land reform and redistribution. A strict understanding of the concept of private property rights can be favourable only to the landowning class – an approach that the new Indian state could not afford to take29 and therefore, the concept of property rights needed

Indian right to property in land 9 to be adapted to the Indian scenario. The distorted pattern of landownership,30 its direct association with the social hierarchy in Indian society,31 a large class of landless cultivators with no legal rights or entitlements in land, and a minuscule population of landowners that dictated terms of living for the entire society could not have been regulated by a system of laws that does not recognize these realities. In essence, this chapter would attempt to understand the Indian right to property in land as having two corollary elements: the right of landowners to remain secured against unscrupulous state intervention and the right of the landless to gain access to land in order to secure their source of livelihood. Since land is a limited resource, a harmonious reading of the two elements would introduce both equality and the redistributive component within the right to property.

Property rights and land laws – a distorted debate As has been mentioned, with specific reference to land, the Indian constitutional provisions relating to property32 have presented two concurrent, yet apparently paradoxical, aspects of rights related to property – the right of a landowner to remain secured against state interventions and the state’s directive of reforming land tenure to create an equitable agrarian society that provides the tiller of soil33 with the right to ownership in land. Both these aspects have created one of the longest standing debates in the Indian legal discourse, for their interaction was considered disastrous to one another. The right of a person to receive adequate compensation in the event of deprivation of his property was advocated as one of the biggest hindrances in the implementation of land reform measures which the newly built Indian state had promised to its mass of peasantry. The idea of reforming the agrarian structure by redistributing rights in land was a declared socialist objective of the state34 and was incorporated in Part IV of the Constitution. This was directly contrasted against the liberal construction of a democratic state that seeks to provide security from state intervention to all persons in their fundamental right to own and possess property. Therefore, for successful implementation of one, the removal of the other aspect was considered an absolute necessity and this was achieved by the Forty-fourth Amendment35 to the Indian Constitution. What must be realized, however, is that the deletion of one aspect did not lead to the triumphant operation of the other: the removal of the right to property from the list of fundamental rights to make it a mere constitutional right with fairly similar substantive content did not affect the operation of land reform in any concrete manner. Even today, the statutes and related executive attempts are considered unfinished business.36

The composition of a constitutional right to property The right to property has, at all times, been a compound of various elements, but its composition has differed at different periods of time.37 The

10  A general introduction to the law of land process of interpretation of the right has produced some of the most glaring controversies in the constitutional discourse, but strangely this did not relate to the composition of the provisions. The issues raised were limited: the courts were either assessing the adequacy of the amount of compensation that was being paid to the property owners or it was deciding on the extent of the power of the legislature to amend the Constitution. Among these two pressing concerns that were defining the polity of a new India, in neither was land considered a distinct form of property, nor was land redistribution considered a state policy to create economic equality within the agrarian structure. The entire debate relating to interpretation of the right to property commenced from Sir Kameshwar Prasad38 in 1952 and culminated in the landmark case of Kesavananda Bharti39 in 1975. Both of these cases, which initiated and closed the debate, were filed by landowners impugning the land reform legislations and the related constitutional amendments, but the entire chronology of case laws falling between the two was not restricted to reform statutes;40 acquisition and appropriation of all forms of property by the state formed a part of the cases establishing the right to and law of property. The entire jurisprudence of private property rights is directed to protect a person’s property from intervention by the state or any non-state entity. It defines the various kinds of rights, called the bundle of rights,41 that a person is entitled to exercise with respect to her property, which necessarily negates the jurisdiction of any other person or entity to interfere with its usage. Independent claims of ownership and possession form the focus of the subject. The concept of property was introduced in India by the series of Permanent Settlement Regulations, enacted by the colonial government. It was alien to Indians until the British introduced it in 1793 in order to regulate the revenue collection system. Actors akin to intermediaries and zamindars, who were revenue collectors, were present even in the Mughal times, but these intermediaries were not considered owners of the land, which was assessed under the revenue scheme. Ownership was bestowed on them only after 1793 when the British were attempting to locate an actor similar to an owner of land, as was familiar to them, from whom they could collect land revenue. The traditional intermediaries were not farmers; they were responsible for revenue collection from the farmers on the land. The Indian land tenure system was complex and it did not identify one owner of the land at all, the rights were often distributed among various people having variant interests in the property.42 Land was not merely an economic entity to traditional Indians; it was an entity intricately woven into their social and cultural life.43 Therefore, an Indian private property in land, when introduced in the Constitution, was a naïve concept where the owners of land were considered remains of the colonial presence. Until the 1950s,44 the land system was regulated by colonial legislations and the distribution of landownership in the country was appallingly uneven.45 The (then) existing landowners were

Indian right to property in land 11 mostly intermediaries who were declared owners under the settlement regulations. Thereby, when the right to private property was incorporated into the Constitution as a fundamental right to protect liberty and freedom of individuals from state interventions, the right was, in reality, attempting to secure land for the ex-intermediaries, zamindars, and other classes of landowners. The sanctity of right to property to protect one’s liberty, if interpreted plainly, had the ability to destroy expectations and opportunities of millions to gain ownership in land. It is true that the origins of the right were tainted by influences of the intermediary landowning class;46 but, the substantive content of the property provisions after the First and Seventeenth constitutional Amendments (read with the directive principles of Article 39) were directed towards creating a constitutional space for land redistribution laws. The problem, however, was in constructing the provisions together to identify that space and make them immune to possible incursions from other constitutional quarters. The judiciary was able to arrive at a position where harmonious construction of fundamental rights and directive principles was a possible way to achieve social welfare goals47 after many years of deliberation and litigation, but the land reform agenda was already a lost cause by then.48

A combined reading of the constitutional right to property and the legal regime constructed to reform land The present chapter will attempt to read the constitutional provisions relating to property in land in consonance with the statutory regime constructed to reform and regulate the land structure in the country. The jurisprudence produced on the right to property is immense in size and complexity. The short discussion that we had before we began with the Indian scenario would form the conceptual ground for the following discussion. Especially in India, land is a principal form of property that needs to be distinguished from the general discourse on property rights. An absence of this distinction has led to confusion in interpreting the constitutional provisions within the principles of equity and fairness and in consonance with the statutory regime of land reform. The present chapter would attempt to establish a link between the constitutional mandates on the process of taking of landed property and land laws attempting to regulate the tenure. It will be contended that the issues scrutinized during the property rights litigations scarcely related to the substantive content of the land legislations and, therefore, the entire length of case law provides only a limited insight into the subject of land law; other than the questions relating to compensation, in litigations challenging land or property regulating statutes, the courts were mostly entangled in establishing their jurisdiction to assess Parliament’s power to amend the Constitution. One other, and probably the most central, concern of linking the constitutional provisions and statutory regime of land is the interaction between the

12  A general introduction to the law of land Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy. The courts took a while to arrive at a conclusion in the case of Minerva Mills,49 where neither was considered superior to another and a harmonious construction of both was proposed. The alleged paradox, spoken about previously, between the two aspects of property rights in land is based on this interaction of Parts III and IV of the Constitution. Land reform laws were enacted at a period in time where the courts were attempting to establish the supremacy of one part over the other and where one could not exist in the presence of another. Seemingly, the fundamental rights were marked as being superior to the directive principles and therefore, the right of a person to protect her property from state intervention was considered to be anti-socialist and against land reforms. This ideology led to the deletion of the right from the list of fundamental rights, which was supposed to quieten the debate. The present chapter would discuss what exactly this ideology did to the property rights discourse which would also form a background to the discussion on land laws conducted in Parts II and III of this work.

A five-point argument The present chapter sets up its argument at multiple levels. Given the length of discourse and the multiplicity of issues involved, it would become almost impossible to conduct a sensible study if all the elements are not specifically marked, placed at their respective locations and connected with each other. Therefore, in order to conduct a systematic scrutiny, the following analysis would be conducted within the framework of a five-point argument: At first, it would be contended that it is absolutely necessary to distinguish land from other forms of property (something that I have been consistently stating); laws and litigations related to land had, at one point in time, become the pathology of the Indian Legal System50 and therefore, mixing land with other forms of property would only intensify the pathology. Secondly, a space was created for property rights and land reform laws to co-exist in the Constitution within Articles 19(1)(f), 31A, 31B, 31C, and 39 after the first and fourth amendments (this space did not exist in the original Constitution). The provisions of the original Constitution relating to property rights were influenced by certain Indian utterances51 which led to the incorporation of the concept of private property in the constitutional document. These Indian utterances were mostly from the landowning quarters of the society that displayed the class character of land structure in the country and therefore, the act of incorporating private property rights in the Constitution was itself directed towards impeding prospective attempts of land reform. The debate exhibited a classic case of conflict of interests between the landowning classes and the peasantry which, however, was carefully converted into technical issues relating to interpretation of the Constitution. This will introduce the third and fourth points in the argument – the substantive content of property rights related to land in the Constitution

Indian right to property in land 13 created the possibility of a harmonious interpretation, but the series of litigations filed in the courts disoriented the debate towards technical issues related to amendment of the constitutional document (third point). The multiple amendments made to the Constitution preceded and followed by decisions of the apex court validating, voiding or negating the effects of the amendment have created a state of utter confusion and anarchy in the property rights discourse. The case for harmoniously constructing a space for conflicting interests in land was lost. It would be further argued, as a fourth point, that the controversy between Supreme Court and the Parliament relating to the content of property rights was actually a quarrel over superior jurisdiction in the meaning and interpretation of the Constitution. Fifthly, a combined and harmonious reading of the fundamental rights and directive principles relating to property rights in land can clear the alleged paradox between the two aspects of property rights. It would be argued that the ideals of equality embedded in land reform and redistribution were as significant in a socialist democratic state as were the ideals of freedom and liberty embedded in the right to property. As a result, the Indian right to private property in land was required to be constructed to achieve a fine balance between the seemingly conflicting aspects of the right within a constitutional framework that could be achieved via the concept of substantive equality.

Land, the law, and a distinction from general property In agrarian India, land has never been a regular form of property – it is limited as a resource, interwoven into the lives of people with co-existing multifarious interests and claims,52 complex in its legal nature having variant social and economic dimensions, nearly incapable of regular adjudicative control,53 and also regulated by muscle power within the social structure.54 Consequently, the law formulated to regulate land has gained a peculiar character. The law attempts to administer land relations which are generally found to be overlapping and conflicting. Although the legal framework allows multiple rights and claims to exist simultaneously with respect to a patch of land, it has failed to impart any conclusiveness to them, creating a situation of recurring disputes that dismantle the entire land administration system.55 The idea of having a property in land or the ability to exercise control over a patch of land has represented livelihood, power, and status in an Indian agrarian society. The traditional land structure in the peasantry was composed of multiple layers of imprecise, fluid relations between three main actors – the cultivators of land, controllers of cultivators (generally known as intermediaries or zamindars), and different levels of state authorities.56 Moreover, the class of cultivators was constitutive of a variety of different types of farmers and peasants, some of whom were primarily responsible for cultivation and others who were agricultural labourers. Not only

14  A general introduction to the law of land did this constitution differed with land, but also with time, for different people acquired different jobs in different seasons. The agrarian situation was imprecise and legally ambiguous where land was shared between these actors in a bewildering57 variety of ways and therefore, the concepts of single ownership or proprietorship in agrarian land was largely unknown. Such a land tenure system in practice allowed all the three classes of people to have variant interests in one single plot of land, with no one person exercising their sole ownership claims over another. These relations were customarily regulated and guided by the local realities of society.58 Land has always been very dear to Indians; it has defined their social status, economic capacity, and political voice. It was obvious, therefore, that in a peasant society, land would be intricately woven into the lives and livelihood of the people. Absence of the concept of ownership and precise relationships in land was peculiar to the Indian agrarian society and an introduction of these concepts infused law into the social structure. When legal provisions were utilized to regulate rights in land, they attempted to convert land into a singular economic entity as opposed to its traditional multidimensional existence. The fact that land produced immense amounts of revenue for the state gave sufficient reasons to the colonial rulers to take a special interest in its operation. In order to ensure that there was a concrete revenue system in operation, the British felt the need to identify one owner of land from whom collection could be made. Since they could locate no one, legislations were enacted to confer rights of ownership to a certain class of people and once an owner was identified, his relations with other actors on the land were also regularized. Therefore, land was heavily legislated upon and the legislations pertained to regulating rights and claims related to land. These attempts to vigorously regulate only land, marking out the definitive claims and establishing superior and inferior interests pertaining to a plot of land, singled out land relations from all other social relations.59 Previous claims to land which were based on labour, caste, family status, marriage, and other social factors were all deleted: the law commanded all rights and transactions of land and in this command, the influences of all these social factors were ignored. In a peasant society, land had to become a litigious entity on which people could ascertain their superior claims over others and satisfy their greed; land disputes entered the courts and overwhelmingly occupied them. Even today, litigations relating to land form the bulk of cases filed in the courts. In an attempt to govern land relations with greater control and to reduce the amount of competing claims, the British continued legislating on the subject.60 The colonial government made repeated legal attempts to control land tenure and maintain a functional revenue collection system. The independent government again legislated upon land in order to undo the colonial structure and insert new frameworks in its place. Land, therefore, has been one of the favourite subjects of the legislators; their love for the subject has produced around 1,100 co-existing legislations and regulations

Indian right to property in land 15 relating to land.61 However, these innumerable attempts have failed to exercise any concrete control over land relations and transactions. The law has been unable to control the fluidity of relations, leading to complicated and overlapping claims.62 The traditional association of land with the social, economic, and political aspects of a person’s life, although lost in land law, still exists and influences its functionality. Consequently, land and land law have had two distinct realities: land has endured multiple and overlapping transactions and claims over the decades and land law has existed parallel to these transactions, attempting, but grossly failing, to regulate them. A single or private ownership in land is, therefore, a heavily convoluted concept which distinguishes it from other forms of property. The need for distinguishing land from other forms of property can be attributed to a dual rationale – the peculiarity of its nature and the complexity of its legal regulation. Land has never been any regular form of property; its peculiarity and significance are well admitted.63 A flattened understanding of ownership in land or simply equating land with property can be a problematic route to take, for such an approach would be unable to discern the characteristics and realities of land or real property, as it is termed. In fact, programmes proposing land reform are advocated as a means to reduce poverty and impart social and economic equality in society.64 Legal regulation of land has definitely remained a complicated discourse into which are factored elements of regionalism and multifarious claims. This distinction, however, has been largely ignored in the property rights discourse and its absence has prevented land law from receiving the specific attention it deserved. The taking of property by the state is ruled by a set of principles such as eminent domain and just compensation and understanding land as a generic form of property has led to a plain application of these principles to the seizing of land and abolition of landowning titles, without understanding the nature of the purpose for which the land was taken. Especially in cases of statutes providing for redistribution of land which were premised on the ideology of redistribution of wealth within the agrarian community, a monetary compensation equivalent to the value and productivity of land (which is the general rule in cases of acquisition of property) would defeat the fundamental theme of the programme.65 Furthermore, land legislations regulate land in diverse ways and for distinct purposes. Acquisition of land from a tribal community for establishment of a private factory cannot be equated, in principle, with ceiling statutes providing for redistribution. Land legislations interact with diverse groups of people across the power spectrum and therefore, on ethical considerations, the applicable legal principles must be adapted accordingly. Since land-related statutes often condition the structure of the agrarian society which has formed the basis of the country’s economy, the nature of their purpose becomes a significant factor in application of legal principles. This is the first point in the argument.

16  A general introduction to the law of land

The First Amendment and a constitutional space for land reform laws While the new Indian state was forming, the prospective structure of land and its ownership pattern was one of the greatest concerns of the landowning elite who were the likely targets of the government policies. The inclusion of the fundamental right to property in the Constitution can be asserted as the result of these concerns; the right was likely to obstruct the redistribution agenda of the state and at least in popular opinion, it did so. The practical failure of land reform, however, cannot be attributed to the presence of private property rights, for that was a structural impediment of the law.66 Nevertheless, the litigation battles against land reform statutes which allegedly infringed upon the property rights of the landowners deeply impaired the general opinion about the ideology. It made the administration disbelieve in the entire effort as land reform was a serious infringement of the property rights of individual holders, which was to be a foundation for the country’s economic development, and also an impossible endeavour that the then government had undertaken.67 The concerns of the landowning class were certainly not unfounded; all popular political declarations during the time, although different in their substantive content, sought to alter the colonial land structure: an attempt to mark democratic rule in the country.68 This alteration of land structure was proposed so that the decades of systematic oppression of the peasant were ended and the power balance shifted in favour of the cultivator. With the slogan of Land to the Tiller69 the political declarations seemed to be favouring a radical social revolution that essentially required the landowning class to be stripped of its power and status to accord land and power to the cultivator or the tiller of the soil.70 Therefore, the political–legal controversy about property rights became, in essence, a class war71 between the landowning classes on one side and the bundles of landless classes on the other. When read thus, the debate reflects the sensitivities of the various classes, their relations and attachments to land and also, the unevenness of the power spectrum. An attempt to even the spectrum by abolishing centres of concentration of power was certainly going to meet vehement resistance, and so it did. The landowning class repeatedly lobbied with the British and the Indian governments to ensure that their interests were protected and when, by the dawn of independence, abolition of their titles seemed inevitable, they demanded a fair compensation that could redeem their crucial loss.72 The second point argues that an explicit space for land legislations was created within the Constitution only after the First and Fourth Amendments. The original constitutional document had a general right to property that offered protection to property owners from state intervention, a provision that had been borrowed from the Government of India Act, 1935. The compound of property provisions in the original Constitution consisted of two basic elements – a fundamental right to property which allowed

Indian right to property in land 17 a person the freedom to acquire, hold, and dispose of property at one’s own will under Article 19(1)(f)73 and a protection against compulsory acquisition of property under Article 31.74 Property could be acquired by the state only by a law to the effect, for a public purpose and against an amount of compensation. The law acquiring land was required to set the amount of compensation or lay down the principles for its calculation. Together, both the provisions created the basis of the law of property but neither of the provisions recognized land and land reform as a distinct subject of consideration. The popular and prospective land reform agenda which necessarily required the state to strictly regulate private property in land was expected to fit within this constitutional structure of property rights. The political leadership at the time stated that the articles were carefully inserted into the Constitution and they were not expected to be understood as being against the social revolution that they were proposing to achieve through a reform of land structure.75 This expectation, however, grossly miscarried. The idea of including the right to private property as a part of the fundamental right to freedom actually spurted out of a few Indian utterances76 that were doubtful of the prospective programmes of the new state. The Congress had gained its mass political support by promising a social revolution which was to start by abolition of the intermediary landowning class.77 The intermediaries symbolized years of peasant oppression and were considered the residual faces of the colonial government.78 An abolition of the class and loosening of their hold over the land structure of the country was a marker of freedom to the millions of peasant cultivators.79 Obviously, the only section of society which could raise doubts against such intentions of the new government was the landowning intermediary class and their utterances were eventually converted into the Right to Private Property.80 Together, the English constitutional experts and the landowning class that constituted the membership of the Joint Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform, 1934,81 which was the prequel to the Government of India Act, 1935, reasoned the need for inclusion of private property rights. It is also interesting to note that those who played a dominant role in the framing of the Government of India Act, were not friendly to the notion of guaranteed fundamental rights in a written Constitution, which they feared would be so abstract in nature that they would have no legal effect, or if tightly enough drafted to provide legal protection, they would unduly hinder the legislature.82 They were, however, prepared to swallow their objections where property rights were concerned.83 Para 369: “We think that some general provision should be inserted in the Constitution Act safeguarding private property against expropriation, in order to quiet doubts which have been aroused property in recent years by certain Indian utterances. It is obviously difficult to frame any general provision with this object without unduly restricting the powers of the Legislature in relation particularly to taxation; in fact,

18  A general introduction to the law of land much the same difficulties would be presented as those which we have discussed above in relation to fundamental rights.” It can be asserted that such a conclusion is not really obvious – unless the identity of the membership of the committee is analyzed in detail, a conclusion to the effect that there could be only particular classes pressing for private property rights, can be at best, an assumption. Private property rights, after all, were a well-accepted concept in the West and a proposal for their inclusion cannot outright be termed tainted only because they seemed to be benefitting a certain set of classes. All these doubts are, however, removed on a further reading of the committee report – it expressly states that it was natural for the holders of privilege under the British government to be apprehensive of the changes that may be brought about by the new government and, therefore, certain interests vested by the British government must receive protection from any anticipated danger. It was doubted that the forthcoming government would responsible enough to honour the promises made by its predecessor. These vested interests were titles and lands granted to certain individuals for their service to the British Raj. Para 370: “But there is a form of private property (perhaps more accurately described as ‘vested interest’ in India), which we think requires more specific protection. We refer to grants of land or of tenure of land free of land revenue, or subject to partial tenure of remissions of land revenue, held under various names (of which Taluk, land free Inam, Watan, Jagir and Muafi are examples) throughout British of land India by various individuals or classes of individuals.” Para 371: “It is not unnatural that the holders of privileges such as we have described should be apprehensive lest the grant of responsible government, and the consequent handing over to the control of Ministers and Legislatures of all matters connected with land revenue administration, should result in a failure to observe the promises which have been extended by Governments in the past to themselves or their predecessors in interest.” It was then considered whether the same protection should be extended to zamindars and others who were the successors in interest of the Permanent Settlement. Admittedly, the position of zamindars was markedly different from that of individual title holders of land, but it was not considered appropriate that by a stroke of pen all their rights and privileges were crossed out. The permanence of the settlement made by them must not be left susceptible to such meek changes and it was necessary to accord the zamindars due protection. Para 372: “We have considered whether similar provision should be made to protect the rights of Zamindars and others who are the successors in

Indian right to property in land 19 interest of those in whose favour the Permanent Settlement of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and parts of the United Provinces and Madras was made at the end of the 18th century. Briefly, the effect of this Settlement was to give a proprietary right in land to the class described as Zamindars, on the understanding that they collected and paid to Government the revenue assessed on that land, which was fixed at rates declared at the time to be intended to stand unaltered in perpetuity. It is apparent that the position of Zamindars under the Permanent Settlement is very different from that of the individual holders of grants or privileges of the kind we have just described; for, while the privileges of the latter might, but for a protection such as we suggest, be swept away by a stroke of the pen with little or no injury to any but the holder of the vested interest himself, the alteration of the character of the land revenue settlement in Bengal, for instance, would involve directly or indirectly the interests of vast numbers of the population, in addition to those of the comparatively small number of Zamindars proper, and might indeed produce an economic revolution of a most far- reaching character.” The right of property was then included in the Government of India Act 1935 under Article 29984 that formed the basis of the Indian Constitution. The right was highly debated in the constitutional assembly but the composition of the provisions adopted was not very different from the property provisions of the 1935 Act: Article 299(1) and (2) of the Government of India Act, 1935, and Article 31(1) and (2) of the Constitution of India, 1950 had the exact same composition. (1) No person shall be deprived of his property in British India save by authority of law. (2) Neither the Federal nor the Provincial Legislature shall have the power to make any law authorising the compulsory acquisition for public purposes of any land or any commercial or industrial undertaking or any interest in, or any company owning, any commercial or industrial undertaking, unless the law provides for payment of compensation for the property acquired and either fixes the amount of compensation or specifies the principles on which and the manner in which it is to be determined. All authors on the subject have noted that multiple and glaringly conflicting opinions were expressed with regard to the inclusion and text of the right to property,85 but almost the same provisions went into the Constitution, effectively scuttling the debate. In fact, the second clause of Article 31 was considered as a compromise86 between the members of the constitutional assembly on the question of the amount of compensation to be paid in cases of acquisition of land; as it appears, the compromise had already been reached even before the constitutional assembly considered the matter.

20  A general introduction to the law of land The popular success, in fact, was that of the landowning class who had laid a base for itself to fight the further battle. The compound of property provisions that went into the Constitution – Articles 19(1)(f), 31, and 39 – not only included prohibitions on the powers of the government, but also principles of equality that the government had to strive towards, and property relations offered the most difficult problem.87 Within a political climate that seemed glaringly in favour of a social revolution that represented a class war,88 the constitutional assembly decided to arrive at a compromise about the amount of compensation to smoothen the frictional edges in the form of Article 31. This compromise was, in reality, a delay or a transfer of responsibility by the constitutional assembly to the central and state legislatures to determine the amount of compensation. Article 31 stated that the law providing for acquisition of land must determine the requisite amount of compensation or lay down the principles for its fixation. Therefore, the zamindars changed their battleground and moved their lobbying efforts to the ministries of state, specifically in Patna, Lucknow, and New Delhi. They wrote to the political elite that they hoped that the wailing of zamindars in their distress would touch their hearts89 and they would ensure that the government protects their interests. But the framework of the reform law in Bihar that provided for abolition of all forms of intermediaries and vested their land in the government did not satisfy the expectations of the zamindars; the Maharaja of Darbhanga and others challenged the constitutionality of the Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1948, on the grounds of Articles 19 and 14.90 The Act provided for the taking over of zamindar estates. The Patna High Court agreed with the zamindars in their argument that the law was affording them unequal treatment which was causing them extreme distress. The impugned Act was accordingly declared unconstitutional on the ground of Article 14 as it discriminated between the zamindars in the matter of awarding compensation.91 This interpretation of equality being applied to the right to property readily discouraged the attempts towards redistribution. The decision completely disregarded the socio-economic inequalities between the sufferers and the beneficiaries of reform legislations. A legislation that was attempting to infuse economic and political equality into the agrarian society was invalidated on another version of equality that opposed arbitrariness in state action. This version of equality, applied in the conditions as existed, was oblivious of the realities of the land structure, was confined within the facades of the landowning classes, and, therefore, only made the existing inequities before the law even more rigid.92

A possible harmonious interpretation for property rights and land reform These jurisprudential concepts of freedom and equality were being juggled in the new polity. A deeply casteist and economically unequal society was

Indian right to property in land 21 confronted with principles of social and economic justice and it was reluctant to accept them without putting up a strong fight. Judgments similar to Kameshwar Prasad93 were delivered by the Supreme Court where affirmative action taken by the government was shot down on one ground or another. These judgments created a general atmosphere of confusion regarding the understanding of the constitutional theme which appeared to be favouring contradictory concepts. Within this general confusion, the formation and interaction of land relations offered one of the most vigorous challenges. The landowners were exerting political pressure and cultivating a popular opinion to support their stand, but the government was expecting against all odds that it would be able to keep its promises of land reorganization without a hint of legal resistance. The then Prime Minister himself declared that even though a right to private property was incorporated, on a proper construction of the constitutional clauses, the state’s land reform agenda was well protected.94 This expected construction, however, did not appear proper to the judiciary. Therefore, the government took into its own hands the power to act righteously and enacted the Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951.95 The Act, among other things, inserted Articles 31A and B and the Ninth Schedule, which were to create a space for the land reform statutes in the Constitution. These two provisions were to co-exist along with the right to private property under Article 19(1)(f) and the right to be protected from state intervention under Article 31. Article 31A saved laws that provided for acquisition of estates96 from possible accusations of infringements of any fundamental rights, and Article 31B validated all statutes that were placed in the Ninth Schedule and declared that their provisions would never be deemed void on the grounds of infringement of any fundamental right. The term estate was to have a construction similar to land tenure based on the local area to which the law belonged. The language of the amendment seemed desperate; inclusion of two different articles declaring almost the same thing and use of recurring phrases like ever to have become void97 or shall be deemed always to have been inserted98 made it seem like the government wanted the law on the issue to be settled without any further opposition. The amendment retrospectively saved the Bihar Land Reforms Act and made way for the subsequent reform legislations. When the impugned Act was retrospectively validated by the First Amendment, the case of Kameshwar Prasad reached the Supreme Court where the respondent zamindars challenged the validity of the amendment itself. Three of the five judges (Mahajan, Mukerjee, and Aiyer JJ.) upheld the amendment but declared two provisions of the Act invalid despite the amendment. It was recognized that Article 31(4) precluded any challenge to the provision based on adequacy or extent of compensation but upheld the contention of the zamindars. The majority held that impugned provisions were only a colourable exercise of power to reduce gross assets since it had no relation to the actual expenses of the zamindars; the law did not

22  A general introduction to the law of land come under Entry 42 of List III99 because no principles of compensation were laid down in pith and substance. Thirdly, I argue that if taken in their substantive sense after the First Amendment and read along with Article 39(b) and (c), the various elements of property provisions could be harmonized. Articles 19(1)(f) and 31 declared a general law that protected all property holders from unscrupulous state interventions in their usage of property, and Articles 31A and 31B identified land as a distinct form of property and land reform as a principal social reform measure that required proper legal attention. The exclusive treatment granted to land reform laws was validated by the directives of Article 39(b) and (c); the state was directed to make efforts towards rupturing the concentration of wealth, and its redistribution and land reform statutes were an essential striving towards those objectives. The First Amendment attempted to understand certain realities that the original constitutional document missed – a plain application of the right to private property in land, as was understood in the West, to the peculiarly disorganized Indian society could only maintain the status quo: concentration of land in the ownership of 11.85 per cent of the total population.100 It admitted the need for a distinct recognition of land within the constitutional space and asserted that land-related statutes needed to be categorically understood as having reformative qualities.101 A proper legal regulation of land could build a culture of equality in society, to meet both agrarian and industrial ends. Since the fundamental rights of individuals seemed to be causing difficulties for the greater good of the community, the text of the amendment protected land reform statutes from their invasion. It was the state that was acting as the mediator of a social revolution involving radical land restructuring which necessarily required the stringent exercise of power, and therefore, the state activities included arbitrariness and excessive intrusion in individual liberties in their function. Such arbitrariness was, however, not well received, either by the landowning classes or the judiciary.

Land reform going astray with the subsequent interpretations Although the First Amendment meant well, it established the precedent of amending the Constitution in order to override judgments of the Supreme Court which impeded the government’s perceived responsibilities.102 It laid down the foundations of a mutual disrespect between the legislature and the judiciary that would subsequently clobber the entire programme of land reform. Land-related concerns had only just begun troubling the legal community and the Constitution had to be amended even before it had time to organically evolve. This made the constitutional document appear meek and the legislative powers immense, which the judiciary was reluctant to accept as it was considered the protector of the Constitution. Moreover, this precedent of loathed judicial decisions and consequent constitutional

Indian right to property in land 23 amendments was followed often enough to disorient the fundamental concerns that had raised the debate at the first instance. The landowners continued to attack reform statutes in the courts, along with all other forms of state intrusions in the business sector, and since no distinction was acknowledged between these two, the property rights discourse was further confused with recurring questions of compensation. No one challenged the purpose of the reform legislation for that was a noble cause, but any judicial or policy discussion about the noble cause was practically destroyed because payment of adequate compensation to the ex-landowners was beyond the financial capacities of the state.103 Accordingly, the agenda of land reform, despite being an express part of the Constitution, was lost in the technicalities of amendment procedures. The case of State of West Bengal v. Bela Banerjee was another Supreme Court judgment that followed the First Amendment and led to the Fourth Amendment.104 This decision was accompanied by two other cases, State of West Bengal v. Subodh Gopal Bose105 and Dwarkadas Shrinivas v. Sholapur Spinning & Weaving Co. Ltd.106 All three cases are generally cited as a reason for the Fourth Amendment but only one case among the three related to a land redistribution law. The Sholapur Mills Case challenged an ordinance promulgated to take over the management of the Sholapur Spinning. & Weaving. Co. Ltd. and Subodh Gopal’s Case impugned a tenancy reform legislation that regulated the relation of landlord and tenant, involving no acquisition or requisition of property. It was Bela Banerjee’s Case that concerned a specific form of land redistribution statute – the West Bengal (Development and Planning) Act, 1948 – which sought to acquire land from landowners for the rehabilitation of East Pakistani refugees. Although belonging to larger class of land legislations, the nature and purpose of the three impugned legislations was different and, yet, the principles relating to property were equally applied in all three litigations. The Bela Banerjee judgment was crisp and clear: “while it is true that the legislature is given the discretionary power of laying down the principles which should govern the determination of the amount to be given to the owner for the property appropriated, such principles must ensure that what is determined as payable must be compensation, that is, a just equivalent of what the owner has been deprived of.”107 The purpose for which land was needed to be acquired was neither relevant for such determination nor could it affect the constitutionality of the legislation and therefore was not considered in the judgment. At a period in time when partition had caused thousands of people to take refuge near the borders of India, the judiciary decided against a legislation which attempted to provide a few plots of lands for the rehabilitation of those refugees on the basis of the fairness of compensation that was to be paid to the ex-landowners, especially when the new Indian state was in no monetary position to pay such high amounts in recompense. The proviso to section 8 of the impugned legislation was declared to be arbitrary and against the letter and spirit of Article 31(2) as

24  A general introduction to the law of land “fixation of an anterior date which has no relation to the value of land when it is acquired, many years later, cannot but be arbitrary.”108 M. Patanjali Shastri, the then CJ, who wrote the majority opinion, stated that many years later, the landowners would be deprived of the increment in the value of their land and therefore, the immediate need for land was irrelevant. True, the legislation provided for acquisitions for all sorts of public purposes,109 but that fact could not undermine the immediate need of rehabilitation that stood before the state.110 It cannot be denied that the judges in the Bela decision had a genuine concern for the small holders who may also lose their lands against a compensation that was set at an archaic date by the functioning of the Act. But the legislature, thereafter, reacted with the Constitution (Fourth Amendment) Act, 1955, which intended to prevent the judiciary from making any more decisions regarding the amount of compensation. These events had ignited radical anti-judicial sentiments in the members of legislature and the executive. It is with the Fourth Amendment that the real quarrel between the two began: the legislature believed that the only way in which it could carry out its function was to keep the judiciary out of its way.111 Therefore, in order to prevent the judiciary from making any more troubled judgments, it amended Article 31(2) to the effect that no law could be called into question in any court on the ground that the compensation amount was inadequate.112 It also amended Article 31A to protect the laws acquiring estates and certain others113 from attacks based on fundamental rights. In the attempt to establish its superiority, the legislature started to use the Ninth Schedule as its own area of constitutional immunity. The schedule that was created to protect land reform legislations was used by the Fourth Amendment to preserve all sorts of legislative efforts. Section 5 of the Fourth Amendment Act added legislations like Insurance (Amendment) Act 1950, Railway Companies (Emergency Provisions) Act 1951, Industries Development and Regulation Act 1951, and others into the Ninth Schedule. The legislature, in its self-righteousness, advocated its socialist objectives in all sectors of the economy and made rigorous efforts to create a state monopoly.114 However, as would be observed in Part II, the same righteous zeal and devotion was completely absent when the stage came to actually writing the reform statutes. The Fourth Amendment, therefore, was also the point at which the debate over provisions and implementation of land relations restructuring and land redistribution was lost in the technicalities of constitutional interpretation and amendment. In deliberating over the framework of a strong reform law, the recurring concerns over the appropriate composition of property provisions in the Constitution made the statutory framework appear less significant and unworthy of any attention. The following constitutional amendments and judicial declarations play with these questions for a long time, completely unmindful of the substantive content of the legislations involved, and this is what the fourth point contends.

Indian right to property in land 25 A similar pattern of events was repeated during the Constitution (Seventeenth Amendment) Act, 1964 when the land reform agenda had struggled to reach its next level – imposition of ceilings on landholdings. The Seventeenth Amendment was also the result of another decision of the Supreme Court. Only this time, since judicial scrutiny under Article 31 was prevented (as per the Fourth Amendment), the Supreme Court had found a definitional problem with the provision. The acquisition of land under Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1961, was declared invalid in the case of Karimbil Kunhikonam v. the State of Kerala115 because the lands under concern of the impugned legislation were not estates and hence not protected under Article 31A. In addition, the court again applied Article 14 in the same manner as it was applied in the case of Kameshwar Prasad and declared the Act unconstitutional. It disagreed with the slab system that the impugned Act utilized for deciding the amounts of compensation and found its provisions weak on grounds of equality. The Seventeenth Amendment sought to clarify the definition of estate by amending Article 31A and also added a proviso that stated that any legal acquisition of land beyond the ceiling limit applicable to the person would have to pay compensation in accordance with the prevalent market rate. There was thus, a clear distinction made between acquisition within and beyond ceiling limit. Moving on from the Seventeenth Amendment, it seems that the concerns related to compensation were exhausted and so the nature of litigations filed in the courts against reform statutes altered to pure issues of the validity of constitutional amendments. Sajjan Singh v. the State of Rajasthan116 interpreted Article 13(2) of the Constitution to make a distinction between ordinary law and a constitutional amendment and upheld the Seventeenth Amendment. The judgment clubbed six writ petitions all of which challenged the Seventeenth Amendment as they were affected by one law or the other that the amendment added to the Ninth Schedule. In fact, this time, all the legislations added by the impugned amendment were related to agrarian reform.117 Three years later, the court via an 11-judge bench altered its position on the matter in I.C. Golakhnath & Ors. v. The State of Punjab & Ors118 which challenged the validity of two other reform statutes and their inclusion in the Ninth Schedule: Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953 and Mysore Land Reforms Act, 1962. The basis of contention was that the Parliament had no right to amend the Fundamental Rights in Part III of the Constitution. The court, feeling itself to be the sole protector of the fundamental rights of individuals, reversed its previous position via a slim majority of 5:6, and stated that the Parliament could not tamper with Part III of the Constitution. A constitutional amendment was held to be law under Article 13(2) and, therefore, subject to judicial review. This gave a new way for the litigants to challenge the validity of reform and other statutes and they utilized it with great rigour. The court felt that finality on the question of constitutional amendment was yet to be achieved and, therefore, a 13-member

26  A general introduction to the law of land bench in the case of His Holiness Kesavananda Bharti Sripadagalvaru & Ors. v. the State of Kerala & Ors119 was formed that heard a cumulative of six writ petitions challenging the validity of the Twenty-fourth,120 Twentyfifth,121 and Twenty-ninth122 Amendments. Among these three amendments, two were related to land reform law: the Twenty-fifth Amendment related to Article 31(2) where the word “compensation” was substituted for the word “amount” and Article 31C was added, and the Twenty-ninth Amendment included a couple of amendments to the Kerala Land Reform Act, 1963 in the Ninth Schedule. The single question before the court was the extent of Parliamentary powers to amend the Constitution. The content of reform or any other legislation was not a source of concern. It was their inclusion in the Ninth Schedule through repeated constitutional amendments that bothered the court. Other than the problem with the amount of compensation in land reform statutes, their substantive content was never a point of any disagreement between the legislature and judiciary. With this one exception, there existed a sharp gap between the provisions that were being implemented on the ground and the ones which were being challenged in the courts. Consequently, the confusion over interpretation of property rights cannot be attributed to the failure of reform statutes and so, the removing of the right to property from the list of fundamental rights did nothing,123 except make the claim of compensation weaker for all persons alike, whether affected by reform or acquisition statutes and by then, reform statutes were practically dead. The very first attempt made by the legislature in the form of the Ninth Schedule to immunize reform statutes from judicial challenges shifted the debate from the substantive content of the statutes to the validity of constitutional amendments and later to the construction of basic structure which was disputed until as late as 2007.124 The legal presumption with which the Indian polity started its functions that demarcated fundamental rights and directive principles and made them stand in opposition to one another was broken only when the state had lost its political will to conduct any more land reforms. Therefore, the agenda of land reform within the property rights discourse went astray and could not be retrieved again.

Reading together the constitutional right to property and the directive principle of redistribution of land The fifth and concluding point of the argument is to ascertain a new character to the constitutional model of property. As it was earlier understood, the right to property revealed a single meaning – one of liberal property which was negative in character as it was solely concerned with protecting an area of individual control and autonomy from the state. When read along with Article 14, which was to provide protection from arbitrary interference from the state, this provision sought to serve limited purposes. This is true for both Article 31 as it existed before and the present 300A, which were

Indian right to property in land 27 only directed towards providing security to property owners against state intrusion. But the other provisions, Articles 31A, B, and C and the erstwhile Article 19(1)(f) read with Article 39(b) and (c), were doing much more than just limiting the state’s powers of regulation. They were attempting to create a segment of legal functions that work towards affirmative action in distributing the material resource125 of land while basing their premise on the idea of substantive equality.126 If ownership and control of landed property connoted the ideas of liberty and freedom of individuals, then it would be unfair if the legal system was constructed to provide these rights only to that section of the community who could afford to buy land. In order to actualize the ideals of social and economic justice, it was essential that the legal system recognized not only what it was expressing but also what was silencing in the process, for the apparent fact that it was avoiding explicit recognition of certain features of social life which were familiar from experience.127 As the constitutional right to property recognized freedom and liberty of property owners, it was simultaneously silencing these rights for the non-owners. The concept of property as was affirmed while the right existed as a fundamental feature of the constitution, banished a dominant feature of life in a society of material inequalities – that of private power. The legal doctrine of property assumed its foundations on the principles of neutrality and formal equality where people appeared as equal subjects before the law. However, what was blinded behind these legal principles were the social realities of gross inequality in power and capacities. The concept of property made it possible for law to accommodate and guarantee these inequalities while always maintaining an ideology of equality.128 It allowed the law to draw a separation between a person and property, where equality was afforded no matter how much property could be (socially and economically) attributed by that person. Therefore, even if we were to remain within the property paradigm, the legal interpretation needed to move beyond the idea of formal equality towards one that recognized these substantive elements as a part of the legal doctrine itself. It is yet to be ascertained whether property theory is accommodative of the principles of substantive equality. The substantive conception of equality challenges some of the foundational assumptions of the principle of equality. First and foremost, it accommodates the existence of inequality and disadvantage within its framework. Rather than constructing a rule of law that distantly hovers over social realities, this concept requires the law to engage with those inequalities in a manner that reveals the nature of exclusions faced by the disadvantaged. Second, most of the formalized conceptions assume their basis in the twin concepts of abstract individualism and legal neutrality – masking complex reality of inequality where people have unequal access to resources and may not have sufficient power to control or value their own lives.129 Substantive equality provides the conceptual space required to question these basic assumptions of law. It reveals the dangers inherent in a law assuming a neutral role in

28  A general introduction to the law of land social transformation. Third (and a consequence of the former), it problematizes any concept of equality which assumes that same treatment is appropriate for everybody. Fourth, instead of believing that the object of equality is to make the differences disappear, it questions the manner in which relations of equality may be structured among people with many different and concrete inequalities. So if the right to property is to be read substantively, it must first recognize the rights of those who had no property to begin with, rather than keeping protection to property owners as its point of departure. Property rights could not be mere private rights, they needed to be ascertained publicly.130 A landowner attributed her property right not only to the state but also to those who had a share in that land through means other than formal property rights. In the context of land reform, this would mean that the law could not restrict its ideals of property to the liberal notions, instead it needed to recognize the inherent redistributive element in the constitutional provisions. The alleged contradiction between the fundamental rights and directive principles, at least with respect to the right to property in land, as has also been seen in the third point, could have been resolved if it was understood that the right inherently included a redistributive aspect in its construction. A fine balance between the erstwhile Article 19(1)(f) read with Article 31A, B, and C and Article 39(b) and (c) could have been struck to interpret the right to property in land and give it its complete meaning. Along (and as a prerequisite) with the right of claiming protection against outside interference, the right to property could include the right receive land in redistribution. The Supreme Court, in its later judgments,131 agreed that the two parts of the Constitution were an indivisible whole: the fundamental rights were to become the means to achieve the ends enunciated in the directive principles;132 for the right to property in land, both security of ownership and redistribution were the means, and equality of access and ownership within the land structure was the end.

Notes 1 Property is a complex concept that has had multiple and variant interpretations. Property has manifested itself in very many ways and it is difficult to define it in any concrete manner. Margaret Davies proposes to introduce the concept in the following manner, which I think captures the essence of the point being made here: “Rather, I will present property as a multi-faceted, sometimes selfcontradictory and internally irreconcilable notion which is variously manifested in plural (though inseparable) cultural discourtesies economic, ethical, legal, popular, religious, and so forth.” Margaret Davies, Property: Meanings, Histories, Theories (London: Routledge-Cavendish, 2007), 3. Hereinafter, Davies, Property. Also, the following statement about the idea of property in land is relevant here: “Few concepts are quite so fragile, so elusive and so often misused as the idea of property. Most everyday references to property are unreflective, naive and relatively meaningless.” Kevin Grey and Susan Francis Grey, “The Idea of Property in Land,” in Land Law: Themes and Perspectives, ed. Susan Bright and

Indian right to property in land 29 John K Dewar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 15–51, accessed January 29, 2019, https://trinhosts.trin.cam.ac.uk/fellows/kevingray/870.pdf. 2 Davies, Property at p 3. 3 The uses of land are innumerable and different communities have different manners in which they utilize the resource. My statement here is merely to re-emphasize for the purpose of the narrative the foundational significance of land and not to reduce its identity to it. The countless manners in which lives are associate with land are difficult to iterate at once – the list ranges from functional to religious via aesthetical significance. In fact, land constitutes a substantial portion of our perceptions of space – other than the economic identity that is popularly attached to land, it also constitutes a sense of space that is usually defined by collective or individual experiences and values. For example, ceremonial grounds of indigenous people, battlefields, burial grounds, etc. For a detailed discussion on land and space perceptions, see Rutherford H. Platt, Land Use and Society, Revised Edition: Geography, Law, and Public Policy, Revised Edition (Washington, Covelo, London: Island Press, 2004), accessed January 20, 2019, https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en &lr=&id=QhG8BwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT5&dq=land+use+and+society&ots =2LP9F33def&sig=Z3jT0orGjfngdXKhzbbxAYGpF5Y#v=onepage&q=land%20 use%20and%20society&f=false. 4 As a concept, property has never merely been about holding a right or power over an object, but, it is fundamentally about our ability to exclude others from a resource. See Morris R. Cohen, “Property and Sovereignty,” Cornell LQ 13 (1927): 8. 5 The modern idea of the objects of property is relatively clearer than its traditional counterpart, where the distinction between person and property was ambiguous (especially in the times where slavery was deemed legal). It is however, complicated by notions of stewardship which challenge the subject-object and person-property distinctions or others that claim property to be construction of relationships between people. The liberal notions of property also suggest that a person is subject and object of her own property and she exists as a self-relation which is divided and yet a whole. See Margaret Davies and Ngaire Naffine, Are Persons Property? Legal Debates about Property and Personality (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2001). 6 The conception of land as property is a statement that can only be made in dilemma; one that can only hope to conceive land as property and attempt to regulate it by restricted legal means. We would see in the following chapters that when land is conceived as property and made into a commodity that can be bought and sold, it generates a range of entangled legal threads that are irreconcilable. Even when the environmental issues related to land have to be considered, the conceptions of land as property need to be reconsidered. See Donald W. Large, “This Land Is Whose Land-Changing Concepts of Land as Property,” Wisconsin Law Review (1973): 1039, accessed July 7, 2019, http://heinonline.org/ hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/wlr1973§ion=60. Hereinafter, Large, “This Land Is Whose Land-Changing Concepts of Land as Property.” 7 The Hegelian approach to property establishes a connection between respect for property and a respect for persons, that everyone must have property. The approach recognizes the distributive implication of the concept of property – that we cannot argue on one hand that property owning is necessary for ethical development (which is usually argued by most libertarian writings on the subject) and, on the other hand, reserve this development for only a few privileged ones and affect unconcern about the moral and material plight of those who do not have the social or economic capital to own property. No right-based argument can be found that can provide justification for a society in which some people have lots of property and others have none. See the introductory note

30  A general introduction to the law of land in Jeremy Waldron, The Right to Private Property (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). Hereinafter, Jeremy Waldron, The Right to Private Property. 8 Ronald Dworkin, “What Is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Resources,” in The Notion of Equality, ed. Mane Hajdin (London: Routledge, 2018), 143–205 at 143. Hereinafter, Dworkin, “What is Equality?” 9 I gathered this idea of people associating to their land through a sense of belongingness, rather than one of ownership, from a folk song that I head while travelling in Sundergarh, Orissa, as a part of a separate project on Indigenous Land Rights. The song (originally in Oriya) was sung by a group of women of the Orissa Nari Samaj, who, while celebrating Earth Day 2018 in their organization were reaffirming the historical relationship that their communities have been cultivating with their ecosystem of which land is only but one part. The song captured the essence of this relationship – where, it was characterized by mutual respect, life, responsibility, and belongingness to each other. For a detailed account of the politics of belonging in African and American literature, see Duncan Brown, To Speak of This Land: Identity and Belonging in South Africa and Beyond (South Africa: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2006); Carola Lentz, “Land and the Politics of Belonging in Africa,” in African Alternatives, ed. Patrick Chabal, Ulf Engel, and Leo de Haan (Boston: Brill, 2007), 37–58. Richard H. Schein, “Belonging Through Land/Scape,” Environment and Planning A 41, no. 4 (2009): 811–826; Laurie Anne Whitt et al., “Belonging to Land: Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the Natural World,” Oklahoma City University Law Review 26 (2001): 701. 10 This is of course not to say that the rights regime is not subjected to state control, rather, quite the opposite. 11 Large, “This Land Is Whose Land – Changing Concepts of Land as Property.” 12 A number of libertarian philosophers have argued that property is necessary for freedom and development of individuals. See generally Richard Pipes, Property and Freedom (New York: Vintage Books, 2007); Waldron, The Right to Private Property, 1990 at 390. Hereinafter, Waldron, The Right to Private Property. 13 Waldron, The Right to Private Property. 14 See generally Richard A. Epstein, “The Necessary History of Property And Liberty,” Chapman Law Review 6 (2003): 1, accessed July 14, 2019, http://heinon line.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/chlr6§ion=5. 15 Waldron, The Right to Private Property. 16 I’m referring here to a point Jeremy Waldron makes about the concept of property being constrained by a general background of the right to subsistence – a point that conceives of restricting the right to property so that its distributive component is foregrounded. Waldron, The Right to Private Property at p. 5. 17 The right of political representation and the ownership of real property (generally used for land) have had a historical connection. Ownership of land has been regarded as a prerequisite to both the right to vote and the right to contest elections. For comments on the political connotation of the right to property, see Armen A. Alchian and Harold Demsetz, “The Property Right Paradigm,” The Journal of Economic History 33, no. 1 (1973): 16–27, accessed January 29, 2019, www.jstor.org/stable/2117138. 18 The regime of private property is constructed to argue that individuals have an interest in owning things, an interest which is important enough to command respect and to constrain political action. The notion of private property is often placed against the ideals of communism or socialism as it demands that private individuals, rather than the state, have a superior claim over land and other forms of property. Defenders of private ownership of property base their arguments on the utilitarian ideology, stating that the general welfare of the community would be better served if the material resources and, in particular, the main material means of production are controlled by private individuals and firms

Indian right to property in land 31 rather than the state or the community as a whole. Interestingly, however, it is also contended that no such rights-based argument can be found which would be able to find adequate justification in a society where some people have lots of property and the majority has close to none. See generally Waldron, The Right to Private Property. 19 Private ownership of land is very well debated in the sphere of law and economics. One of the most popular cases for a right of ownership in land in the recent past has been made by Robert C. Ellickson, based on the views of Frank I. Michleman. See generally Robert C. Ellickson, “Property in Land,” Yale Law Journal (1993): 1315–1400. 20 The concept of eminent domain designates the state with power to possess a superior claim over all private property within its bounds. For a detailed conceptual analysis, see Arthur Lenhoff, “Development of the Concept of Eminent Domain,” Columbia Law Review 42, no. 4 (1942): 596–638. 21 The discourse on private property rights has produced two mandates in case of its infringement by the state: the deprivation of private property can only be done by a law to that effect, and an amount of compensation to be paid to the ex-owner of property. This means that the state does have the power to claim its eminence of domain over private property, but not without a legislation and compensation for such deprivation. Since property rights are generally understood as a negative right against deprivation, in most Constitutions these two elements exist as a security against infringement of such rights: the First Amendment to the American Constitution and Article 31 of the Constitution of India are the two relevant examples in the present context. 22 Redistribution of wealth and assets has been one of the central concerns of a welfare state and in the Indian context, Article 39 of the Constitution directs the state to undertake measures in redistributive direction. This point will be discussed in detail later. 23 Defenders of private property have traditionally based their claims of rights of ownership on individual liberty. A society averse to the institution of property has been considered as being deprived of the first element of freedom (Lord Acton, The History of Freedom). From the standpoint of freedom and liberty of individuals, the right to own and utilize private property is considered both a first embodiment and in itself a substantive end (Hegel, Philosophy of Right). See generally Cheyney C. Ryan, “Yours, Mine, and Ours: Property Rights and Individual Liberty,” Ethics 87, no. 2 (1977): 126–141. 24 “Under serious scrutiny, there is no rights-based argument to be found which finds an adequate justification for a society in which certain people have lots of property and many have close to none. The slogan that property is a human right can be deployed only disingenuously to legitimise the massive inequality that we find in modern capitalist countries.” Waldron, The Right to Private Property at p. 5. 25 Grey, “The Idea of Property in Land” at p. 17. 26 Richard W. Miller, “Economic Inequality and Political Oppression,” Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, no. 85 (1995): 1–15, accessed July 14, 2019, www.jstor.org/stable/41802015. 27 See generally Harold J Laski, “The Purpose of Social Organization,” in A Grammar of Politics, 5th ed., ed. Harold J. Laski (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 15–44. 28 Ibid. at p. 174; “He would discover, in short, that a regime of private property makes the State very largely an institution dominated by the owners of private property, and that it protects the will and purpose of those owners. In the absence of other considerations, a political system in which rights are built upon property is one in which the property-less man will have no rights.” 29 Preamble to the Constitution of India, 1950.

32  A general introduction to the law of land 30 The distribution on owned land during the early and mid-1950s was extremely concentrated with a small minority owning most of the land. Three nationwide surveys – First Agricultural Labour Enquiry, National Sample Survey, and the Census of Landholdings – reveal a high degree of differentiation amongst households in respect of their holdings. While at the bottom, about three-fourths of all rural households owned less than five acres of land and hold less than onesixth of the total area owned; on the top of the hierarchy, one-fourth of all rural households held 83.68 per cent of the total area above five acres. Ministry of Labour Government of India, Agricultural Labour Enquiry-Report on Intensive Survey of Labour (Delhi: Ministry of Labour, 1955); First Report on Land Holdings, Rural Sector: Eighth Round July 1954 – March 1955 (National Sample Survey Organization, December 24, 1955), http://mospi.nic.in/sites/default/files/ publication_reports/nss_rep_10_0.pdf. at p. v; Planning Commission, The Third Five Year Plan (Delhi: Planning Commission, 1961), Annexure to Chapter XIV, pp. 239–240, accessed July 14, 2019. 31 There is no easy way to summarize caste and land relations in the country. The traditional Indian agrarian society was divided by caste and since land was a part of the social life, its ownership was also distributed based upon the caste system. Generally speaking, land relations in India are often defined by caste. Within an agrarian society, the caste system traditionally allotted specific duties to specific castes, each important at some stage of production, and landownership was reserved for a few upper caste members. The upper layers of society were allowed to take part in the cultivation, and the lower were allotted the residuary duties. The system is extremely complex and beyond the scope of this work. See Gail Omvedt, “Caste, Agrarian Relations and Agrarian Conflicts,” Sociological Bulletin 29, no. 2 (1980): 142–170. 32 The discourse on property law uses the term as connoting both a right and the entity in which the right is claimed. 33 The term tiller of soil was the most popular connotation of an Indian peasant during the independence movement. It was also a part of the slogan that is said to lead the Indian Land Reform Movement: “Land to the Tiller.” It represented the idea that the land reform movement was directed to provide ownership of land to the person who actually ploughs it. It is not clear, however, which classes of peasants were actually included in this term: the early declaration of the Congress Party (Karachi Resolution, 1934) indicated the tenants, but as the movement progressed, some sections of the political leadership also wanted the agricultural labourer to be a part of the reform programme. See R. V. Patil, “ ‘All Land to the Tiller’: The Problem of Land Reform in India,” Economic Development and Cultural Change (1955): 374–380. 34 Although there was much talk about abolition of zamindari and redistribution of land, the Congress did not make any official declaration to that effect before Independence. The famous Karachi Resolution of 1934, said to be the basis of land reform policy, was only limited to the rent regulation of the tenants. The Congress Socialist Party was the first to declare its intentions of pushing for a complete agrarian reform that involved abolition and redistribution. See Granville Austin, Working a Democratic Constitution: A History of the Indian Experience (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) 70–71. 35 Section 2(a)(ii) of the Constitution (Forty-fourth Amendment) Act, 1978 omitted Article 19(1)(f) of the Constitution. 36 See generally Louis J. Walinsky, Wolf Ladejinsky, and others, “Agrarian Reform as Unfinished Business; the Selected Papers of Wolf Ladejinsky,” International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (1977). The document can be found at http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/761501468765882964/pdf/multi0 page.pdf, accessed July 14, 2019.

Indian right to property in land 33 37 As long as the right to own and possess property remained a part of the fundamental right to freedom (until 1978), all provisions related to property were amended several times and, therefore, their composition differs at different points in time. 38 The State of Bihar v. Maharajadhiraja Sir Kameshwar & Others, 1952 1 SCR 889. 39 His Holiness Kesavananda Bharti Sripadagalvaru v. the State of Kerala, AIR 1973 SC 1461, [1973] SuppSCR 1, (1973) 4 SCC 225. 40 The range of litigations that were fought claiming the right to property related to all sorts of deprivations, for example, state takeover of a private enterprise (Dwarkadas Shrinivas v. Sholapur Spg & Wvg Co. Ltd, 1954 AIR 119, 1954 SCR 674), acquisition of coal bearing areas (Burrakur Coal Co. Ltd. V. Union of India, 1961 AIR 954, 1962 SCR (1) 44), acquisition of mine owners’ rights (Gujarat Pottery Works v. B P Sood, 1967 AIR 964, 1967 SCR (1) 695). 41 The notion of property rights as being a bundle of various related rights in the property is popular among the Anglo-American legal philosophy. See James E. Penner, “Bundle of Rights Picture of Property,” UCLA Law Review 43 (1995): 711. 42 The ancient Indian land tenure system was guided by simultaneously occurring multiple interests in land which defied all norms of individual ownership to the exclusion of all others. Land relations were multifarious, complex and linked to the social realities of caste. Land was the principal form of property in the Indian peasant society which predominantly relied on the agricultural for sustenance. For a detailed historic account on the subject, see E. Washburn Hopkins, “LandTenure in Ancient India,” Political Science Quarterly 13, no. 4 (1898): 669–686. Hereinafter, Hopkins, “Land-Tenure in Ancient India”; Edward Stanley Robertson, “Land Revenue and Tenures of India,” Hermathena 6, no. 14 (1888): 368–383. 43 Hopkins, “Land-Tenure in Ancient India.” 44 The first set of land reform statutes were meant to abolish the intermediaries within the revenue system and bring the cultivator of land into a direct relation with the state. They were popularly called the Zamindari Abolition Laws and they repealed the Permanent Settlement Regulations in various regions in order to demolish the British system of Land Revenue where the intermediaries owned all the land and the cultivators were their tenants. 45 The NSS data for the year 1950–51. 46 A reading of the Report of the Joint Committee on Indian Constitutional Reforms, 1934, that formed the basis of Government of India Act, 1935, where the right first found recognition under Article 299(1) of the Act indicates that the right was incorporated to protect the interests of intermediaries and other grantees of the British government. Paragraphs 369, 370, and 371 of the 1934 Joint Committee Report; refer n. 78. 47 Although, in Minerva Mills Ltd and Ors. v. Union of India and Ors., AIR 1980 SC 1789 the court did not focus on the place of Right to Property in the Constitution, it did arrive at a legal position which allowed a harmonious interpretation of the Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles of State Policy in order to further social goals. The majority altered its earlier position and stated that both were part of the basic structure of the Constitution and neither was superior over the other. Part IV contained the ends that were to be met by the state and Part III was the means to achieve those ends. The court no longer saw fundamental rights as a restraint or counter balance on social revolution, as was Justice Sikri’s position in Kesavananda. 48 The argument that the land reform agenda started losing its vigour from the 1970s has been addressed in detail in the third, fourth, and fifth chapters.

34  A general introduction to the law of land 9 AIR 1980 SC 1789. 4 50 Oliver Mendelsohn, “The Pathology of the Indian Legal System,” Modern Asian Studies 15, no. 4 (1981): 823–863. 51 Paragraph 369, Report of the Joint Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform 1933–34, 31st October 1934, London, accessed January 29, 2019, https:// archive.org/stream/indianconstituti029644mbp/indianconstituti029644mbp_ djvu.txt. 52 Large, “This Land Is Whose Land – Changing Concepts of Land as Property.” 53 Mendelsohn, “The Pathology of the Indian Legal System” at p. 847. “The willingness to take the judicial option was in part a function of the absence of an institutional alternative: there appears never to have been regular adjudicative control of land disputes in India. The basic solvent of such conflict had always been more-or-less naked power. The village was a world of super- and subordination, and in a dispute between an economically (hence politically) dominant individual or group and a subordinate, the will of the former was likely to prevail.” 54 Ibid. 55 Litigation challenging rights and claims in land has generally been at the peak of judicial concerns. A plethora of colonial and postcolonial legislations that are not sufficiently backed by a thoroughly constructed land records system allows litigants to create a state of confusion with regard to the claims to a single plot of land. A historical account of this phenomenon can be found in Bernard S. Cohn, “Anthropological Notes on Disputes and Law in India,” American Anthropologist 67, no. 6 (1965): 82–122. 56 Mendelsohn, “The Pathology of the Indian Legal System” at p. 840. 57 Ibid. 58 See generally Hopkins, “Land-Tenure in Ancient India.” 59 Mendelsohn, “The Pathology of the Indian Legal System” at p. 843. 60 The subsequent legislations were often aimed at controlling rent, the relationship between landlord and tenants (Bengal Tenancy Act, 1886), regulating the ryotwari system, systemizing the formal forms of transfer of land like mortgage, lease, etc. (Transfer of Property Act, 1882), establishing revenue boards that would be instruments of state at the local level that supervised revenue collection. 61 This number is arrived at as per the research conducted under this project. Refer to Annexure A2 for the list of land legislations. 62 Although the general failure of land law to settle competing claims is difficult to identify in any one writing on the subject, the general opinion on the subject is indicative of the incapability of land law to address the perpetually fluctuating claims. For a general understanding, see Ramkrishna Mukherjee, “Realities of Agrarian Relations in India,” Economic and Political Weekly (1981): 109–116. 63 Land, or real property, has always been one of the central concerns of property theory. However, the status of land as a fit subject of property rights of individuals has never really been seriously challenged in a legal context. See generally Large, “This Land Is Whose Land-Changing Concepts of Land as Property.” 64 Professor Lipton, an emeritus professor at the University of Sussex and a world renowned economist, makes a strong case of utilizing land reform as a tool to reduce poverty in his book Land Reform in Developing Countries: Property Rights and Property Wrongs. See Michael Lipton, Land Reform in Developing Countries: Property Rights and Property Wrongs (London: Routledge, 2009). 65 The argument that the failure of the land reform programme was a structural impediment of the law has been made in detail in the fourth and fifth chapters, where the laws of reformation of tenure and redistribution have been closely analyzed.

Indian right to property in land 35 6 This point will be discussed in detail in the second part of this work. 6 67 Land reform including abolition of the intermediary class was one of the largest agendas of the Congress party that helped it gain true political legitimacy. HungChao Tai, “Initiation of Reform and Political Legitimacy. The Political Process of Land Reform,” in Land Reform and Politics: A Comparative Analysis, ed. Hung-Chao Tai (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1974), 51–88. Hereinafter Tai, “Initiation of Reform and Political Legitimacy.” 68 The Karachi Resolution of the Indian National Congress in 1931 was vague on the land reform agenda and limited itself to calling for reduction of rent for tenants. The issue of a complete reform was treated gingerly as the Congress wanted to avoid a class war: J. Bandyopadhayaya, The Congress and Democratic Socialism (New Delhi: Indian National Congress, 1968), at p. 4. But the Congress Socialist Party had no such limitations of thought and declared abolition of intermediaries and redistribution of land to the peasants: All India Socialist Party Programme (Bombay: M R Massani, 1937). Hereinafter, Bandyopadhayaya, The Congress and Democratic Socialism. 69 Bandyopadhayaya, The Congress and Democratic Socialism. 70 Although the Congress was limiting its declarations to altering the tenancy structure, the socialist political parties were pressing for a redistribution of land even before independence was attained. But the notion of abolishing the intermediary titles had solidified and it became one of the priorities of the new government. 71 Bandyopadhayaya, The Congress and Democratic Socialism. 72 Austin, Working a Democratic Constitution at pp. 74–76. 73 In the original constitution, Article 19(1)(f) read as follows: Article 19(1): “All citizens shall have the right (f) to acquire, hold and dispose of property.” 74 In the original constitution, Article 31(1) and (2) read as follows: Article 31(1): “No person shall be deprived of his property save by authority of law.” “2) No property, movable or immovable, including any interest in, or any company owning, any commercial or industrial undertaking, shall be taken possession of or acquired for public purposes under any law authorising the taking of such possession or such acquisition, unless the law provides for compensation for the property taken possession of or acquired and either fixes the amount of the compensation, or specifies the principles on which, and the manner in which, the compensation is to be determined and given.” 75 Austin at p. 77: “The compromise satisfied Patel, and two of its architects commended its efficacy to the Assembly. K. M. Munshi said that if the principles of compensation laid down were genuine, the courts would ‘not substitute their own sense of fairness’ and ‘they will not judge the adequacy of compensation . . . unless the inadequacy is so gross as to be tantamount to a fraud on the fundamental right to own property.’ Nehru told Assembly members that, ‘eminent lawyers have told us that “on a proper construction of this clause (clause 2, the compensation clause) normally speaking, the judiciary should not and does not come in.” ’ Nehru also said that ‘equity applied to the community as well as to the individual and that no individual could override the rights of the community at large.’ 76 These Indian utterances occur in paragraph 369 of the Joint Committee Report on Constitutional Reform, 1934. 77 Bandyopadhayaya, The Congress and Democratic Socialism. 78 Although intermediaries were an existing class when the British took over the administration, their status and landownership was gained only after the series of Permanent Settlement Regulations. 79 Calls for abolition, Austin, Working a Democratic Constitution at p. 74. 80 H. C. L. Merillat, “25_Compensation for the Taking of Property – A Historical Footnote to Bela Banerjee’s Case,” 2016, accessed January 29, 2019,

36  A general introduction to the law of land http://14.139.60.114:8080/jspui/handle/123456789/15254. at p. 379. Hereinafter Merillat, “25_Compensation for the Taking of Property”. 81 Full text of the report is available at https://archive.org/stream/indianconstituti029644mbp/indianconstituti029644mbp_djvu.txt, accessed January 29, 2019. 82 Merillat, “25_Compensation for the Taking of Property” at p. 379. 83 Ibid. 84 Article 299(1): “No person shall be deprived of his property in British India save by authority of law.” “(2) Neither the Federal nor the Provincial Legislature shall have the power to make any law authorising the compulsary acquisition for public purposes of any land or any commercial or industrial undertaking or any interest in, or any company owning, any commercial or industrial undertaking, unless the law provides for payment of compensation for the property acquired and either fixes the amount of compensation or apecifies the principles on which and the manner in which it is to be determined.” 85 On the matter of compensation, one very significant view was expressed members like D. S. Seth and S. L. Saxena: “For the justice and fairness of compensation had to be determined from the point of view of the economically backward and financially weak community – a judgment which, almost of necessity, had to be exercised by the Legislature rather than the courts, and a judgment which led some members to the other and apparently rational view that there was little justification in paying compensation when general transformation of the economic structure on socialistic lines was to take place.” “National Congress Election Manifesto,” n.d. pp. 1200–1206. 86 Austin, Working a Democratic Constitution at pp. 76–77. 87 Ibid. at p. 74. 88 Bandyopadhayaya, The Congress and Democratic Socialism. 89 A letter written by the Maharaja of Chota Nagpur to the Bihar Premier Shri Krishna Sinha. The zamindars were pleading their case with Patel and all other ministers of board. They also approached the then-president of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, telling him that the provincial government was bent upon arbitrarily taking their rights and without compensation. Their leader, the Maharaja of Darbhanga (who later petitioned the Patna High Court in the Kameshwar Prasad Case), stated that they were not against abolition of zamindari but they wanted the procedure to be conducted in a fair way. Austin, Working a Democratic Constitution at p. 75. 90 Maharajadhiraja Sir Kameshwar & Others v. the State of Bihar, 1952 1 SCR 889. 91 “Article 31(4), which saved pending legislation later approved by the President, only protected the act in question against judicial review under the provisions of Article 31(2). The zamindars had also invoked article 14, guaranteeing equality before the law, and the court held that the Bihar law, providing a graduated scale of compensation related to the size of the landholdings, set up an unreasonably discriminatory classification. Although the court was barred from inquiring into the adequacy of compensation, it made clear its view that compensation meant equivalent value.” Merillat, “25_Compensation for the Taking of Property” at p. 621. 92 “This business of the equality of the law may very well mean, as it has come to mean often enough, making rigid the existing inequities before the law. That is . . . dangerous in a changing society and it is completely opposed to the whole structure and method of this Constitution and what is laid down in the directive principles (of state policy).” Nehru’s statement after the First Amendment to the Constitution cited in Abhik Chinmi, “Shared Mission: How Nehru’s Vision of Social Justice Inspired PN Bhagwati’s PIL Revolution,” June 26, 2017, accessed July 14, 2019, https://scroll.in/article/841434/shared-mission-how-nehrus-visionof-social-justice-inspired-pn-bhagwatis-pil-revolution.

Indian right to property in land 37 93 The State of Madras v. Srimathi Champakam Dorairajan, 1951 SCR 525 and Romesh Thapar v. The State of Madras, 1950 SCR 594. 94 Nehru gave a speech to the Constitution Assembly on September 10, 1949, stating that “Eminent lawyers have told us that on a proper construction of this clause (clause 2, the compensation clause) normally speaking, the judiciary should not and does not come in.” Nehru also said that “equity applied to the community as well as to the individual and that no individual could override the rights of the community at large.” CAD 9, no. 31, 1192–1195. 95 Preamble to the First Amendment stated that: “During the last fifteen months of the working of the Constitution, certain difficulties have been brought to light by judicial decisions and pronouncements specially in regard to the chapter on fundamental rights. . . . Another article in regard to which unanticipated difficulties have arisen is article 31. The validity of agrarian reform measures passed by the State Legislatures in the last three years has, in spite of the provisions of clauses (4) and (6) of article 31, formed the subject-matter of dilatory litigation, as a result of which the implementation of these important measures, affecting large numbers of people, has been held up.” 96 Not defining the term estate was a conscious strategy of the legislature so that the immense local diversity in the functioning of land tenures in different regions was recognized. It was necessary for the programme of agrarian reform that the term should have a diverse connotation, flexible to all forms of variant land systems of the country. Article 31A(2) explains that the term would have the same meaning as given to it by local laws relating to land tenures. Further, Article 31A(2)(a) states that the term would include jagir, inam, muafi, or other similar grants and any janam rights as well. See Kunhi Koman v. The State of Kerala AIR 1962 SC 723, Amar Singhji v. The State of Rajasthan AIR 1955 SC 504, State of Uttar Pradesh v. Anand Brahma Shah, AIR 1967 SC 661. 97 Section 5, Article 31B, Constitution of India, 1950. 98 Section 4, Article 31A, Constitution of India, 1950. 99 Entry 42, List III, Schedule VI: “Acquisition and Requisition of Property.” 100 National Sample Survey, First Report on Landholding, Rural Sector, Delhi, 1958. 101 For the reformative character of land legislations, see John Murphy, “Insulating Land Reform from Constitutional Impugnment: An Indian Case Study,” The Comparative and International Law Journal of Southern Africa 25, no. 2 (1992): 129–155. 102 Austin, Working a Democratic Constitution, at p. 97. 103 The new Indian state during the early 1950s was not in a financial capacity to make huge amounts of payments to the zamindars, estimated at a total of 20 million. This financial aspect was one other reason why the government seemed reluctant to pay. Therefore, most payments were made in cash bonds that extended up to a period of 40 years. Bipan Chandra, India after Independence: 1947–2000 (Penguin UK, 2000), accessed January 29, 2019, https:// books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=y5JEDxGZTOUC&oi=fnd&pg=PT 6&dq=india+since+independence+bipin+chandra&ots=CT3yEh5jDv&sig=4C voh2grwC-gTGZHeY0nt_8hItY at p. 521. 104 State of West Bengal v. Bela Banerjee, AIR 1954 SC 170 105 State of West Bengal v. Subodh Gopal Bose, AIR 1954 SC 92. 106 Dwarkadas Shrinivas v. Sholapur Spinning & Weaving Co. Ltd, AIR 1954 SC 119. 107 Para. 9 of the judgment. 108 Para. 11; “The learned Judges below observe that it is common knowledge that since the end of the war land, particularly around Calcutta, has increased enormously in value and might still further increase very considerably in value

38  A general introduction to the law of land when the space of industrialisation increases. Any principle for determining compensation which denies to the owner this increment in value cannot result in the ascertainment of the true equivalent of the land appropriated.” 109 The Preamble to the Act reads as follows: “An Art to provide for the acquisition and development of land for public purposes.” 110 See Merillat, “25_Compensation for the Taking of Property.” 111 It is believed that the Bela Banerjee decision had sent shock waves to the government. The Congress Working Committee immediately set up a subcommittee to review the working of the Constitution which was to enlarge the scope of Article 31 in order to make room for government policy, because clearly, its then composition did not send a clear message to the judiciary. Austin at p. 101. 112 Article 31(2), Constitution of India, 1950. 113 Clauses (b)(c)(d) of Article 31A(1); Section 3 of The Constitution (Fourth Amendment) Act, 1955. 114 See Points 3 (i) to (v), Statement of Objects and Reasons, Constitution (Fourth Amendment) Act, 1955. Full text of the amendment is available at http://india code.nic.in/coiweb/amend/amend4.html, accessed January 29, 2019. 115 Karimbil Kunhikonam v. the State of Kerala, AIR 1962 SC 723. 116 Sajjan Singh v. the State of Rajasthan AIR 1965 SC 845; while also reconsidering Sri Shankari Prasad Singh Deo v. Union of India & Ors., AIR 1951 SC 458. 117 Section 3 of the Constitution (Seventeenth Amendment) Act, 1964. Full text of the Act is available at https://www.india.gov.in/my-government/constitu tion-india/amendments/constitution-india-seventeenth-amendment-act-1964, accessed July 14, 2019. 118 I.C. Golakhnath & Ors. V. The State of Punjab & Ors, AIR 1967 SC 1643. 119 His Holiness Kesavananda Bharti Sripadagalvaru & Ors. v. the State of Kerala & Ors (1973) 4 SCC 225. 120 Constitution (Twenty-fourth Amendment) Act, 1971. 121 Ibid. 122 The Constitution (Twenty-ninth Amendment) Act, 1972. 123 “Hence, for property, there are two key points. The first is that the long dispute over the fundamentality of the Constitutional protection of property was not resolved by the repeal of Articles 19(1)(f) and 31. The focus of review has changed, but property remains an interest that can be protected by review, and that review is protected by the basic structure doctrine.” Tom Allen, “Property as a Fundamental Right in India, Europe and South Africa,” Asia Pacific Law Review 15 (2007): 193 at 211. 124 I R Coelho (Dead) by LRs v. The State of Tamil Nadu, AIR 2007 SC 861.. 125 The term material resource is used in Article 39(b), Constitution of India, 1950 “the owner and control of material resources in the community are so distributed as best to serve the common good.” 126 See generally Patricia Hughes, “Recognizing Substantive Equality as a Foundational Constitutional Principle,” Dalhousie Law Journal 22 (1999): 5; Gunther Teubner, “Substantive and Reflexive Elements in Modern Law,” Law and Society Review (1983): 239–285. 127 Roger Cotterrell, “Power, Property and the Law of Trusts: A Partial Agenda for Critical Legal Scholarship,” Journal of Law and Society 14, no. 1 (1987): 77–90, at p. 82. 128 Ibid. 129 Cathi Albertyn and Beth Goldblatt, “Facing the Challenge of Transformation: Difficulties in the Development of an Indigenous Jurisprudence of Equality,” South African Journal on Human Rights 14, no. 2 (1998): 248–276. 130 Dworkin, “What Is Equality?”

Indian right to property in land 39 131 Minerva Mills Ltd. & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors., AIR 1980 SC 1789. 132 Ibid. at para. 62, “The edifice of our Constitution is built upon the concepts crystallised in the Preamble. We resolved to constitute ourselves into a Socialist State which carried with it the obligation to secure to our people justice–social, economic and political. We, therefore, put part IV into our Constitution containing directive principles of State policy which specify the socialistic goal to be achieved. We promised to our people a democratic polity which carries with it the obligation of securing to the people liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; equality of status and of opportunity and the assurance that the dignity of the individual will at all costs be preserved. We, therefore, put Part III in our Constitution conferring those rights on the people. Those rights are not an end in themselves but are the means to an end. The end is specified in Part IV. Therefore, the rights conferred by Part III are subject to reasonable restrictions and the Constitution provides that enforcement of some of them may, in stated uncommon circumstances, be suspended.” Minerva Mills Ltd. and Ors. v. Union of India (UOI) and Ors. (09.05.1980 – SC): MANU/ SC/0075/1980.

2 Thematic sketch of land laws in the country

As we have seen in the last chapter, concerns relating to land and property have produced a thrilling legal debate in the constitutional and legislative order of the Indian state. The present chapter furthers a limited purpose: to sketch the general legislative framework of land laws in the country. One of the objectives of this book is to assess the law of land from a national perspective, to make a holistic analysis of the subject, where all laws of all states are taken into consideration. The task is daunting, and therefore, before we begin to soak ourselves in a bundle of legislations, it is necessary that a framework is carved out. This short chapter would lay out that procedure for us – help us understand the instruments used, the classifications made in the book and ascertain the reasons for such choices. A contextual study of land law offers to its readers an opportunity to explore two distinct sorts of relationships – horizontal relations between individuals (or collectives) in their exercise of various aspects of rights over land and vertical relations between the state and an individual (or collectives) where the state has precedence in such matters and is empowered to acquire their property. In the following two parts, I would be concentrating on the latter. These two types of land relations cover some of the fundamental realities of life and governance and hence the study of land law is also an analysis of the working of society and the economy in general. The significance of land and thereby, land law is immense and has been dealt with in the first chapter. Here, we are predominantly concerned with the question of how a study must be conducted so that it actually reveals the true nature of the law governing land relations and the manner in which law has manipulated these relations to produce the socio-economic structures we see today.

Classification of the law Owning to the complex nature of relations that land law generally regulates, it touches upon a wide variety of issues. The reach of the subject is both vast and deeply influential on the common structure of the society and the development ideologies of the state. To enable a careful navigation through its complex terrain, a classification is necessary. Ordinarily, classes of land

Thematic sketch of land laws in the country 41 law are created on the basis of state jurisdictions because each state forms its own set of statutes and rules to regulate land. This seems justified because the diversity of existing land relations warrants a state specific approach. For the present purposes, however, the subject would be divided conceptually and studied across state jurisdictions. One of the primary objectives of this study is to conduct a countrywide analysis of land laws and not restrict it to one or two states. Therefore, the classification is made on the basis of various types of measures adopted by the state to control land. An analysis of land laws across the country would throw into relief the dominant patterns and models of legislative intervention as well as the outliners. Usually, the policies are first made by the centre and are then disseminated to the states and hence, a pattern can be easily assessed. This is possible because land law has certain specific aspects upon which almost all states have legislated. In the interests of coherence, the book will also be structured according to the classification outlined below. With these aspects as the basis, classification of land law can be enunciated as follows – I

Land Reform Law 1 Alteration of the Land Tenure System i Abolition of Intermediaries ii Abolition of Estates iii Shifting of Rights to Tenants 2 The Following Redistribution Mechanism i Ceiling Statutes ii Providing Tenants with Purchasing Power iii Assignment of Land and Other Means

II Land Revenue i ii iii iv v

Land Records Survey and Settlement Assessment and Collection of Revenue Land Transfer, Usage and Conversion Land Management

III Land Acquisition 1 Principal and Allied Statutes for Acquisition: the concepts of public purpose and national development 2 Compensation, Resettlement and Rehabilitation As can be observed, land law regulates the relationship between state and individuals (or communities) through three sets of legislations – laws of land reform, laws of land revenue, and the famously known laws of land acquisition. Where the laws of land reform were enacted in order to enable the

42  A general introduction to the law of land state to conduct social reformations, the laws of land acquisition were also providing the state with similar powers to acquire land although, for various undetermined public purposes. Lying at the heart of both these categories of legislations were the ones regulating land revenue, for they have been actualizing rights and titles in land for over centuries now. These laws have created the normative reality for the distribution of land rights – they determine the nature of ownership and all other forms of rights that a person (or a family, group, community) can hold in a piece of land. Although, both the laws of land reform and acquisition provide eminence to the state in matters of land use, the purposes and manner of their acquisitions are very different and, therefore, they need to be studied as separate classes of legislations. And both the laws of reform and acquisition base their procedures in the laws of revenue as they are the ones who determine the owner of a landholding. The three categories of laws, in their own way, determine the nature and extent of the right a person (or a family, community, etc.) can hold in land. Land law, therefore, regulates some of the most fundamental structures of the social hierarchy – it regulates rights and titles in land, administers transfers and acquisitions, determines the extent of state control over lands privately owned, distributes power within the society, provides a crucial resource for industrial and technological development and influences the agricultural economy. Occupying an extensive and crucial place within the legal regime, land law attempts to balance heavily conflicting interests within the society. It is framed to control the powers that the groups derive from their occupation of land and distribute them equitably amongst the different actors. The first two categories would be studied in Part II of this work and the third in Part III.

Excess land law In an attempt to perform all of these functions, the number of land laws in the country has grown up to a thousand legislations.1 These legislations, along with their innumerable rules and regulations regulate the land tenure in a wide variety of ways. Any enquiry into the nature of land laws is therefore, a daunting endeavour. This task of analysis is further complicated by the fact that all the statutes in question are together responsible for the content and nature of the subject, and are for this reason, interconnected. And if a thorough legal analysis has to be conducted of this composite whole, statutes need to be understood not just in terms of their individual roles, but in terms of how they impact other legislative interventions. Given this web-like nature of land law, the true nature of these units is only revealed when they are observed contextually, i.e. within the larger scheme of the legal order, by analyzing its time of enactment, its placement in the scheme, and the content of its provisions. Provisions from various statutes will be analyzed to highlight these connections that exist between different categories of statutes. For example, property rights and their limitations under the Constitution can be understood only if they are read along with the objectives, nature and content of land reform

Thematic sketch of land laws in the country 43 law; statutes abolishing intermediaries must be read along with redistribution law because their primary objective was to instil equality in the distribution of land; tenancy reform legislations need to be read with statutes that abolished intermediaries because the land cultivated by tenants was leased to them by the intermediaries under the colonial regime; ceiling statutes, in general, allowed landowners to choose which parts of their landholdings would be surrendered to the state which, in many cases has led to eviction of tenants from their tenures because owners tend to surrender either wasteland or lands under tenancies – this provision needs to be read with the legislations providing for reinstatement and reformulation of tenures of tenants. It must be noted however that this huge bulk of legislations, which define the legal norms governing land has been largely ineffective in achieving any of its stated objectives.2 Economists and sociologists writing on the subject have attributed this failure to a lack of political will of the part of the government and ineffective implementation of the law. Contrary to this popular position, a thorough investigation of the subject will reveal that this inefficiency has been constructed into the law itself, which necessitated a failure to achieve the law’s stated objectives. We shall conduct such investigation in the following parts of this work. In this endeavour, we will observe that provisions circumventing the ostensible objectives of land law were woven into the framework of the statutes themselves, which later became the reasons for dereliction of the state agenda of reform. Every effective legal provision was accompanied by another capacitated to undo its effect on the tenure. A position arose where obfuscation and incertitude were a dominant part of the legal norm. Concepts like personal cultivation, voluntary surrender of tenancies, ceilings fixed in terms of standard acre, redistributive aspects of ceiling statutes, abolition of intermediaries, encroachers on government land – which were predominantly present within the legal regime – were also in fact primarily responsible for making the regime ineffective and obfuscated.3 Not only were the legal provisions problematic in themselves, the connections that they made between various provisions within the legal scheme were characterized by confusion and ambiguity. It is one thing to interconnect between sectors of the law and holistically determine a legal position on a given issue and quite another to muddle these connections in such a manner that no concrete legal position can be arrived at. Title scrutiny of a piece of land offers one of the best illustrations for this assertion. If one has to undergo the exercise of determining who has the best title in a given stretch of land, an entire range of provisions would be involved – land records, registration records, family and succession laws, transfers made in the past by any mode of sale, gift lease etc., conversion of land or its use by any government regulations and government rules regarding acquisition, transfer and use of land (Chapter 6, along with the case studies provides a detailed analysis of this point).4 Often enough these provisions are contradicting and confusing and none have been prioritized over another. Even

44  A general introduction to the law of land more than marking connections within the law, this matter reveals that the concerned provisions are spread across the legal regime and they do not necessarily speak with or draw inferences from one another. Where land might be sold and transferred by A to B through a valid sale deed accompanied by a registration certificate, there occurs no automatic mutation of the concerned land in the name of the new owner in the land revenue records of the state and neither are the records required to be consulted before any sale transaction is made. A second illustration for the assertion can be provided from the attempt of land reform law to alter landownership structures towards an equitable distribution of land. This was done (and as would be seen in Part II) by two prodigious schemes – elimination of the class of intermediaries (popularly known as zamindars) from the revenue system and truncating the landholdings of the big landholders. In the former scheme, the term abolition of intermediaries was, in fact, slightly misleading because no real elimination of the class of intermediaries was ever done. The erstwhile intermediary class was simply converted and segregated into new classes of landowners generally categorized as small, medium, and large landholders. This was followed by the second scheme – attempts to truncate their landholdings to create a surplus of land, which was then to be distributed among the landless class. So basically, the law aimed, or at least declared to break down the dual character of the intermediary class – both their intermediary status of being the revenue collectors for the Raj and the landowners was to be broken down. The land that was gathered from truncating large landholdings was then to be distributed among the landless classes. However, the scheme went even further – once this distribution was made and people owned lands in their name, the government was required to encourage the peasants to collectively cultivate their lands, i.e. form agricultural co-operatives. This was to be done on the belief that agricultural productivity would increase and that agriculture remained a profitable venture. Theoretically, the procedure may have been feasible but the reality was that it was almost impossible to even compartmentalize people in these groups of small, medium and big landowners, landless persons, and others.5 Additionally, the legal procedure framed to conduct the procedure was infused with adverse provisions. The law was grossly unaware of the diversity of land relations and hence its application to a convoluted set of relations was vastly ineffective. Although a large body of statutes was created, it exhibited a general sense of discontent with its final objective; the policymakers seemed convinced of the fact that imposition of ceiling could never really lead to a redistributed land structure.6

The tables – as an instrument of study In the event of an excessive land law regime, one approach which could be instrumental in navigating through the dense discipline of land law

Thematic sketch of land laws in the country 45 is to thresh out legal provisions and present them in the form of tables. This work uses the proposed classification as a basis for framing templates against which legal provisions have been examined. The tables are aimed at drawing an approximate sketch of land law which presents a large amount of information on a single plane. A study of the tables can evoke patterns, variations existing in different jurisdictions, cross-sectional connections and offer a holistic image of the law. They would help to draw comparisons between different state jurisdictions and to analyze the uniqueness of each state’s legal order on land. All the tables are accompanied by a narrative which would be both explanatory and analytical of the scheme visible in them. However, it must be noted that they are for a specific, limited use and do not reflect every detail of the concerned provision – the use is restricted to providing the narrative with a base. Given the diversity of the law, tables are able to offer a design which is based upon concepts and procedures used in various statutes and also to outline the debate for the narrative to follow. The templates are premised on general concepts and processes adopted by various classes of statutes. They reflect the general procedure that a class of law would follow to achieve its stated objective. Units constituting the template are spread across the length of the table and the breadth is constituted by the statutes forming a part of that class. Therefore, it would reflect the specific provisions of law in each state for the various units in the template. Such tables are formed for the major provisions and processes in the Law of Ceiling (Annexures A3 to A7, Tenancy Reform (Annexures A8 to A11 and Land Acquisition (Annexures A16 to A19 – the templates are designed on the basis of substantive provisions and procedures lay down by the statutes in general and each state’s law is examined across the template to reveal its contents. Every cell in these tables is marked either by a keyword or a yes/no answering the unit of the template for that particular statute. This maintains brevity of the sketch by displaying only the most necessary information on any point. Thereafter, there are a few other tables that are more descriptive and comparative in their framework – like those done for classes of tenants (Annexure A11), the status of various players on land as per the ceiling and tenancy statutes (Annexure A14), and allied statutes for land acquisitions (Annexure A19). They generally deal with one specific issue within a class of statutes and are more descriptive of the concerned provisions within those statutes. The tables can be read as comparing the different legal positions taken by states on a specific issue. They would also reflect the dominant models for a class of statutes which are generally followed by most states with certain variations. Also, certain states like West Bengal, Kerala, and Jammu and Kashmir have performed better than others in land reform; this, according to our previous contention, implies that the law framed in these states was strengthened enough to be effectively implemented and were devoid of any contradicting provisions. In order to understand the diversity of land and its laws, the next section would conduct a brief assessment of the nature

46  A general introduction to the law of land of land laws that have existed in certain states. The three states mentioned in the following sections represented, at the time when land reform was a popular state agenda, various models for all the other states to follow in their land reform programmes.

State models Since land tenure systems of various regions have historically differed in their structure, power players and organized peasant revolts, the consequent legal frameworks to regulate specific systems have also varied across states. As a cumulative, land law is a heterogeneous whole which is characterized by conceptual classification (which also has been discussed previously). Each state has its unique set of land laws which have been customized to suit the regional land relations. Within the broad configuration of the legal framework, there are dominant models in each class of law which are followed by most states; however, there also are certain states which have exhibited distinctive features in their statutes. The following are some states that have shown distinctive features in their framework of land laws, especially in their reform programmes: Jammu and Kashmir: As Thorner7 has observed, the state of Jammu and Kashmir conducted one of the most successful agrarian reforms in the country. Immediately before the early 1930s when calls for land reforms were being made, the then existing land tenure system was based on hak-malikana – a condition where all land in the state belonged to the king. Feudal institutions still existed by the names of Jagirs and Mukkarraarree: these were not actually land proprietors, but managed land for the crown and had their specific share in land revenue. When reforms were initiated in 1948, these classes were abolished, large landholdings were truncated to 160 kanals8 and most importantly, the cultivators were declared owners of the land. The Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act of 1976 was responsible for all these sweeping provisions. The objectives of the Act clearly indicated that the lands would be transferred to the tiller. Its clause for personal cultivation which allowed the landowner to retain land asserted the need for recognition of the person who physically tills the land instead of the one who merely claims legal ownership over it. Also, in certain areas like the Poonch territory, all tenants-at-will were declared owners of their holdings.9 Additionally, statutory distribution was carried out without requiring any payment to be made by the beneficiaries of the Act. This was unlike most ceiling legislations enacted at the time, where neither was the redistribution mechanism clearly marked and nor were any automated ownership rights created. As a result, 45 lakh kanals of land was distributed to tillers owning no previous title in land.10

Thematic sketch of land laws in the country 47 West Bengal: The agrarian-land hierarchy of Bengal at the time of independence was characterized by the zamindars as the land proprietors on the top and bargardars as the cultivating tenant at the bottom. Bargardars11 were sharecropping tenants who paid a part of the produce as rent for their holding. Since sub-tenancy was a predominant feature of the land structure, between these two classes, there existed layers of intermediaries who exercised limited rights in land and claimed a part of the land rent. The zamindars were mostly absentee and the highest resident landholder intermediary was the jotedar, generally referred to as the raiyat. The under-raiyats were actually occupancy tenants who had rented land from the raiyats and in certain cases had sublet the land to the bargardars. The bargardars were responsible for making payment of rent for the land they cultivated and was the most widely oppressed class in the structure; they were completely at the mercy of their immediate superiors and possessed no security of tenure. This bottom of the hierarchy class, according to a 1951 census, cultivated almost 20.3 per cent of the total cultivated land in Bengal. Political mobilization of the peasantry culminated in the Tebhaga Movement in 1946 demanded tebhaga for the sharecropper, which meant that twothirds of the produce should be reserved for the sharecropper. Three major statutes were enforced to abolish the layers of intermediaries and provide the cultivator with ownership rights over their land – the Bargardars Act of 1950, West Bengal Estates Abolition Act of 1953 and West Bengal Land Reforms Act of 1955. The tenancy registration programme or Operation Barga,12 initiated in 1978, has been the apogee of the land reform agenda of the state. West Bengal was probably the only state which realized the importance of having a concrete land records system in place for any effective implementation of land reforms. If land reform accounts for secured tenancies and ownership rights for the tiller, the need for a well-constructed land record system that legally recognizes and enables the holder to have concrete evidence of these rights becomes compelling. Although, the success of the programme is arguable, the mere fact that the reform programme was inclusive of an effort to reform the system of land records must count as a redeeming feature in any assessment of a state’s land reform framework. Kerala: The Kerala version of land reform law has been perceived as a quintessential legal framework for complete agrarian reform. The general scheme of land law in the state can be described by certain distinguishing features – tenancy was abolished for all purposes, fair wages for agricultural labourers was mandated, land redistribution was actually done, and fair prices for agricultural products were ensured in the market.13 The 1969 amendment to Kerala Land Reforms Act of 1963 is credited with the success of these endeavours. The Act conferred ownership rights on cultivating tenants for the land under their

48  A general introduction to the law of land occupation. This provision was incorporated in Kerala when most states only disallowed the formation of future tenancies and saved all forms of traditional tenancies in their tenure. Moreover, possession alone was made a valid basis to make ownership claims. These three states are only illustrations of how different each state is, in terms of its land structures and how much customization is required in the law to fit the bill. Each of these states created a legal framework that would address the problems occurring in their regions – Bengal needed the recording system to give its sharecroppers a legal entitlement, Jammu and Kashmir needed to first legislate against the custom that all land belonged to the King. The only reason for choosing these states over others was their unique land reform programmes. All other states have their own stories of land relationships and legal regulation, and they are all captured, to an extent, in the tables. However, despite being different in their structures of land relationships, most states merely follow a certain set pattern of legal provisions. A reading of the tables would further display these trends. In the following two parts, I would assess the law of land reform, revenue and of acquisition, all of which primarily regulate the relationship between the state and the individual with respect to land. The two dominant groups of laws (reform and acquisition) have been making sweeping alterations to the structure of land relationships since independence and have shaped land tenure as it exists today. Catering to different sections of the society, both sets of laws have been acting contradictory to one another – an argument that I propose to make in Chapter 7. For the present purpose, we need to immerse ourselves in the history of land structures that existed at the time of independence, the ones that were warranting reform.

Notes 1 Refer to Annexure A2: Countrywide List of Land Legislations. 2 This argument has been discussed in detail in Part II. 3 It must be noted that all of these concepts would be discussed in detail at appropriate places in the book. Here, they are used for the limited purpose of introducing the nature of land law and hence the discussion would be limited to that extent. It will also be discussed how they, among other factors, contributed towards the inefficiency of law. 4 For present purposes, only a generalized assessment would be conducted without referring to specific provisions of the law. The intricacies are left for discussion in a later chapter. 5 K. Balagopal, “Rich Peasant, Poor Peasant,” Seminar 352 (1988): 19–23. 6 This statement has been discussed in Chapters 3 and 4 of this work. 7 Daniel Thorner, The Shaping of Modern India (New Delhi: R. N. Sachdev & Allied Publishers, 1980), 151–159. 8 8 kanals = 1 acre of land. 9 Thorner, Shaping of Modern India. 10 Mohamed Aslam, “Land Reforms in Jammu and Kashmir,” Social Scientist (1977): 59–64.

Thematic sketch of land laws in the country 49 11 The term bargardar is used as a generic term to denote all sharecroppers in the state of West Bengal. Their regional names often differed, such as agiars or bhagidars or bhagchasis. 12 Abhijit V. Banerjee, Paul J. Gertler, and Maitreesh Ghatak, “Empowerment and Efficiency: Tenancy Reform in West Bengal,” Journal of Political Economy 110, no. 2 (2002): 239–280; Suhas Chattopadhyay, “Operation Barga: A Comment,” Economic and Political Weekly (1979): 2022–2024. 13 N. Krishnaji, “Agrarian Relations and the Left Movement in Kerala a Note on Recent Trends,” Economic and Political Weekly (1979): 515–521.

3 Land reform and its impact on the existing land tenure system

We have, so far, studied the constitutional foundations of land law and classified the law in thematic groups for a structural analysis. This chapter lays the groundwork for Part II which discusses the law of land reform. It discusses the structures that needed to be reformed and the legal policies that were devised for these purposes. It lays down the concept of land reform, as was understood and implemented by the Indian government and the process of its translation into law. It will be seen in this chapter that the impact of these policies on land structure was fascinating; it marks the points of legal strategies that actually worked, and also marks those that proved to be counterproductive. The chapter attempts to discern the distinctions between the various phases of Indian Land Reform, which are usually ignored in any discussion on the subject. It speaks of land reform law, but not only from within the legal quarters – it augments the discussion to its associated social and political aspects.

Creating a concept of land reform We have been using the term land reform over and over again in our previous discussions without really dwelling upon what it might mean and what might be the consequences of those meanings. Reforming something as complicated as land distribution throughout the country is a gigantic affair, requiring massive amounts of planning, legislating, and execution. As absurd as it may sound, the idea of land reform has meant differently for different people, in different regions and at different points in time.1 It can be difficult to attribute the idea to any one form, whether to reforming the status of tenants or to any other. Since the actors on land are plenty, a wholesome idea of reform should include everyone – up to the person laying at the bottom channel of the hierarchy. For reform of land, this wholesomeness dwelled in the concept of substantive equality.2 Land reform, as an idea, pierces through, albeit differently, each and every class of actor that is a participant in agriculture and therefore, raises severe questions of equality. It aims to reformulate the manner in which rights in land are ascertained and distributed. While doing so, it becomes necessary that a balance is struck

Land reform and the existing land tenure system 51 between rights that are seemingly conflicting to one another. So, when right of ownership is being construed, it cannot be identically constructed for all classes. The principle of substantive equality would demand that it be constructed differently for different classes of actors in order to achieve a sense of equality in land distribution. In other words, the right of ownership of, for example, a zamindar could not be plainly equated to the ownership rights of a subtenant for if it did, no meaningful reform could ever happen. Substantive equality requires the law to go beyond such plain readings. The concept of reform in India began with attempts to abolish the intermediary classes between the state and peasant. Abolition of zamindari was the first measure of land reform which was called out unanimously by all political fronts.3 It was natural for them to do so, for the intermediaries were the product of a colonial system which was based upon the oppression of the mass of Indian peasant farmers and were a primary cause of their distress and low socio-economic status. However, a reform could not just stop there; it needed to do more. Declarations were made to bring structural alterations into the existing tenure4 and for this a deeper understanding of the problems was required. Therefore, before one could speak about what is the concept of land reform or what are its contents and policies, it is absolutely essential that certain specific questions are asked and answered, for the constitution of reform would depend upon an understanding of the then existing problems in the system – what were the defects in the land system; who were the people that the programme was affecting (positively and negatively) and what were their status within the social system; what were the power dynamics that needed to be altered for any effectual transformation to happen; what sort of ideology provided a driving force to the plan; what were the specific ends that the programme sought to meet; how “radical” was the programme intended to be; how must a law have been framed so that it could penetrate into the structures and make the desired alterations; and lastly, and most importantly we needed to be aware of how far could a legal order, in reality, affect, and influence a system that was deeply sociopolitical? We begin here with an assessment of the Indian land structure.

The Indian land structure The Indian agricultural land hierarchy was a complicated structure involving multiple rights in land which were often guided by a combination of status and power.5 Naturally then, those who did not have either (who constituted the mass of the agrarian population) were at the bottom of this hierarchy. These were the groups of farmers and peasants who derived their livelihood directly out of land. During the 1930s and 40s, the designed legal structure led these groups to become subjects of acute poverty and oppression.6 Since the British intervention was most profoundly visible in the structure of landholdings (and consequently in the condition of the peasantry), demands for an alteration of the land system in favour of the peasant or

52  A general introduction to the law of land the tiller were woven into the larger demands of independence. The poor social and economic state of the peasants was attributed to the land revenue system and the intermediary classes established by the colonial rule had become a symbol of the foreign presence in the country. One of the most glaring features of the colonial land system was its deeply structured inequality.7 With literally a handful of intermediaries at the top, the proportion of people who occupied the bottom-most positions in this structure was almost 70 per cent.8 The First Report on Landholdings of 1958 revealed stark inequality in distribution of landholdings claiming that 46.89 per cent of households in the rural regions owned less than one acre of land each and 22 per cent owned none. As opposed to this, the percentage of population that owned 30 to 50 acres of land was 1.57, 2.5 per cent held 20 to 30 acres of land, and 7.78 per cent held 10 to 20 acres of land. The land tenure system existing then was such that the intermediaries were landowners and the cultivators were their tenants. This led to a massive concentration of land in the hands of very, very few where a grand total of 11.85 per cent of the population owned land extending from 10 to 50 acres and 68.89 per cent owned none or less than an acre of land.9 The economy was doing badly; secondary and tertiary jobs were not bringing sufficient money to the people and hence the pressure on the land for livelihood only increased every year.10 It is interesting to note that this inequality was also a twofold phenomenon – it consisted both of completely landless people and of others who owned a very small parcel, one that could not support even a family.11 These two classes of landless and landed people surely differed in their legal status, but their socioeconomic status was almost similar to one another. The excessive revenue demands on the cultivator by the state and intermediaries had also led to a growth of rural indebtedness. Money lending had also been converted into a contractual business under the British reign, where laws were created imparting more strength to the money lenders.12 Debts were mounting with time; the Central Bank Inquiry Committee report in 1927 estimated rural indebtedness at 9,000 million rupees and a decade later, the estimations of Reserve Bank had touched 18,000 million rupees.13 The figure had thus doubled in a decade and was a dreadful indication of deterioration in the agrarian economy.14 This widespread inequality, poverty and economic depression had a lot to do with the then existing land structure. Since the commencement of the Permanent Settlement Regulations, the hierarchy on land that ranged from big landlords to sharecroppers and agricultural labourers had only worsened in condition. Between the years 1921 and 1931, landlordism, as a phenomenon increased by a rapid rate of 61 per cent.15 At the top of the channel were the zamindars (or big landlords and most of them absentee), nawabs, maharajas and rajas who were responsible for paying revenue to the government. Beneath them were the intermediary landlords who had leased the lands from them in order to acquire a vested interest in land as rent receivers. After them came the range of tenant farmers, subtenants, sharecroppers, and landless labourers. Landlordism was so acute in those

Land reform and the existing land tenure system 53 times that in some of the districts, there were as many as 15 to 20 intermediary landlords between the zamindar and the person who actually cultivated on land. As discussed briefly in Chapter 1, the settlements established a revenue system which was to be perpetual in time and fixed in terms of the revenue to be collected. By fixing the amount of revenue perpetually, it was generally believed that these settlements would protect the tenants against exorbitant rent enhancements. However, this was done without actually regulating revenue rates at the district levels which allowed the landlords to progressively increase the rents they collected from their tenants whilst their obligation towards the state remained fixed.16 Besides, the British government was itself struggling with transforming the traditional Indian society with ideologies of industrialization and capitalism.17 Alongside its efforts in formalizing property rights, it was attempting to change the nature of Indian agriculture. Indian agriculture, at that point in time, functioned on the need for subsistence – most families produced food crops that were sufficient for their sustenance and some minimum survival in the market. The Raj converted this phenomenon in order to suit a capitalist economy where crops could be traded and cashed upon.18 The economic consequences of these formalized and capitalist tendencies of the Raj were disastrous – not only did it burry the cultivator beneath an army of landowners, it also discarded the cultivator of her independence of subsistence. Any indigenous political movement of the time was thereby, incomplete unless it established a base in the rural population. Episodes of revolts by peasants and other members of the countryside were a common phenomenon during the colonial rule, especially after the landmark revolt of 1857.19 The Indian National Congress, Kisan Sabha and other political parties had gained much support from the masses by making demands for land reform an integral part of their political agenda. Although the term land reform meant different things to different political fronts, the idea of altering the tenure system in favour of the Indian peasant was the dominating factor in all the definitions that were formed of the term.20 The concept of land reform was thus to be derived from formation of a mechanism that was capable of making a shift of socio-economic power in the land system from the revenue intermediaries (and the landowners) to the tenants, under-tenants, sharecroppers and other peasants who were employing their labour on land. This scheme was the basis of the two corelated movements of land reform – Abolition of Zamindari and Land to the Tiller – where an entire class of intermediaries was to be abolished, landlordism was to be curtailed21 and the ownership of land was to be given to those who till it or apply physical labour on the land.22

The social aspect of land and land reform Since relations around land have been integral to the functioning of socially grounded relationships, an attempt towards alteration of land relations is

54  A general introduction to the law of land seen as an effectual means to also make revisions in the social and economic structure of the rural community. Land reform sought a reformulation in favour of the peasants, in the power dynamics and in the agricultural prosperity of the mass of peasants by programming a set of schemes, land redistribution being central to them. The nature of the reform necessarily had to be radical because land is in fact a limited resource and any reformulation or redistribution or restructuring would most definitely involve curtailing the possessions and powers of some and transferring it to others who do not already possess any23 but are rightfully entitled to it because of the investment they make in the form of labour.24 Land reform therefore needs to be understood within these parameters. Changes in land relations not only propel socio-economic changes, but are also reciprocally influenced by changes taking place in the other arenas.25 Land reform, as a concept, is thus connected with wider ideas of agrarian and social reform. Another concern of this enquiry is the identification of groups of people who are affected by land reform, which is a tricky task in the Indian agrarian context, for the structure is both dense and wide due to the presence of various groups of people having multiple claims over land. The list of the beneficiaries of any land reform policy, therefore, is certainly a long one. The mass of rural India is constituted of under-tenants, sharecroppers, agricultural labourers, and other categories of peasants.26 Together, these constitute the term tiller on land. Since the reform movement was popularized under the tag of land to the tiller, it was envisaged that distribution of rights would be in favour of these tillers. However, as it turned out, only a few upper-class tenants and others groups in proximity to them were the ones who were the priority for the dominant land reform programmes.27 The programmes were constructed so as to percolate into the system only to a limited extent; they were directed towards specific classes of landowners and tenants and all others were excluded from the process.28

The concept of land reform, its ideology, programme, and the law It is difficult to arrive immediately at a concrete definition of the term land reform as the contents of this concept have differed for scholars and governments over the world, often ranging between redistributive and developmental programmes of the state. However, it must be noted that a land redistribution programme is common to all the interpretations that have been made of land reform, often being central to the concept and, consequently, also being synonymous with the term. This can probably be attributed to the sheer inequality in the distribution of landholdings in most agrarian societies. Any other aspect of land reform, like reduction of rent or security of tenure may be rendered incomplete without a focussed redistributive programme29 which seeks to make a shift in the power structure within the land system30 – and owing to its drastic nature, it is likely to make

Land reform and the existing land tenure system 55 a profound effect on the existing tenure system. Alongside, an intimate relationship between land redistribution and other measures of reform is reciprocal and thus, a single land redistribution programme is also incomplete and practically ineffectual without implementation of the other forms of reform. For example, an agricultural policy that only gives land to landless persons without assessing the quality of the land given or without providing adequate agricultural services would necessarily fail as a policy programme. If altering the nature of land relations is in fact a means towards propelling socio-economic advancement of the masses, it is necessary that the entire process is read within its larger spectrum. Owing to the pattern of landholdings during the 1930s and 1940s which reflected a high proportion of inequality in the distribution of land, it was inevitable that a radical reform programme would have two distinct groups of people to focus on – its targeted beneficiaries (tenant farmers belonging to various classes, peasants, under-tenants, sharecroppers) and others who stood to lose their traditionally enjoyed status (intermediaries – zamindars, taluqdars, and big landowners). Social reform required that land be equally distributed among those who derive their living out of land, which was only possible by truncating the holdings of the latter group and distributing them to the former. The difficulties in executing this process were rather obvious.31 The compulsive nature of the programme necessitated certain kinds of tenure changes which appeared arbitrary to persons belonging to the latter group. Such need for a compulsive land redistribution programme can be explained with two reasons – first, a land tenure system characterized by unequal distribution of landholdings tends to freeze capital on land, and second, it retards agricultural development.32 If voluntary sale–purchase is adopted as the mechanism for land reform, the entire process tends to be converted into a mere real estate transaction. Secondly, a fair sale–purchase is not possible without state intervention, for the bargaining power of the seller and that of the purchaser are not equal. Land reform, thereby, includes both these elements, because in their absence the intentions of the programme are likely to remain unfulfilled. A conceptual understanding of land reform as a government policy can be clearly made if three aspects of the policy are differentiated – first, land reform as an ideology of a state striving towards the greater common good; second, land reform as a programme which formulates the ideology into concrete content, i.e. lays down the blueprints and marks the theme;33 and lastly, translation of that programme into land reform law which in effect lays out the legal order relating to land, alters land relations and frames the norm. These aspects can alternatively be seen as stages in the formation of a legal norm that seeks to alter the land tenure in accordance with the broader objectives of the state. At first, an ideology that settles the direction of the following programme is established; and then legislation is framed to give effect to the content of the programme. The nature and content of each of these aspects would generally depend on one another, and so would the

56  A general introduction to the law of land result of the process. However, if the contents of these three aspects are not framed so as to be complementary to each other and to help in the translation of one stage to another, the basic theme is lost. Hence, it is necessary that they are studied both independently and together as a concept. In agrarian countries like India and Pakistan where land relations display a complex social network of power politics, the mere anticipation of a radical land reform ideology has the capacity to become a force of change. Joshi34 argues that the agrarian ideologies in these countries have been far more radical than the agrarian programme itself. Across the social spectrum, the introduction of a radical reform ideology can, on the one hand, vastly arouse the expectations of the rural poor and, on the other, it can provoke the threatened interests to take prompt precautionary measures to shield their belongings and find some means of defeating the provisions of the legal order which is about to be in force.35 The impact of this political ideology has been far-reaching in the case of India, where historians have claimed that the proportion of tenants that were evicted from their tenures during the late 1940s and early 1950s was far greater than that during any evictions that had happened in the entire duration of colonial rule in the country.36 This was because the landowners and intermediaries anticipated a legal intervention in their position, and thus evicted the tenants before their own status was reduced and their tenants gained ownership of their lands. This argument provides a rational basis for the trends detected by Malviya37 and certain other authors. Additionally, a land reform ideology can be problematic in two more respects – if there are conflicting components in the ideology, transcribing them into concrete terms may be difficult; and secondly, when a seemingly radical ideology is coupled with a milder form of programme or law, the consequences can be contradictory. The ideology The Indian land reform ideology was based upon principles of social and distributive justice. The idea was to construct a refined tenure system in which the tenants were brought in direct relation with the state, and the power over land was shifted in favour of the person who was actually tilling it. Reformulation of the tenure essentially meant an alteration in power dynamics where the traditional structural oppression is removed. The theory of land reform was derived from socialist objectives of the state where economic development would have to be conducted on a socialist pattern. When the first five-year plan declared its intention of applying a ceiling on agricultural holdings,38 it did not associate to the definitive objective of land redistribution as a part of the land reform programme; instead it stated that the policy of land ceiling can be based upon broader ideas of public interest and not on the sole objective of redistributing land. It was considered that the factual situation of the agrarian structure did not make it possible to achieve the aims of providing land to the landless in any substantial

Land reform and the existing land tenure system 57 measure.39 A programme of land ceiling was created, but was not secured to the end of land redistribution.40 If land was not to be redistributed, or rather could not be redistributed by any substantial means, what was the point of fixing ceilings at all? Moreover, the economic viability of the ceiling redistribution programme was highly doubted by the policymakers. Arguments of economic productivity and the practicability of implementation were dominant in the political climate. An apparent rationale behind this controversy was the fact that reducing the size of farms by imposing land ceilings would also reduce the agricultural productivity of that farm – leading to a threat to the economy generated from agriculture. Additionally, if the land seized was to be redistributed, the amount of land that could be granted to an individual would not be sufficient to become an economically viable holding.41 And thus, the size of farms and the economy generated from them was an impediment in redistributing land. This conflict became apparent in the ideology of the programme when the first four five-year plans declared their objectives as increase in agricultural productivity and generation of economy from agriculture.42 It was argued that any land ceiling or redistribution agendas would be in contradiction to the declared economic agendas of the state. A situation arrived where conflicting ideas with regard to the programme were placed jointly in the policy. The ones questioning the fundamentals of the programme on grounds of economic difficulty or problems in implementation won and rendered the entire exercise meaningless. Thirdly, if a radical ideology would be inadequately translated into a programme for implementation, it could have worse consequences. Since both the ideology and the programme had their own individual impacts on the existing tenure system, the changes brought in by a radical ideology of land reform would only be magnified if the programme following it does not carry forward the same radical attitude with which the ideology was introduced.43 A combination of a rigorous reform ideology and a comparatively milder form of programme would have a profoundly negative effect on land tenure – in anticipation of a legal order altering the nature of land relations, the dominating players would strip farmer tenants and under-tenants of whatever rights they possess. The subsequent legal order would be unable to restore to them their previous rights, for it would lack the required fierce provisions to do so if it has not integrated the true nature of its base ideology; and this is exactly what happened. The programme The constitution of the actual land reform programme was a rather muddled process. The leadership was striving towards a state where resources were equitably distributed in the community and property rights presented the biggest challenge to this endeavour. At the same time, a restructuring of India was sought on the lines of social and economic equality and a

58  A general introduction to the law of land programme of land reform offered a means to such reformulation. There was a clash of ideologies over its constitution and its jurisdiction. Thus, before the contents were finalized in the second and third five-year plans, there was not much clarity on the exact meaning of the term. The Karachi Resolution of 1931 passed by the Congress contained a limited clause of land reform where it only provided for rent reduction for tenants. The resolution never called specifically for land tenure reform and instead focussed upon nationalizing key industries, mineral resources, and the like.44 The Congress Socialist Party formed in 1934 was the dominant political front which had land reform among its basic objectives. Land Reform to the socialist party particularly involved “elimination of princes and landlords and all other classes of exploiters without compensation” and “redistribution of land to the peasants.”45 The Congress was trying to avoid a class war and therefore, it did not contemplate confiscation of property of landowners without due cause or compensation. The provincial ministry formed in 1937 by the party did not attempt zamindari abolition, although it has been claimed that there was much talk of it.46 An official political commitment for a land reform was only made by the Congress party in its election manifesto of 1945 which called for abolition of zamindari for equitable compensation.47 This was endorsed by the Report of the Economic Programme Committee which recommended eliminating all types of intermediaries that existed between the state and the tiller of land so that the state may be in a direct relationship with the peasant.48 The law Based upon this programme, legislations were formed to begin the reformation process. Translation of the programme into law was indeed a rigorous process; the provisions of law needed to be carved out in a manner which retained the true character of the process and created a legal order which clearly functioned towards attaining the directed objectives. However, it will be seen in Part II that the law instead appeared to have been formulated to defeat the stated purposes.

Components of land reform and their impact on the tenure The reform programme was declared in the first, second and third five-year plans. Starting from the abolition of intermediaries to the distribution of government land, the programme included a wide range of tasks for the government. The programme was broken down into aspects which were directed towards remedying specific defects in the system, for example, the abolition of intermediaries was directed towards eliminating, from within the land structure, an entire class of persons who were perceived to be the root cause of rural unrest; reduction in the amount of rent was sought to improve the economic status of the tenant, and the like. According to a

Land reform and the existing land tenure system 59 combined reading of the first three five-year plans, the land reform programme can be enunciated in the following specific terms: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Abolition of intermediaries Protection of tenants against eviction Control of land rents Consolidation of landholdings Prevention of fragmentation of holdings Transfer of ownership to tenants Imposition of ceilings on agricultural holdings Distribution of surplus land Settlement of landless agricultural labourers

These components of the land reform programme were converted into legal provisions spread through various land reform statutes. It would be expected that each of these components would complement each other for a sincere reform to occur; for example, the joint effect of agendas one and six, would assist agenda two in its implementation – once intermediaries were abolished as a class (agenda one) and ownership was transferred to the tenants (agenda six), the tenants would no longer face the threat of eviction (agenda two) and thereby would gain security of tenure. In practice, however, none of the agendas complemented each other. The law that was to eliminate the class of intermediaries, in fact, provided the basis for a scheme for the tenants to face eviction from their landowners.49 It did not consider the fact that these intermediaries were also landlords of their holdings and therefore had a direct relationship with the tenants. Simultaneously, the law provided for the transfer of the rights of landowners to some upper classes of tenants. The declarations of these intentions were made almost five years prior to the actual enactment of the law and the intermediaries knew exactly what they needed to do. Although, their intermediary status could not be saved, they could protect their status as landowners – if they evicted the tenants before the effective date of implementation of the law or converted the tenancy into a temporary contract, their holdings would not pass to the tenants. So in essence, the law eliminating intermediaries also eliminated a large part of a class of tenants. It instigated the very evictions it was supposed to prevent.50 In effect, a new class of landowners was superimposed on the old tenure system.51 Likewise, agenda seven was intended to initiate a process which would give effect to agendas eight and nine. The ceiling on agricultural holdings (agenda seven) was imposed so that a bulk of surplus land could be collected and distributed (agenda eight) amongst tenants, agricultural labourers (agenda nine) and other persons. Instead, the law formulated for imposition of land ceiling never established a legal procedure to redistribute the surplus land. It merely made some skeletal provisions largely leaving it up to the state government to devise their own schemes of redistribution. And

60  A general introduction to the law of land thus, the relationship between the two agendas was never truly established in practice. Land ceiling remained an end in itself. Due to the lack of a complete programme, it had no real impact on the tenure system and in the absence of an effective redistributive programme, the Land to the Tiller movement was largely a failed cause. To most authors on land reform, the Indian attempt has largely failed and they attribute this failure to the ineffective implementation of the programme.52 Relatively less emphasis has been placed on the legal order warranting that implementation. One of the causes of ineffective implementation of land reform is necessarily concerned with the authorities responsible for such implementation; and in fact, the entire regime of land reform was constructed without reforming the administrative structures or the registration of land records. The administration established by the colonial rulers was largely retained for implementing the new programme of reform. The traditional administrative structures in place were not constructed to work according to the new legal order. The proposed new order was captured by the old social and political dynamics of land which could not help the players to understand the new order in place. More importantly, the state had no means to know accurately the hierarchy, variations or proportions of people within the agrarian structures. The surveys conducted at the time by NSS were based upon the archaic land records maintained under the colonial regimes. This lack of knowledge on the part of the state of the exact agrarian structure could only widen the gap between state interventions and the actual problems; a gap which was profoundly visible in agendas of land reform. Although the argument of ineffective implementation of land reform law cannot be denied entirely, the reason for it lies in the framework of the law itself. The legislations drafted to implement the land reform programme were not, in themselves, capable of effectuating any reform. It is true that in their declaratory note, all legislations promised sweeping changes in the conduct of land relationships. But, the provisions for the failure of such promises were woven into the framework of the law itself and the law was, in fact, in complete dismissal of its ideology or the programme. This would be the central argument of the next part that analyzes the laws of land reform.

Notes 1 It must be noted here that land reform is immensely dependent upon the politics of the time and age where it is sought to be implemented. Its nature, components and implementation are also largely conditional to the political commitments of the time. Rural unrest, peasant revolts, ideological commitments of the state are certain pressing factors that have pushed the political climate in favour of a programme for land reform. Tai in his book Land Reform and Politics has argued that “In initiating land reform, a political elite is decisively influenced by the perceived need to gain legitimacy. i.e. to strengthen the political support of the new

Land reform and the existing land tenure system 61 political order or to safeguard the existing regime against threatened political changes. When political elite perceives the need to gain political legitimacy, the conditions likely to lead to reform will become relevant and important; when it fails to perceive such a need, the mere presence of these conditions may not lead to reform.” Hung-chao Tai, Land Reform and Politics: A Comparative Analysis (London: University of California Press), 1974. 2 The concept of substantive equality has been invoked in the concluding parts of Chapter 1 where I argued for a distinct interpretation of the constitutional right to property. For a detailed discussion of the concept, see Hughes, “Recognizing Substantive Equality as a Foundational Constitutional Principle.” 3 In an agrarian society like India, the leadership could gather widespread rural support and political legitimacy by demanding for reformulation of the land revenue structure as an act of opposition against the colonial rulers. This was possible because her colonial rulers had tampered with the traditional land tenure. During its early years, Congress only emphasized those aspects of the problem that could be blamed on the foreign power (asking only for rent reduction) and avoided those which could accentuate inter-class tensions; but the party soon realized that unless the entire land problem was addressed in its proper perspective, it could not gain support from the rural masses. See Harsh Dev Malaviya, Land Reforms in India (New Delhi: All India Congress Committee, 1954) at p. 429. Hereinafter, Malaviya, Land Reforms in India. 4 As independence approached, the debates about land reform widened. Elimination of intermediaries was only the first step of the process. The socialist parties of the nation, in particular, made demands of land to the tiller and settlement of agricultural labourers. The final face of reform is visible from a reading of the first three five-year plans. The subsequent discussion would trace the concept and its formation.   For a detailed narrative on the political process that formed the background of land reform and property rights, see Granville Austin, Working of a Democratic Constitution, An Indian Experience (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), 69–122. Hereinafter, Austin, Working of a Democratic Constitution. 5 The character of the Indian agricultural land structure has been examined by Mendelsohn in his essay “Pathology of the Indian Legal System.” He stated that rights in land were shared in a bewildering variety of ways between three players – the cultivator, the controller of cultivators, and the administration. He contends that land relations were webbed into various facets of social life and the British attempted to single out land from the social web and instigated land litigations. Oliver Mendelsohn, “The Pathology of the Indian Legal System,” Modern Asian Studies 15, no. 4 (1981): 823–863. Also see Walter C. Neale, Economic Change in Rural India. Land Tenure and Reform in Uttar Pradesh, 1800–1955 (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1962). 6 This is not to deny the fact that the land structure primarily responsible for the state of farmers was officially established by the Permanent Settlement in 1793. The details of the settlement have been discussed in Chapter 1. 7 “First Report on Landholding, Rural Structure,” Eighth Round: July 1954– March 1955 (Delhi: National Sample Survey Organization, 1958). Hereinafter, “Fist Report on Landholding, Rural Structure.” 8 Malviya contends that the most distressing phenomenon in the agrarian economy is the continuous regression of rural status because of acute pressure on agriculture for livelihood. More people were quitting secondary and tertiary occupations due to a decline in the economy. The 1931 census report revealed that 64 per cent of the rural artisans had to give up their occupation and take up agriculture for sustenance. The industrial population declined from 11 per cent in 1911 to 9.6 in 1941. Malaviya, Land Reforms in India.

62  A general introduction to the law of land 9 Fist Report on Landholding, Rural Structure. 10 Malaviya, Land Reforms in India. 11 Doreen Warriner, Land Reform in Principle and Practice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 136–218. Hereinafter, Warriner, Land Reform in Principle and Practice. 12 Registration of Documents Act (1864) and Transfer of Property Act (1882); later attempts were made to remedy the situation by legislations such as Deccan Agriculturists Relief Act (1879), Land Improvement Loans Act (1883), and Agricultural Loans Act (1884). 13 Malaviya, Land Reforms in India at p. 425. 14 The issue of rural indebtedness seeps the agrarian economy even today. Only recently, more than 30,000 farmers from across the country marched to Delhi to participate in the “Kisan Mukti March” under the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee where more than 200 farmers organizations participated. The farmers and their families were agitating against acute agriculture indebtedness and farmer suicides. The leadership stated that the two main demands of farmers were to pass two bills – Freedom from Debt Bill which was to provide immediate relief from loans and the Farmers Right to Guaranteed Remunerative Minimum Support Price for Agricultural Commodities Bill 2018. See ET Bureau, “Thousands of Farmers Throng to Delhi, Demand Special Parliament Session,” Economic Times, November 30, 2018, accessed July 14, 2019, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/kisan-rallythrows-traffic-in-a-tizzy-in-parts-of-delhi/articleshow/66861186.cms. 15 Michael Carritt, “India’s Agrarian Revolution,” Marxist Internet Archive (2010), Labour Publishing Company, London ii (November 1940), accessed July 14, 2019, www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/sections/bri tain/periodicals/labour_monthly/1940/11/x02.htm. The figure has been cited by the author from Sir Francis Floud, K.C.B., K.C.M.G. (Chairman), Report of the Land Revenue Commission (Alipore, Bengal: Bengal Government Press, 1940), accessed July 14, 2019, https://archive.org/stream/reportofthelandr032033mbp/ reportofthelandr032033mbp_djvu.txt. Hereinafter, Report of the Land Revenue Commission, 1940. 16 Report of the Land Revenue Commission, 1940. 17 See David Washbrook, “Economic Depression and the Making of ‘Traditional’ Society in Colonial India 1820–1855,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 3 (1993): 237–263. 18 Ibid. 19 Considered as the “First War of Independence”; the Revolt of 1857 was the first organized battle fought against the British Raj. 20 While for Congress, the idea of land reform was focussed upon abolition of intermediaries and providing equal bargaining power to the tenant, the left front concentrated more upon demanding security for under-tenants and sharecroppers who, according to them, were the actual tillers of land. Austin, Working of a Democratic Constitution. 21 It is important to note here that Abolition of Zamindari and Curtailment of Landlordism are two separate lines of policy. Neither is similar to the other and nor does one automatically lead to another. All zamindars or, broadly speaking, intermediaries were landlords of their holdings but all landlords were not necessarily intermediaries. There existed other land systems, like Ryotwari, where no intermediaries existed, but were formed by subletting of landholdings to subtenants. When intermediaries were sought to be abolished, their status of landlords was not to be taken away, although that might be the immediate conclusion to be drawn. The policy of abolishing intermediaries only abolished their rights

Land reform and the existing land tenure system 63 to collect land taxes from the tenants and they retained the lands they owned. I use the term curtailment of landlordism and not abolition of landlordism for a specific reason – for in effect landlords were never abolished as a class from within the land structure. A detailed discussion regarding this will follow when the specific impacts of land reform are analyzed in the latter part of this chapter. 22 This Land to the Tiller movement aimed at shifting ownership of land which was also the ultimate aim of Land Redistribution. The two programmes were not fundamentally distinct from each other in ideology. From a policy perspective, land redistribution is of a wider format for it seeks to distribute land to variant groups of people ranging from tenants to sharecroppers. The tiller in Land to the Tiller movement has been viewed distinctly from a tenant by certain political groups and hence there is scope for confusion. See Malaviya, Land Reforms in India. 23 Daniel Thorner in his essay, “Land Reform in India – Some Speculations,” commented on the need for a radical land reform programme in the country: “India’s hopes rest with people who work, and not with those who watch them work. Doubtless, some harshness and even injustice would be unavoidable in the process of reducing the power and prosperity of the spectators. But only such a reduction could give the actual tillers an opportunity to come into their own and show what they could do with the land.” Thorner, “Land Reform in India – Some Speculations,” November 5, 1953. 24 The argument that property in land must be determined according to the labour applied to the land has been a dominant part of the property rights discourse. While tracing the origin of property rights, labour applied to land appears as a strong contention for claiming rights in land. This is an argument of first principle and a complete analysis of it is beyond the scope of this book. See generally J. P. Day, “Locke on Property,” The Philosophical Quarterly (1950–) 16, no. 64 (1966): 207–220, accessed July 14, 2019, https://doi.org/10.2307/2218464; Jeremy Waldron, “What Is Private Property?,” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 5, no. 3 (1985): 313–349, accessed July 14, 2019, www.jstor.org/stable/764513. 25 This means that since land reform is implemented within a larger social order, it is inevitable that certain external factors would be of significant impact in the success of land reform. For example, where land reform transfers ownership of land to landless agricultural labourers, other forms of government would be required to help to productively cultivate that landholding, e.g. agricultural capital, subsidies for seeds and other such material that is essential for cultivation. Hence, the term agrarian reform is considered to be of a wider ambit and to include such initiatives. Agrarian reform is more holistic in its approach and ambit of exercise and it would not be erroneous to state land reform in fact forms an integral part of agrarian reform. 26 Census figures of 1921 and 1931 estimated the number of landless day labourers at 21.5 and 33 million, respectively. Malaviya, Land Reforms in India at p. 427. 27 The left front claimed that the land to the tiller programme was in fact merely a land to the tenant programme as it kept a vast number of people outside the purview of the established norm. 28 This statement will find substantiation when a thorough analysis of reform law (especially tenancy reform) is conducted in the next chapter. Here, it would be sufficient to state that the law did recognize the presence of various classes of tenants and labourers, but distinctly targeted only some groups. For example, the right of a purchasing landowner’s interest in land was only granted to a protected tenant who was defined by the concerned law (a usual condition applied was that the tenant should be cultivating the concerned land for a period of 12 years). See Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, Government of

64  A general introduction to the law of land India, “Agrarian Reforms: Report of the National Commission on Agriculture,” Report of the National Commission on Agriculture (New Delhi: Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, Government of India, 1949). 29 Wolf I. Ladejinsky, “Land Reform,” in Policies for Promoting Agricultural Development, ed. David Hapgood (Cambridge, MA: Centre for International Studies, MIT, 1965) at p. 298. “If this [land reform] is absent, all else may prove ephemeral including security of tenure, and rent reduction-measures extremely difficult to enforce.” 30 “Land tenure problems, in a deep sense, are power problems – problems of disparity in social, economic and political power – and land reform seeks to reformulate its power dynamics.” [Parsons, “Land Reform and Agriculture Development,” in Land Tenure, ed. Parsons (Madison: Penn & Raup ed., 1956), 9]. “In fact, land reform is a revolutionary step; it passes power, property and status from one group in the community to another.” John K. Galbraith, “Conditions of Economic Change in Under-developed Countries,” Journal of Farm Economics XLIII, November 1961. 31 Hung-Chao Tai, “The Political Process of Land Reform: A Comparative Study,” Civilisations 1 (1968): 61–77, accessed July 15, 2019, www.jstor.org/stable/ pdf/41231087.pdf. 32 Ibid. 33 The first two aspects have been recognized and distinguished by P. C. Joshi (1974) in his celebrated article “Land Reform and Agrarian Change in India and Pakistan since 1947: I,” The Journal of Peasant Studies 1, no. 3 (1974): 326–362. Joshi argues that a distinction between the two aspects of land reform – ideology (which is an instrument of political exhortation or support mobilization) and programme (which is recognized as the blue print of action and implementation) – is necessarily to be made. An agrarian programme, according to Joshi, is not the only force of change in an agricultural system, but the ideology of reform has proved to be more radical than the programme itself in countries like India and Pakistan. Here, I have added a third aspect to the concept of land reform – land reform law which is effectively responsible for establishing a legal order governing land tenures, and which may not necessarily be in complete consonance with the stated programme, or ideology. As a predominantly legal piece on the subject, it important that a distinction is drawn between a programme and a legislation; for a programme is a matter of policymakers which is written down in government plans of action, while a law is an instrument that frames that government programme into a legal norm by which the government is then legally bound to perform the stated functions. The focus of this present work is land law in general, which is guided by the politics of the hour and is a product of the state ideology and government programmes. 34 Ibid. 35 The attempts by zamindars and other to lobby against the intended government policy have been traced by Austin in Working of a Democratic Constitution. “While the central and state ministry was thus occupied the zamindars were busy lobbying in Patna, Lucknow and New Delhi. The Maharaja of Chota Nagpur wrote to Bihar Premier Shri. Krishna Sinha that he hoped that ‘the wailing of the zamindars in their distress will touch your heart.’ While pleading their case with Patel and other Ministries, the Biharis concentrated on President Rajendra Prasad, a fellow Bihari, telling him that the provincial government was bent upon taking their rights, without compensation, contrary to the promises. Their leader and perhaps the biggest zamindar of all, the Maharaja of Darbhanga, told

Land reform and the existing land tenure system 65 Prasad that they did not oppose distribution but they wanted it to be done in a fair way.” 36 See Malaviya, Land Reforms in India. 37 Ibid. 38 Ceilings were a fixed extent of land which a person was allowed to hold under the law. The surplus of land beyond the ceiling limit was to be taken possession of by the state authorities and utilized as per the directed law. Part II of this work will discuss this subject in detail. 39 Para. 12, ibid. The paragraph stated that “If it were the sole object of policy to reduce the holdings of the larger owners with a view to providing for the landless or for increasing the farms of those who now have uneconomic fragments, the facts at present available suggest that these aims are not likely to be achieved in any substantial measure. The question whether some limit should not be placed on the amount of land that an individual may hold has, therefore, to be answered in terms of general principles rather than in relation to the possible use that could be made of land in excess of any limit that may be set. We have considered carefully the implications of the various courses of action which are possible. It appears to us that, in relation to land (as also in other sectors of the economy), individual property in excess of any norm that may be proposed has to be justified in terms of public interest, and not merely on grounds of individual rights or claims. We are, therefore, in favour of the principle that there should be an upper limit to the amount of land that an individual may hold.” 40 This lack of a fundamental purpose for the introduction of land ceiling laws crowded the minds of those who were responsible for the implementation of these laws. Ceiling laws here have been used as an example of the contention that a fractured policy has the capacity not only to negate the purpose of the endeavour but also to travel and occupy a space at the stage of implementation of the law. “The argument that ceiling will make so little land available for redistribution that it was considered of no worth to undertake the programme had a dominating voice in states like Uttar Pradesh.” “In 1964–5, officials of the revenue department in state capitals or district headquarters showed no understanding of the original purposes of these laws.” Warriner, Land Reform in Principle and Practice, 170–171. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Mydral Gunnar, 1968a Address to the Second Plenary Meeting in Report of the World Land Reforms Conference (Rome, 20 June to July, 1966) New York United Nations. “In any case, it is the worst of both worlds to have a radical ideology of ‘land to the tiller’ and a largely ineffective legislation conforming to that ideology which in spite of its lack of implementation nevertheless creates uncertainty about what the future holds for those who now own the land.” Gunnar here uses the term law instead of programme and he does so almost synonymously, but since a distinction has been drawn between the two in the present context, it must be noted that the contents of the programme only would form the law. 44 Paragraph 7, Karachi Resolution of 1931 reads as follows: “The system of land tenure and revenue and rent shall be reformed and an equitable adjustment made of the burden on agricultural land, immediately giving relief to the smaller peasantry, by a substantial reduction of agricultural rent and revenue now paid by them, and in case of uneconomic holdings, exempting them from rent, so long as necessary, with such relief as may be just and necessary to holders of small

66  A general introduction to the law of land estates affected by such exemption or reduction in rent, and to the same end; imposing a graded tax on net incomes from land above a reasonable minimum.” “Karachi Resolution” (Indian National Congress, 1931). 45 Granville Austin, Working a Democratic Constitution: The Indian Experience, 5th ed. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), at p. 71. 46 Ibid. According to K. N. Katju, then Agricultural Minister in the United Provinces at p. 71. 47 Congress Election Manifesto, AICC, New Delhi, 1945. 48 Report of the Economic Reform Committee, AICC, New Delhi, 1948 at pp. 12–14. The committee also recommended that the maximum size of the holdings should be fixed – a ceiling level. 49 Refer to UP Zamindari Abolition Act, 1950 and Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1950. A detailed analysis of legal provisions is reserved for the next chapter. The present discussion focusses on the real impact of the land reform programme on land tenure as it existed then. 50 Refer to Landejinsky, Tenural Conditions and Package Programme, Plan ning Commission, 1965. The legal inducement for evicting tenants came from zamindari abolition laws. 51 Ibid. Dr. Bhattacherjee’s opinion at p. 165. 52 Two of the most popular authors on the subject, P. C. Joshi and Daniel Thorner, have attributed the failure of land reform to ineffective implementation of the policies. See generally P. C. Joshi, “Agrarian Social Structure and Social Change,” Sankhyā: The Indian Journal of Statistics, Series B (1960–2002) 31, no. 3/4 (1969): 479–490; Daniel Thorner, “Land Reforms in India: Some Speculations,” in The Shaping of Modern India, ed. Daniel Thorner (Bombay: Allied Publishers, 1953).

Part II

Law of land reform

4 Alteration of the land tenure system Laws relating to abolition of intermediaries and tenancy reform The fundamental concepts of reform It has been established previously that the general framework of Land Reform, as a state agenda for social and economic justice, constituted modification of the then-existing land tenure system in order to incline the power spectrum towards the actual cultivators of soil. Part I of this work has also foregrounded the fact that widespread poverty and oppression of the mass of peasants was structured into the tenure systems themselves. Especially in the Zamindari system, the landowners became parasitic1 on the tenants and other classes of cultivators. Within the other prevalent systems of Ryotwari and Mahalwari, although the state had a direct relationship with the cultivator for the collection of land revenue, there still existed zamindarilike classes or money-lending classes who ascertained their own rights in land against the cultivators, causing them much distress.2 The law framed to bring about a reform in land necessarily had to confront and alter the hierarchy of land relationships to create a structure which would not propel an oppressive regime. Accordingly, the legal process of land reform commenced with laws abolishing a set of classes of landlords, similar to those in the feudal system, which was reinforced by the colonial rule and had become symbolic of the colonizers’ presence in the country. The fundamental concept behind the abolition of intermediaries and other interests in land was to eliminate structural oppression of the cultivating class and bring them into a direct relationship with the state. Following this, the cultivating class was to be provided with security of tenure and affirmed ownership rights in land. This second part of the programme was to be effected with tenancy reform legislations; once the intermediaries were abolished and the state had a direct relationship with the cultivator, it was essential that the state empower the cultivators with rights, of which they had been historically deprived. Besides, at that point in time, it was estimated that over 90 per cent of farming in the country was conducted through tenancy.3 This fact can be attributed to two pervasive phenomena in the then-existing land system – firstly, since the intermediaries were proprietors of very large holdings, they usually let out their land for cultivation; and

70  Law of land reform secondly, the prevalence of sub-tenancy allowed tenants to sublet their lands to be cultivated by a subtenant.4 Therefore, abolition laws were accompanied in time by laws reforming tenancy relations and together they jolted the land structure. These legislations abolished a set of classes along with their interests in land, and have now, for any practical purpose, become redundant; their impact, however, has not.5 The land structure observed today is a result of alterations made by the abolition laws back in the early 1950s which eliminated a few landed classes and simultaneously generated a few others. The new set of classes that the law created are generally referred to as capitalist landlords6 by most authors writing on the subject. Thereby, if an enquiry is to be made into the contemporary legal interventions in the land structure, an assessment of the Abolition Laws becomes a prerequisite. It would provide the study with a background of the modern land structure that was created and also disclose the true nature of landed and non-landed classes and their relationships. The present chapter will start with introducing the concepts of Abolition of Intermediaries and Tenancy Reform Laws. Their objectives, content, relevant provisions, general impact on the tenure – these will be considered with the aim of creating a backdrop against which the cumulative effect of both laws may be examined. After the introduction of these concepts, both laws will be examined in the specific contexts of certain states; the states chosen for this purposes had different types of land tenure systems, and thus, the framework of laws applicable to them also differs accordingly. In addition, the economic and political reviews about the application of laws in these states have varied substantially, and thus, a comparison of state laws can also be drawn from the following examination. It is important that the laws affecting the two classes of land hierarchy are read together because there existed an inherent relation between landowner intermediaries and tenants. The structure of the present chapter is designed to highlight the connection; it is divided into two sections: first, the laws abolishing intermediaries will be discussed to understand how the law altered the nature of rights exercised by the intermediaries and, consequently, reduced their status and secondly, the manner in which tenancy reform laws sought to confer rights and security on tenants will be examined.

Laws abolishing intermediaries and other classes holding estates in land The zamindars and other classes of intermediaries possessed dual characteristics under the then-existing legal order: they were both landlords of their estates and revenue collectors for the erstwhile British state, sometimes owning lands extending up to an entire village or more. The laws abolishing intermediaries and other classes holding estate usually, however, only eliminated their status of intermediaries and preserved their status of land

Alteration of the land tenure system 71 proprietors. Although, at the outset the legislations declared that all estates7 existing within the concerned state would be deemed to be vested in the state government free from all encumbrances,8 the state did not acquire any such rights immediately. The provision did imply that all lands under the proprietorship of intermediaries were to be taken away from them at once, and converted into government lands. However, on account of certain other provisions like right to retain land under personal cultivation of the landowner9 and conversion into ryots or other similar classes, the intermediaries were enabled to preserve their landowner status by the law. These provisions usually existed in almost all the statutes falling under the present category. The right of personal cultivation entitled the ex-intermediaries to retain, under the law, those lands which were personally cultivated by them. The definition of personal cultivation was rather wide; it included cultivation with the help of family members, agents or through hired labourers – meaning that, the landowners were permitted to retain any amount of land so long as they were cultivating the land themselves or through agents or hired agricultural labourers. Although the term personal cultivation conveys to any reader the notion of possessing an element of physical involvement in cultivating land (which is also in accord with the general philosophy of land reform), the legal definition of the term does not profess the same. Instead, it creates a situation where the ex-intermediaries own their lands while getting it cultivated by agricultural labourers and in most cases, leads to eviction of tenants who were previously cultivating these lands. This clause thus formed the reason for the mass eviction of tenants from their tenancies during 1945–1960 as has been estimated by a few historians on the subject. Therefore, the abolition laws abolished intermediaries but not landlordism.10 Furthermore, the laws under the present category were an attempt to convert the Zamindari System into a Ryotwari System of Land Revenue which meant that instead of an intermediary collecting; and revenue on behalf of the state (as in the zamindari system), a direct relationship between the state and the ryot (the cultivator) for collection of land revenue was to be established. Most of the statutes have also been titled in a similar manner, implying that only the class of intermediaries between the state and the ryots was abolished and not the collection of revenue per se. In most cases, the states reserved their right of deriving revenue from land and continued to collect an amount under the category of land tax. Undeniably, the elimination of intermediaries removed some of the social oppression of the peasants but the economic aspect of the problem was rooted in the amount of land tax imposed upon them and while it continued to be in practice, the solution remained incomplete. Abolition laws across the country have been eliminating various classes of intermediaries: in Uttar Pradesh, systems like zamindari, taluqdari,11 thekedari12 were abolished; in Rajasthan zamindari and biswedari13 were under the process of elimination; in the erstwhile Madras state, estates that existed

72  Law of land reform under names like inam,14 jagirdari15 were eliminated. Although their names varied, the nature of the rights that were exercised by all these classes was almost similar – their title in land was usually grants by the state as a gift for some service rendered or for their intermediary duties of collection of revenue for the state and they were not cultivators. Thus, a general pattern emerges from abolition laws: they all abolished all estates in land that belonged to intermediaries, all estates were deemed to be vested in the state, the ex-intermediaries were permitted to retain their lands under certain provisions, compensation was payable to all persons whose rights were abolished and the attempt was to frame a revenue system of ryotwari where no intermediaries exist between the state and cultivators. Most of the litigation concerning abolition laws has centred on the provision of compensation that was payable to the ex-intermediaries which was only incidental to the concerns of land reform.16 It is undeniable that the Compensation Clause was an integral part of the Right to Property. Owning to the financial status of the government, it did become an obstacle in the process of reform: the clause however, stole the legal debate around abolition laws and occupied the maximum amount of space within the reform discourse. The central theme of the abolition laws lay in altering the status of the intermediaries in order to reduce the social and economic power they exercised in the rural areas and thus, the opposition they presented in the form of lengthy litigations was a natural reaction to the process. Since constitutional challenges made against the abolition laws have already been dealt with in Part I, our concern here would shift towards the concrete provisions framed under these laws. The statutes of some states will now be examined in order to ascertain the true nature of abolition laws.

Legal provisions abolishing intermediaries The state of Uttar Pradesh was among the first few states to have legislated for abolition of zamindari. The Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act of 1950 acquired rights, titles, and interests of zamindars and reformed the law relating to land tenure for the state. The state government was empowered under section 4 to notify that all estates situated in UP shall be vested in the state. It stated that from the date specified, they would be deemed to be vested in and transferred to the state government, except as was provided under the Act. The immediate consequence of such notification was that all rights, titles and interests of all intermediaries in every estate in land and in all sub-soils in mines and minerals were ceased and vested in the state government (section 6). While abolishing all rights and titles of intermediaries, section 7 provided that certain rights were directly saved from the application of sections 4 and 6, like easement or other similar right of beneficial enjoyment of land where the person was bhumidhar,17 seerdar (or sirdhar),18 or asami19 of any land.

Alteration of the land tenure system 73 This meant that even when ownership and possession of the estates has passed on to the state government, certain persons would continue to enjoy ancillary beneficial rights to the property. These provisions seem to have had stripped the intermediaries of their estates in land which formed the core of their social and political status. Sections 4 and 6 were not only clear in abolishing intermediary rights of the class, but also took away their landholdings from them. Section 25 empowered the Collector to take charge of all estates vested in the state and also allowed her to use forceful means wherever necessary for the purposes of acquiring the holdings. With the cumulative effect of a few provisions, the law extinguished the rights and claims of a large class of land proprietors – rights and claims which were legally in force for over 100 years. However, the radical impact of this legal framework was softened by section 18 of the Act, which reads as follows. Section 18 – Settlement of certain lands with intermediaries or cultivators as Bhumidhar (1) Subject to the provisions of Sections 10, 15, 16 and 17, all lands – (a) in possession of or held or deemed to be held by an intermediary as sir, khudkasht or an intermediary’s grove, (b) held as a grove by or in the personal cultivation of a permanent lessee in Avadh, (c) held by a fixed-rate tenant or a rent-free grantee as such, or (d) held as such by – (i) an occupancy tenant (ii) a hereditary tenant (iii) a tenant in Patta Dawami or Istamrari referred to in section 17 (iv) held by a grove holder on the date immediately preceding the date of vesting shall be deemed to be settled by the State Government with such intermediary, lessee, tenant, grantee or grove holder, as the case may be, who shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, be entitled to take or retain possession as a bhumidhar thereof. The provision deems that certain lands held by an intermediary would be settled by the state government with such intermediary; where settling meant that the lands held by the person as sir, khudkasht or grove would not be vested or taken over by the state and would remain in the possession of such intermediary. The terms sir and khudkasht were not defined by the Act as such, but in the present context the general connotations of the terms imply that a sir is a name applied to lands in village which are cultivated by hereditary proprietors or village zamindars themselves as their own especial share, either by their own labourers and at their own cost, or

74  Law of land reform by tenants-at-will, not being let in lease or farm;20 khudkasht meant sowing or cultivating one’s own ground.21 So, if the intermediaries had to claim to settle their lands with the government, the holdings would need to have been cultivated either by labourers or by tenants-at-will and at that point of time in UP, neither had any claimable rights; the status of agricultural labourers remained unaltered by Abolition or Tenancy Laws and tenants-at-will fell in the lower classes of tenants who did not have any occupancy or hereditary rights. Therefore, the intermediaries could retain legal title over their holdings by letting them be cultivated by labourers or tenants with no claimable rights, which, obviously, was an ideal situation for the intermediaries: they could both dictate the terms of holdings and enjoy the economic benefits of land simultaneously. As per subclauses (i) and (ii) of clause (d), two other classes of tenants, hereditary and occupancy tenants, were also granted similar privileges as the intermediaries to settle their lands with the government, which raises an additional line of enquiry: who constituted these classes? The Act itself declared certain persons to be included in these two categories, especially in the former. Section 12 states that thekedars would be deemed to be hereditary tenants in cases where the land was under the personal cultivation of the thekedar. The term thekedar occurs in the definition clause of the Act as being one of the classes of intermediaries – section 3(12); implying that thekedars were intermediaries themselves and they have been reduced to being hereditary tenants under the Act which entitles them to retain their holdings both as intermediaries and as hereditary tenants. In addition to this, it must also be noticed that another legislation called the Thekedari Abolition Act of 195922 seeks to abolish thekedari as a system. Thus, essentially the system of thekedari, like that of zamindari and other intermediaries in the state of Uttar Pradesh, has been abolished, but the thekedars have been all converted into hereditary tenants who retained their landholdings under the law. Nine years after Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan enacted the legislation called the Zamindar and Biswedari Abolition Act, 1959, with similar provisions of abolishing all rights and titles in estates held by zamindars and biswedars23 and vesting them in the state government.24 Private properties of zamindars and biswedars like house sites and places of worship were excluded from the provision of vesting (section 6). The zamindars/biswedars were entitled to khudkasht lands. Where such land was not already in their possession, they were allowed to apply for the same under section 10. On such allotment being made, the zamindars/biswedars would become khatedar tenants for that land: Section 11(2) – The Zamindar or Biswedar to whom any Khudkasht is allotted under sub-section (1) shall be the Khatedar tenant of the land so allotted and shall pay the State Government rent therefor at such rate as may be fixed by the Collector in accordance with such principles as may be prescribed.

Alteration of the land tenure system 75 As against this, section 29 claimed that from the date of vesting, any zamindar/biswedar who possessed khudkasht land would become a Malik25 or land proprietor of that land: Section 29(1) – As from the date of vesting of an estate, the Zamindar or Biswedar thereof shall be a Malik of any khudkasht land in his occupation on such date and shall, as such Malik, be entitled to all the rights conferred and be subject to all the liabilities imposed on a khatedar tenant by or under the Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 1955 (Rajasthan Act 3 of 1955) Hence, there appears a contradiction regarding the status of zamindars/ biswedars: they could be either tenants or owners of their holdings. Further, section 12 mandated that the extent of land allotted to the zamindar/biswedar would not exceed the prescribed limit. Assuming that the prescribed limit is the limit imposed by the ceiling law of the state,26 the provision sought to impose a limit on the amount of land that zamindars/biswedars could retain under the statute. However, subsection (2) of section 12 stated something contradictory: Section 12(2) – Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1), where a Zamindar or Biswedar holds Khudkasht at the date of vesting of his estate in excess of the area specified in sub-section (1), he shall continue to hold such land as Khudkasht subject to the provisions of section 29. The previous section is overridden and it instead stated that in cases where the zamindar/biswedar was already in possession of a khudkasht land at the date of vesting in excess of the prescribed limit, he would continue to hold such land as khudkasht, only subject to the provision of section 29 which granted the status of malik to the zamindar/biswedar. Therefore, sections 12(2) and 29(1) together allowed the zamindars/biswedars to retain as much khudkasht land as they pleased, without imposing any prescribed limit on the holding. In addition to this, the Act provided for allotting lands to zamindars/ biswedars who did not already possess any land, section 13 laid out a list of lands that could be allotted to them. It ran as follows: Section 13(1) – The following categories of land may, in the order hereinafter mentioned, be allotted to a Zamindar or Biswedar, in preference to other applicants for the same, as Khudkasht under section 11, namely: (i) Land surrendered by tenants; (ii) land abandoned by tenants;

76  Law of land reform (iii) culturable unoccupied land within the estate; (iv) land of the nature specified in clauses (i), (ii) and (iii) in the vicinity of the village or villages in which the estate of the Zamindar or Biswedar is situated; and (v) lands commanded by the Chambal and Rajasthan canal projects on such terms and conditions as may be prescribed. As can be observed, the zamindars/biswedars were entitled to be allotted lands which were surrendered or abandoned by tenants. In a social setting where zamindars possessed immense power in the rural areas, enough to oppress their tenants and labourers for generations, it could not be very difficult for them to ask tenants to surrender or abandon their holdings. It is the function of law to anticipate such possibilities and legislate accordingly, but clearly, the Rajasthan legislature failed to acknowledge an apparent fact such as this; or it recognized and ignored the reality altogether. The erstwhile Madras state made similar attempts to repeal the Permanent Settlement Regulation of 1802 which had settled intermediaries in the state. It converted the tenure into ryotwari by enactment of the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948.27 The 1948 Act also abolished all estates in the state, as well as all rights and titles existing then, and entitled the government to require administration of those estates. The Act further entitled some persons to a ryotwari patta, and if such a person was in possession of the estate, the state authorities were required to let the person retain possession of the holding: Section 3(d) – the Government may, after removing any obstruction that may be offered, forthwith take possession of the estate, and all accounts, registers, pattas, muchilikas, maps, plans and other documents relating to the estate which the Government may require for the administration thereof: Provided that the Government shall not dispossess any person, of any land in the estate in respect of which they consider that he is prima facie entitled to a ryotwari patta – (i) if such person is a ryot, pending the decision of the Settlement Officer as to whether he is actually entitled to such patta; (ii) if such person is a landholder, pending the decision of the Settlement Officer and the Tribunal on appeal, if any, to it, as to whether he is actually entitled to such patta; The persons who were entitled under the Act to receive a ryotwari patta were ryots or landholders – the cultivator or the person who held the estate immediately before the date of vesting. Sections 11 entitled ryots to a ryotwari

Alteration of the land tenure system 77 patta in land and also mandated that the land should be under cultivation by such a ryot. Sections 12, 13, 14, and 15 entitled the ex-zamindars to hold as ryotwari patta lands which had formerly been their private lands in their zamindari, inam, or under-tenure estate. A reading of these four provisions would reveal that lands on which such rights could be claimed by ex-intermediaries were generally under personal cultivation (by agents or hired labourers). For example: Section 12 – Landholder entitled to Ryotwari Patta In the case of a zamindari estate, the landholder shall with effect on and from the notified date, be entitled to a ryotwari patta in respect of – (a) all lands (including lanka lands) which, immediately before the notified date, (i) belonged to him as private land within the meaning of section 3, clause (10) (a) of the Estates Land Act, or (ii) stood recorded as his private land in a record prepared under the provisions of Chapter XI or Chapter XII of the said Act, not having been subsequently converted into ryoti land; (b) (i) all lands which were properly included or which ought to have been properly included, in the holding of a ryot and which have been acquired by the landholder, by inheritance or succession under a will, provided that the landholder has cultivated such lands himself, by his own servants or by hired labour, with his own or hired stock, in the ordinary course of husbandry from the date of such acquisition or the 1st day of July 1939, whichever is later and has been in direct and continuous possession of such lands from such later date; The content of these provisions was repeated in the other three sections. The Madras Abolition Act of 1948, thus, also followed the same model of abolishing revenue collection rights and maintaining their landlord-ships without placing any real limit on the amount of lands that could be held by them. The state of West Bengal however, was legislatively successful in placing a limit on the landholdings of ex-intermediaries. The West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act of 1953 vested all rights and estates of intermediaries in the state government, simultaneously allowing them to retain some lands. Section 6 of the Act defined the right of intermediaries to retain certain lands in their possession while the process of abolishing and vesting was in force; they could retain lands which comprised their homesteads, non-agricultural and agricultural lands in their khas possession, tank fisheries, mills, factories, workshops, etc. In the same section, while specifying the types of lands that could be retained by the ex-intermediaries, limits were imposed on the amount of land that could be so held. For example, the maximum amount of

78  Law of land reform agricultural land permissible by the Act was 25 acres and for non-agricultural land the limit was 15 acres as per section 6 (c) and (d). Section 6 – Right of Intermediaries to retain certain lands (1) Notwithstanding anything contained in sections 4 and 5, an intermediary shall, except in the cases mentioned in the proviso to subsection (2) but subject to the other provisions of that sub-section, be entitled to retain with effect from the date of vesting – (c) non-agricultural land in his khas possession including land held under him by any person, not being a tenant, by leave or licence, not exceeding fifteen acres in area, and excluding any land retained under clause (a): Provided that the total area of land retained by an intermediary under clauses (a) and (c) shall not exceed twenty acres as may be chosen by him: Provided further that if the land retained by an intermediary under clause (c) or any part thereof is not utilised for a period of five consecutive years from the date of vesting, for a gainful or productive purpose, the land or the part thereof may be resumed by the State Government subject to payment of compensation determined in accordance with the principles laid down in sections 23 and 24 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 (I of 1894); (d) agricultural land in his khas possession, not exceeding twenty-five acres in area, as may be chosen by him: Provided that in such portions of the district of Darjeeling as may be declared by notification by the State Government to be hilly portions, an intermediary shall be entitled to retain all agricultural land in his khas possession, or any part thereof as may be chosen by him The benefit of having internal limits on the amount of land that can be held by ex-intermediaries is that at least legally, they are entitled to only a certain amount of holding and the rest has to vest in the state; the intermediaries have historically held massive amounts of lands and a limit being placed on the amount that they can retain after having been stripped of their title, reduces their economic power to a large extent. Also, since this was to be followed by redistribution statutes, it was useful to truncate the holdings of ex-intermediaries at once. Breaking the process into two legislations, one that abolishes titles of intermediaries and another that limits the amount of land they may hold, creates a time lag which provides time to the landholders to transfer or divide their holdings and avoid the implications of the anticipated law. The state of Jammu and Kashmir took this approach further and included redistributive provisions in its abolition law.28 The Jammu and Kashmir

Alteration of the land tenure system 79 Big Landed Estates Abolition Act, 1950 (SVT 2007) abolished big landed estates of intermediaries and transferred them to the actual tillers.29 With certain exceptions, section 4 of the Act extinguished all ownership rights of proprietors in land: Section 4 (1) – Notwithstanding anything contained in any law for the time being in force, the right of ownership held by a proprietor in land other than land mentioned in sub-section (2) [as according to the village records] shall, subject to the other provisions of this Act, extinguish and cease to vest in him from the date this Act comes into force. Subsection (2) laid down the exceptions to this rule – (2) Extinction of the right of ownership under sub-section (1) shall not apply to – (a) unit of land not exceeding 182 Kanals including residential sites, Bedzars and Safedzars; (b) Kah-Krishm areas, Araks, Kaps and such lands including those used for raising fuel or fodder, as are uncultivable; and (c) orchards Landholders could preserve their right of ownership in lands up to 182 kanals30 or if their lands were used for raising fuel or fodder or orchards. The scope of this exception was rather limited as it either imposed a limit on cultivable lands held by intermediaries or exempted lands not of cultivable quality. The lands in which rights of intermediaries were extinguished were to be transferred to tillers as per section 5(1): Section 5(1) – Ownership rights of such land of a proprietor of which the right of ownership is extinguished under section 4 and of land (other than orchards) that was owned by a person declared as an enemy agent and has since been forfeited to 1[the Government] under the Enemy Agents (Confiscation of Property) Ordinance, 2004, shall be transferred to the tiller of such land to the extent of their actual possession in kharif 2007 Section 2(d) clearly defined who was a tiller for the purposes of the Act – (d) “tiller” means a person who tills land with his own hands, and with reference to the land held by a proprietor has, on the date of the commencement of this Act, been in cultivating possession of such land and includes a tenant who, after 1st Baisakh, 2004, has been ejected otherwise than in due course of law or has ceased to cultivate the land owing to reasons beyond this control; but does not include – (a) (b) (c) (d)

a trespasser; a servant who is paid in cash or kind for his services; a person who is not the actual beneficiary; and a hired labourer

80  Law of land reform Although the definition excluded agricultural labourers, compared to the other state legislations, the Jammu 1950 Act had an improved legal framework: it extinguished ownership rights in land, had limited exemptions from the elimination clause, imposed a limit on the extent to which land could be retained and, most significantly, created a direct mechanism for transfer of ownership rights in lands. This provision is in stark contrast with section 13 of the Rajasthan 1959 Act which instead made the ex-intermediaries eligible to be allotted lands that were surrendered by tenants. Since intermediaries existed at the top of the land hierarchy, their presence in the system was integral and influential; they had the power to direct all operations of land relations and thus, when a law was enforced to eliminate their existence from the land structure, immediate repercussions could be observed in the direct relationships they had with their tenants. The time lag between a land reform programme and enactment of the law for reform (a distinction that has been made in the last chapter) granted the intermediaries the opportunity to alter their relations with the tenants in a manner which could negate any alterations that the law was anticipated to make. Consequently, the immediate impact of the abolition laws, even before abolishing the titles of intermediaries, was alterations in the status and relationships of intermediaries and tenants, either in the form of evictions or through reduction in status by loss of hereditary and occupancy rights in the tenure previously enjoyed by tenants. Especially with the sort of provisions that were framed by various states in their Abolition statutes, as has been discussed above, the condition of tenants was rendered rather precarious; clauses like retention of land under personal cultivation, allotment of lands surrendered by tenants to the ex-intermediaries, distribution of land to tenants who were unlawfully evicted – all had negative impacts on the conditions of tenants. Setting this as the reference point, the discussion will now move on to observe the framework of tenancy reform laws that were primarily responsible to protect tenants from evictions and to balance their relationship with the landlord by granting them equal bargaining power in the contract.

Law reforming tenancies A reform in tenancy relations is generally inclined to serve the interests of tenants who have been historically deprived of their rights to land and security of tenure. The legislations providing for such reform are among the oldest that Indian land law has known, implying that the condition of tenants was evident enough to be identified by the colonial rulers and thereby, legislated on. The present concern, however, is related to the legislative interventions made by the new Indian state for the protection of tenants in a situation where widespread eviction of tenants and conversion of their tenancies into informal or unrecorded ones were instigated by the laws abolishing intermediaries. Therefore, as a natural consequence, tenancy laws

Alteration of the land tenure system 81 were expected to come to the rescue of millions of tenants who held their lands at the mercy of their ex-zamindars who now were only landowners; this was to be achieved by providing tenants with security of tenure31 and other related rights of regulated rents, hereditary and transferable rights, security of tenure being the most significant and consequential of them all. In addition, the legislations were required to identify the fact that the term tenant did not have a singular connotation but included multiple classes of tenants, often differing under the impulses of local circumstances: from a superior tenant having occupancy rights to a mere under-tenant or sharecropper having no claimable rights under the given circumstances, the law was to account for all the existing classes and provide them with equitable rights and possibilities of redress. However, and as will be observed shortly, most of the statutes only managed to recognize a couple of upper-class tenants, excluding from their purview all other classes who generally constituted the mass of tenants. As a corollary to this exclusion, the ex-intermediaries were only required to convert their superior tenants into temporary or nonoccupants, if they chose not to evict them in order to retain their landholdings under the clause of personal cultivation. As is apparent from the preceding description, a combined reading of abolition and tenancy laws offers a fascinating narrative to anyone remotely interested in understanding land law and its impact. As planned, the following discussion will involve state-centric laws concerning the aforementioned categories of land law.

Statutory provisions reforming tenancies Laws regulating landlord–tenant relationships have a peculiar location within a land reform regime based on fundamentals of distributing ownership rights to cultivators of land: the basics of tenancy law lie in encouraging tenancy markets by strengthening the position of the tenant as against that of the landowner while balancing their relationship, and not in conferring ownership rights on either party.32 All the other strategies of land reform like abolition laws, ceiling laws, and others are mostly focussed on restructuring the land tenure system into one that is based on equal land distribution and fair relationships. The fact that a tiller did not exercise ownership rights over the land she cultivated, was considered as the prime reason for the mass oppression and poverty faced by the peasantry and therefore, the entire reform regime was declared to be directed towards conferring such ownership rights on the cultivator, whether it was a tenant belonging to any class or a labourer on land.33 A legal strategy granting protective rights to tenants and consequently encouraging the tenancy market to grow, thus, conflicted with the other part of the programme that emphasized making the cultivators the owners of land, or forcing the landowners to practice cultivation on the holding that they possessed under law. As has been observed in the previous section,

82  Law of land reform abolition laws sought to persuade landowners to personally cultivate their lands by allowing them to retain their holdings even after abolition of their titles; incidentally, it was this very provision that led to the eviction of tenants. The emphasis clearly was on creating a system in which owners were cultivators or vice versa. The law regulating tenancy relations was thus required to resolve this conflict by framing a legal order that could fit into the broad ideology of the programme. The modern tenancy law, following this objective, also grew to include redistributive provisions which provided certain tenants with rights to purchase landowner’s interest, to be in consonance with other forms of strategy.34 However, owing to the existing tenure structure being dominated by tenancy cultivation, the fundamental idea of a tenancy reform law was of massive importance during the 1940s. The general trend was that land proprietors were rarely ever found cultivating their own lands, they either leased out land or hired agents and labourers for cultivation. Absentee landlordism35 was an extended version of this trend – the estates of landowners were mostly managed by an agent or a family member in their absence. The dominance of tenancy cultivation, coupled with the fact that the system was plagued with widespread oppression and the absence of any real rights for the majority of the tenants, formed the basic reason for the need for a concrete law to regulate the tenancy system. The reform policies framed after independence needed to provide immediate protection to tenants, especially the ones falling in the lower classes and having no rights of occupancy, as they were the most vulnerable under the new legal order. Tenancy reform statutes across the country were based on the preceding ideology. They were framed to cater to all the needs of tenants: rent regulation, fixed length of tenancy, providing them occupancy rights, restricting the power of owners to evict tenants from their holdings, registration of their tenure, and other related matters. The tables on tenancy laws (Annexures A8 to A11) bring together all state legislations and assesses them against a template that includes all matters concerned, acting as a repository of the law. Since it represents the countrywide law on tenancy, the present discussion will flow from the tables, keeping them as a reference point. In continuation of the pattern of discussion, statutes specific to certain states, especially those which have been discussed in the precious section, will now be analyzed in detail. Also, most statutes follow a dominant framework with similar provisions on most relevant matters as can be gathered from a reading of the table and as will also emerge from the discussion that follows.

Exclusions created by tenancy law – classification of tenants The reach of a beneficial law for tenants, applying in a land structure characterized by hierarchical and diverse land relationships, was dependent on the extent of its definitional clause. The legal order regulating tenancy, prior

Alteration of the land tenure system 83 to independence, had based its application on the classification of tenants; a hierarchy of tenants was created and rights were distributed to them in accordance with the class to which they belonged. It is difficult to generalize the basis of such classification because it depended on the local customs and social fabric of the particular region but after the law intervened in the traditional status-based land structure of India,36 the classes of tenants became a matter of the length of tenancy or the terms of contract. Additionally, with sub-tenancy as a prevalent phenomenon, tenancy relationships only became more complex and concentrated. Therefore, a law attempting reform needed to percolate into this dense system and to commence its task by addressing the situation of those who were most oppressed and vulnerable at that point in time. Annexure A9 describes the basis on which the various statutes define a landlord and a tenant. The column Classes of Tenants is demonstrative of the classification of tenants: it considers the statutes which have maintained some level of classification in tenants and, presumably, do not treat all classes equally. The extent of each statute is determined by a combined understanding of these two provisions; a statute may define the two players widely but if it classifies tenants and distinguishes the application of some protective or rights-based provisions on the basis of such classification, then the overall application of the statute can be substantially reduced. For example, Hyderabad Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act of 1950, Assam Temporary Area Tenancy Act, 1970 – in each, a separate class of occupancy and protected tenants37 is created that has a greater protection under the law in comparison to the other classes of tenants.38 Statutes that have classified tenants on a hierarchy basis automatically create differences in the status that the tenants can claim under the law, where some tenants exercise greater rights over others as a consequence of the classes to which they belong. Thus, the classes of tenants who fall in the lower categories created by law are less protected than the ones falling in the higher categories. It is inevitable then, that the tenants claiming to be in the upper classes of the hierarchy would need to qualify for those classes and the criteria for eligibility is generally determined by the concerned statute. Tenants unable to meet the standard criteria would be automatically excluded from application of the law. It is, therefore, extremely necessary that such classification is considered while examining the reach of tenancy law. Annexure A9 reveals that most statutes have either created or maintained some part of the older classification prevalent in their states, implying that, in concrete terms, the reach of most of these statutes is limited. Occupancy and hereditary rights were only afforded to the upper class tenants and therefore, they were able to derive any actual benefits in terms of rights and security of tenure, while most of the lower class tenants were excluded from legal protection.39 The table on classes of tenants (Annexure A11) is an extension of the column Classes of Tenants from Annexure A9 and is a descriptive analysis

84  Law of land reform of classes created by various statutes. It lays down the different rights and privileges that are accorded to different classes of tenants and thus offers a comparative study of the same.40 For example, the Ajmer Tenancy and Land Records Act, 1950 creates four categories of tenants – Occupancy Tenants, Ex-proprietary Tenants, Hereditary Tenants, and Non-occupancy tenants. The first three categories have occupancy and heritable rights, but the last one, the non-occupancy tenant, has no claimable right against the landowner and can be evicted at will. Similar categories of non-occupancy tenants have been created by Assam, Bombay, Orissa, and Rajasthan; the last category of tenants in these Acts is generally left undefined and does not have any occupancy or possessory claims over the lands cultivated by them. The brief description following the classification of tenants (Annexure A11) represents the qualifications that a tenant must have to be included in that particular category; generally, in order to be eligible for the upper classes, tenants either have to be in possession of the holding for a given number of years or have to be registered in the revenue records of the state under the prior law in force. For example, in order to be a khatedar tenant under the Rajasthan Tenancy Act of 1955, the person has to be registered under the Land Reform Act of 1956 or Resumption of Jagir Act of 1952. The person is entitled to occupancy rights, a written lease, and a residential house in the village. Under the Hyderabad Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act of 1950, a Protected Tenant is one who has completed at least six years of lease on the holding and should have personally cultivated the land for such period. The Protected Tenant is entitled to stricter terms of eviction and to purchase the landowner’s interest. Both of these conditions – registration under some previous Act and a certain period of continuous occupation can be painlessly determined by the intermediariesturned-landowners. The status of land records during the early years of independence was completely unreliable; under the colonial tenure system, the keepers of government records were also proprietors of land, which only furthers suspicions regarding the accuracy of government records. Even the evidence of the length of tenancy was conditioned on the revenue records. In such a situation, where revenue records were seemingly in opposition of tenants and termination of tenancies had become a common phenomenon, it would have been a complicated process for a tenant to prove her tenure and claim rights under the law. It was instead easier in this system for the landowners to allow the tenants to maintain their possessory titles, but push them into the more insecure categories where they could not claim any occupancy, hereditary or purchasing rights; basically any rights which could have threatened the landowner’s interest were made deniable under the word of law. In addition, if the column titled Registration-Land Records Management from Annexure A10 is studied, the series of negative entries will make it evident that a majority of the states made no effort to update their revenue records so that the tenancies were recorded.

Alteration of the land tenure system 85 The definition of tenancy is a precursor to the claim of exclusion by classification. The types of tenancy relations existing in every state are varied in terms of their payment of rent, terms of contract, and length of tenancy. If the statute of a particular state does not account for the dominant type of tenancy relations existing within that state, it necessarily excludes the majority of tenants whom the law was required to protect. For example, Uttar Pradesh has a large population of sharecropping tenants who are locally called the sajhis; the United Provinces Tenancy Act, 1939, however, does not consider sharecropping as a form of tenancy at all – “any arrangement whereby a person is entitled to a right merely to a share in the produce grown on land in consideration of such person assisting or participating with the tenure holder in the actual performance of agricultural operation is not a lease.”41 Similarly, in West Bengal the bargardars (sharecroppers) were not included in the definition of tenants until the amendment was made in 1970 and the agriculture in the state was largely dominated by sharecropping. On abolition of their intermediary status, the landlords could not resume lands from raiyats or under-raiyats but no such restriction existed for lands cultivated by bargardars.42 The Planning Commission Reports reinforced the preceding claims; the reports suggested that tenancy reform statutes were unable to make any substantial changes in the tenure of tenants and their status remained unaltered, often getting worse due to the seemingly radical land reform regime that had been popularized by the new government.43 The fact that the law was declared to be in favour of tenants proved to be counterproductive in a situation where the law excluded more tenants than it included in its application. The factors responsible for unsuccessful tenancy reforms definitely did not stem from a single source; however, the matter of exclusion is often left out in the discussion around tenancy law. It has been accepted by major writers and policymakers that the bulk of tenancies in the country are insecure, crop-sharing, unregistered tenancies, terminable at will, and unless the law includes all these variations within its purview and does not freeze its application to a certain set of upper classes, it is obvious that it would have a very limited effect on the actual conditions of tenants. The other dominant factor contributing to the ineffectiveness of tenancy law was the clause of personal cultivation which has been the centre of most policy and legal discussions, and rightly so, for the clause was the single massive reason for the phenomenon of insecure tenancies in the country.

The clause of personal cultivation – insecurity of tenancy tenure The fundamental conflict of tenancy law with the other forms of land reform laws has already been introduced. The legal framework has, however, attempted to encourage both forms of cultivation – by owners themselves

86  Law of land reform and through tenancies. In a framework such as this, certain conflicts were inevitable. Once the status of intermediaries was reduced to that of mere landowners, and limits were to be imposed on the amount of land that they could hold under the anticipated ceiling laws, the landowners claimed to be cultivating their holding themselves rather than leasing it out, and the law encouraged them to do so. In addition to declaring that ownership of land would be accorded to the traditional tillers of soil, it also made provisions for the traditional non-cultivating landowners to begin self-cultivation of their holding by filling the entire framework of tenancy law with the clause of personal cultivation. The definition accorded to the provision, however, was in contrast to the principle of providing ownership rights to the tillers: the tillers were being afforded ownership on their lands because they employed their labour in cultivating those lands;44 the landowners, however, could hire agents and agricultural labourers to conduct cultivation on their behalf and thereby being eligible for ownership of their holdings. The clause of Personal Cultivation generally exists in tenancy statutes as a ground for the eviction of tenants. A dominance of affirmative entries in column titled Acquisition for Personal Cultivation in Annexure A10 reveals that most statutes have included the clause in their text. The rationale of including this clause as a ground for tenants to be evicted from their landholdings was that the landowners, especially of small or medium-sized landholdings,45 must have the right to cultivate their own lands. Since land was to be utilized as a source of employment,46 it was important to also preserve the rights of petty landowners to utilize their lands as their source of livelihood. In such cases of petty landholders, if the tenants had been granted superior possessory titles over their interests, the rights of the owners to derive livelihood from their own lands would be infringed. It was basically a conflict of interest between tenants-at-will and petty landowners47 as the economic circumstances of the small owners were not very different from that of the tenants, and so the tenancy legislations could act to their disadvantage. However, the application of the clause was widened and extended to landowners with large-sized holdings as well. It was suggested that the large landowners must be permitted to exercise this right of resumption only up to a certain limit which was generally equivalent to the ceiling limit applicable to the state.48 The idea that application of the clause must be limited for middle and large landowners was included in a few statutes. Some statutes like those of Andhra Pradesh, Bombay, and PEPSU provide for the determination of the area of family holding which would act as the limit up to which a landowner could claim right of resumption. This clause was added with an intention to balance the interests of landowner and tenant by distributing and limiting both their rights of cultivation; thus, a landowner was allowed to resume land for personal cultivation but only up to the specified limit. However, this limitation on the right of landowner was rather high: for example, section 3

Alteration of the land tenure system 87 of the PEPSU Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955 provided for a permissible limit: Section 3(1) – Permissible limit for the purposes of this Act means thirty standard acres of land, and where such thirty standard acres on being converted into ordinary acres exceed eighty acres, such eighty acres: Provided that in case of an allotted – (a) who has been allotted land exceeding forty standard acres, the permissible limit shall be forty standard acres and where such forty standard acres on being converted into ordinary acres exceed one hundred acres, such one hundred acres; and (b) who has been allotted land exceeding thirty standard acres but not exceeding forty standard acres, the permissible limit shall be equal to the area of land allotted to him. Explanation – For the purpose of determining the permissible limit of an allottee, the provisions of the proviso shall not apply to the heirs and successors of the allottee to whom land is allotted. The limit was described in terms of standard acre which needed to be converted into normal acre. The rules of calculation have not been expressed in the statute; at the present, our concern must be restricted to seeing whether on conversion, the standard acre increases its value or not. Subsection (1) implies that on being converted into ordinary acres, the permissible limit may exceed 80 acres of land; implying that the permissible limit can be as high as 80 acres. On being compared to the ceiling limit applicable in the state, which varies between 17.29 to 53.86 acres of land (refer to Annexure A3), it is evident that the permissible limit up to which a landowner could own lands without leasing it out to tenants, is much larger than the amount of land that a person may own under the state law of ceiling. The Punjab Land Reform Act, 1972 that imposed ceiling limits on landholdings was enacted much later in 1972, but it does not make any reference to the permissible limit under the tenancy law of the state thereby, creating an inconsistency in the application of the law to the state.49 The policy reports regarding the personal cultivation clause recognized the fact that extending its application to medium and large landowners would drastically increase the scope of malafide use of the provision in rendering the majority of tenancies insecure and the tenants paralyzed.50 The provision, however, continued to remain a ground for the eviction of tenants in almost all tenancy statutes. It created a state of insecurity of tenure for all tenants and thus practically dismantled the entire legal regime instituted for the protection of tenants. The statutes provided for a range of rights to

88  Law of land reform be afforded to tenants: for example, the right to pay a fair amount of rent, receive receipts for payment of rent, an assured length of tenancy agreement, limited power of eviction to the landowner, heritable and transferable rights of tenure – but none of these rights could be exercised by tenants unless they were assured that they will not lose their land in the process. For most tenants, access to their leased-in land was the sole source of livelihood, and maintenance of that lease was their paramount concern, making all other claims negotiable. The clause of personal cultivation, which was read as a right of the landowner to evict the tenant and resume land, acted as the single strongest instrument in possession of the landowners to dictate their terms of tenancy and negate any rights or protections afforded to the tenants. The difficulty with this clause was not in its emphasis on the owner being engaged in cultivation of the land, especially in cases where the owners are small landholders and must be allowed to use land as their source of livelihood, but its wide application and definition. It applied to all landowners with certain conditions placed on the middle and large ones, allowing them to exercise their right of resumption only within a limited time period and placing a limit on the extent of land that could be resumed under the clause which generally was in keeping with the ceiling limit applicable in the state; both of the conditions could be effortlessly surpassed by landowners in a tenure system defined by stark unequal distribution of power. The definition of personal cultivation did not restrict itself to cultivation by one’s own labour or involving a certain degree of supervision or involvement in the process of cultivation personally. Almost all states defined personal cultivation to include cultivation through hired labourers without any requirement of personal involvement in the process. For example, the Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Agricultural Tenancy Act, 1950 makes cultivation by hired labourers permissible but excludes “hired labour under one’s personal supervision” from the definition – Section 2 (1) (g): “To cultivate personally” means to cultivate on one’s own account – (i) by one’s own labour; or (ii) by the labour of any member of one’s family; or (iii) by servants on wages payable in cash or kind, but not in crop share or by hired labour under one’s personal supervision, or the personal supervision of any member of one’s family; Explanation: – In the case of an undivided Hindu Family, land shall be deemed to be cultivated personally, if it is cultivated by any member of such family. Similar definitions with certain variations can be located in all other statutes. The recommendations made by the Second Planning Commission report, in

Alteration of the land tenure system 89 fact, considered the various factors which would make their cultivation personal, justifying their claim of resumption: Personal cultivation may be said to have three elements, viz, risk of cultivation, personal supervision, and labour. A person who does not bear the entire risk of cultivation or parts with a share of the produce in favour of another cannot be described as cultivating the land personally. The expression “personal cultivation” may include supervision by the owner or by a member of his family. In order to be effective, supervision should be accompanied by residence during the greater part of the agricultural season on the part of an owner or a member of his family in the village in which the land is situated or in a nearby village within a distance to be prescribed. As an element in personal cultivation, the performance of minimum labour, though agreed in principle, presents difficulties in practice. It is, therefore, suggested that the expression “personal cultivation” should be de-fined so as to provide for the entire risk of cultivation being borne by the owner and personal supervision being exercised in the manner described above by the owner or by a member of his family. When land is to be resumed for personal cultivation, however, the desirability of providing also for the third element in personal cultivation, viz, personal labour, may be considered. If the land is not brought under personal cultivation or is let out within a period to be specified, the ejected tenant may have the right of restoration.51 The under-emphasis on the third element, personal labour, is apparent in the text. The other two aspects, the risks of cultivation and personal supervision, have been included in certain statutes. The third element of employing one’s own labour in land has not formed part of the definition of personal cultivation. Personal labour, however, was the rationale on the basis of which the entire land reform programme was constructed; the tillers of soil were to be affirmed rights of ownership because of their labour in land. The same principle was diluted when it was made applicable to people who were owners of land prior to the commencement of the land reform programme. Along with personal cultivation, the other clause that was responsible for making tenancies insecure was voluntary surrenders. The landowners were entitled to resume land from their tenants under most statutes (refer to Annexure A10), if they had voluntarily surrendered their holdings. The power dynamics of the tenure system, which have been discussed before, created an ideal situation for the landowners to claim resumption of land on the ground of voluntary surrender of tenancies.52 The clause was the other most popular ground for the landowners to resume their lands from tenants, thereby adding to insecurity of term for the tenants. Consequently, the combined outcome of abolition and tenancy laws was favourable only to the erstwhile intermediaries, medium landlords and to a certain extent, the class of large-sized occupancy or protected tenants.53

90  Law of land reform The legislative provisions were strategically drafted to ensure that the land remained where it was, while the law could alter its terminology of addressing those landholdings. Not only was the law drafted to let the intermediaries keep their land and obtain new legal identities, they actually appeared as beneficiaries of the redistributive provisions where state was empowered to allocate land collected as surplus!54 Over and above these provisions, the abolition laws provided incentives to the intermediary/landowners to evict their tenants. A combination of abolition and tenancy laws was, therefore, nothing but a gigantic legal scam. The only sweeping change these laws made was to ensure that the majority of tenants lose their tenures. The decline of feudal landlords was followed by a rise of commercial landowners (who had both social and economic capital) and this was, categorically instrumental in upsetting old arrangements, thus resulting in greater insecurity for tenants than before. The operated leased-in area of tenancies was reduced from 35.7 per cent in 1950–51 to 10.70 per cent in 1961–62.55 The legal regime seemed to be completely ignorant of the power class–based structures that existed on the land; it sought to simplify the various classes of peasants and farmers who derived their livelihood from land and targeted only a couple of them, at the maximum. It also, did not account for the social and economic power that the intermediary at that time already possessed. A legal reform, that aimed to alter social systems, was required to counter these powers, and it instead aided them in cementing their claims to land. With this scenario as the background, the next phase of land reform, land redistribution, was commissioned.

Notes 1 The term parasitic became an adjective for the class of intermediaries in the general usage because, in the colonial land tenure system, the class of intermediaries were also landowners; their job was to extract rent and revenue from the cultivators of land, which was also their primary source of income. The intermediaries were regarded as the class that lived on the sweat and labour of the cultivators and therefore, held responsible for the widespread poverty of the peasantry class. 2 Amitabha Sarkar, “A Brief Review of Land Tenure System and Its Effect on Agricultural Labourer,” Indian Anthropologist 9, no. 2 (1979): 93–98 at p. 95. A ryotwari tenure allowed the land to be pledged for loans and similar other transactions, and consequently, over a period of time, the pattern of landholdings would change. In such a setting, non-cultivating owners would acquire a considerable portion of cultivated lands by extending loans, and the peasants were essentially reduced to subtenants or sharecroppers. Therefore, the problems that arose in ryotwari systems of land tenure were not, in principle, dissimilar to the ones occurring in zamindari tenures. 3 At the time of independence, one-half of the agricultural area was covered in zamindari and other intermediary tenures and in the other half, which was essentially based on cultivation through tenancy, ryotwari was prevalent. This was theoretically a cultivator-based ownership system, but tenancy and sub-tenancy were also widespread in the system through various means of other transfers of

Alteration of the land tenure system 91 land. P. S. Appu, “Tenancy Reform in India,” Economic and Political Weekly (1975): 1339–1375. Hereinafter, Appu, “Tenancy Reform in India.” 4 Ibid. 5 The enduring impact of abolition laws can be traced backwards in time to the regulation responsible for settling the class of intermediaries as legal landlords: the Permanent Settlement Regulation of 1793. The settlement revolutionized land tenures by crystallizing legality into land relations which were previously customary – the intermediaries were made land proprietors and the share of land revenue to be paid to the state was fixed permanently. The Permanent Settlement Regulation was enacted in various parts of the country after it was first enacted in Bengal in 1793. In brief, the regulations conferred ownership status on the traditional intermediary classes who were tax farmers in the Mughal era. The British perceived the Indian land hierarchy to be analogous with the feudal landlord-ship and in an attempt to locate a landowner within the system, made the rent-collecting class owners of the lands from which they collected rent. Such a settlement has naturally left a heavy legal and administrative legacy not yet disposed of. The history of settlement is, therefore, something more than a mere matter of curiosity; it contains not a few lessons for modern times, and furnishes some parallels with agrarian troubles nearer home. Although, the popular opinion states that the system of Ryotwari was operational in the state of Madras, the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948 states in its preamble that it is meant to repeal the Madras Permanent Settlement Regulation 1802, the text of which is unavailable. For a detailed analysis of the composition and impact of permanent settlement, see B. H. Baden-Powell, “The Permanent Settlement of Bengal,” The English Historical Review 10, no. 38 (1895): 276–292. 6 The official abolition of zamindari and other intermediary classes had created the assumption that the class has disappeared. However, such has not been the ground reality. Although, they have been shorn of most of their traditional power, the intermediaries, owing to their political and economic connections, still exercise considerable influence in the rural regions. Literature on the subject has claimed that the erstwhile class was converted into another, called capitalist landowners, which was guided by economic forces. For a detailed discussion on the subject, see Thomas R. Metcalf, “Landlords without Land: The UP Zamindars Today,” Pacific Affairs 40, no. 1/2 (1967): 5–18. 7 The term estate appears in Article 31A(1)(a) of the Constitution of India, 1950 and it states that any law providing for acquisition of an estate or any rights therein by the state shall not be deemed to be void on the ground that it is inconsistent with rights conferred by Article 14 or 19. The provision was inserted by section 4 of the First Amendment Act, 1951 in an attempt to protect land reform legislations from a constitutional battle. The term, however, has raised problems of connotation since its inception; it cannot and does not have a uniform meaning and the meaning differs in different regions based on local variations. Accordingly, Article 31A(2)(a) accords estate the same meaning as the term would have in the local law relating to land tenure. However, the connotation of the term attracted a lot of litigation, as the composition of its definition would determine whether or not, a particular statute can claim constitutional protection under Article 31(1)(a). For a detailed discussion on the constitutional position on the definition of the term, see Mahabir Prashad Jain, Indian Constitutional Law (Wadhwa & Company, 2003). Also see K. Kunhi Koman v. State of Kerala, AIR 1962 SC 723 (relating to ryotwari estates); Gangadhar Rao v. State of Bombay, AIR 1961 SC 288 (relating to inams); Atma Ram v. State of Punjab, AIR 1959, SC 519 (relating to law fixing ceilings).

92  Law of land reform 8 For example, section 3(b) of the Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948 states that “Section 3 (b): the entire estate (including all communal lands; porambokes; other non-ryoti lands; waste lands; pasture lands; lanka lands; forests; mines and minerals; quarries; rivers and streams; tanks and irrigation works; fisheries and ferries), shall stand transferred to the Government and vest in them, free of all encumbrances and the Madras Revenue Recovery Act, 1864 (Madras Act II of 1864), the Madras Irrigation Cess Act, 1865 (Madras Act VII of 1865), and all other enactments applicable to ryotwari areas shall apply to the estate.”   Similar sections exist in Uttar Pradesh Zamindari and Abolition Act, 1950 (Section 4), Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948 (Section 3 (b)), etc. 9 The right of personal cultivation has been largely regarded as the clause that was responsible for ineffective implementation of land reform law in general. The landowners have been able to retain most of their holdings by excluding them from application of the law on the basis of this clause. The connotations of this clause serve as an exception to the application of abolition, tenancy, and ceiling laws. It, thus, exists in almost all forms of land reform law in the country; the idea behind personal cultivation was to stimulate cultivation-driven ownerships in land; however, the definition of the term did not reflect this ideology. The clause will be discussed in detail across sections in the present work. For assessing the impact of the clause, see Appu, “Tenancy Reform in India.” 10 Communist Party of India, “On the Agrarian Question in India” 1949. It was argued that the Congress’s solution of land reform did not encounter the basic tension created by the phenomenon of landlord-ism. For a detailed discussion of Congress’s agenda on the policy of land reform, see H. D. Malviya, Land Reform in India (Indian National Congress, 1954). 11 Horace Hayman Wilson, A Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms: And of Useful Words Occurring in Official Documents Relating to the Administration of the Government of British India, from the Arabic, Persian, Hindustání, Sanskrit, Hindí, Bengálí, Uriya, Maráthi, Guazráthí, Telugu, Karnáta, Tamil, Malayálam, and Other Languages (WH Allen and Company, 1855), accessed March 25, 2019, https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=tgxRAAAA cAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=glossary+of+Judicial+and+Revenue+Terms&ots= oEDHmd9aL9&sig=QMs5mje1P09J-zvDXUuqaE4Ax6c. Hereinafter, Wilson, A Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms.   The terms zamindar and taluqdar were generally used in the regions of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa; they received legal meaning in 1793, by the terms of the perpetual settlement, which recognized Zamindars and independent Talukdars as actual proprietors, enjoying their estates in absolute ownership as long as they paid the government revenue, or nine-tenths of the fixed net proceeds of the lands, and liable to dispossession in case of failure, by the sale of their lands at public auction. 12 The term thekedar in Hindi means a contractor. 13 Wilson, A Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms; Biswedari, is having a proprietary right in a biswa or property. The term is generally used in the state of Rajasthan. 14 Ibid. The term generally means a gift, a benefaction in general, a gift by a superior to an inferior. In India, and especially in the south, and amongst the Marathas, the term was especially applied to grants of land held rent-free, and in hereditary and perpetual occupation. 15 Ibid. A jagirdar is the holder of assignment of revenue. The term was prevalent in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. 16 I do not mean to undermine the significance of the compensation clause in land reform statutes. However, the principles on which the entire programme was

Alteration of the land tenure system 93 based required the state to concentrate upon providing relief and rights to millions of peasants. If the constitutional litigation around the subject is examined (which is done in Part I) it is evident that the actual question of reformation of the social structure should have directed interpretation of the property clause and all reform legislations that were created within it. The intermediaries were successful in flooding the courts with litigations questioning their own property rights violations and the compensations to which they were constitutionally entitled and thereby, completely deflecting the government and courts from the central idea of a land reform measure that was promised to the peasantry class. 17 Wilson, A Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms. A bhumidhar is a land holder. 18 Ibid. The term sir or seer is a name applied to the lands in a village which are cultivated by the hereditary proprietors or village zamindars themselves as their own especial share, either by their own labourers and at their own cost, or by tenants at will, not being let in lease or farm. 19 Ibid. The term asami may refer to a cultivator, rentee, non-proprietary cultivator, a dependant, or a defendant in a trial. 20 Wilson, A Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms. Tenants-at-will were a class of tenants who could be evicted at the will of the landowner; their tenures were unfixed and they did not possess security of tenure. 21 Ibid. 22 The objective of the Act reads as follows: “An Act to provide for the abolition of Thekedari System in Government Estates with a view to facilitating the introduction of land reforms therein.” 23 Section 2(5) of the Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 1955: “Biswedar” shall mean a person on whom a village or portion of a village in any part of the State is settled on the Biswedari system and who is recorded as Biswedar or as an owner in the record of rights and shall include a Khatedar in the Ajmer area. 24 Section 4(1) (1) “As soon as may be after the commencement of this Act, the State Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint a date for the abolition and acquisition of Zamindari and Biswedari estates, or any class of such estates, in the State, or in any area thereof specified in the notification, and for their vesting in the State Government.”   Section 5(1) (1) “After the issue of a notification under sub-section (1) of section 3, no right shall be acquired in or over any land in an estate affected thereby except by succession or under a grant or contract in writing made or entered into by or on behalf of the State Government and no fresh clearings for cultivation of for any other purpose shall be made in such land by or on behalf of the holder of such estate otherwise than in accordance with rules made by the State Government in this behalf.” 25 A malik is an owner of property. Wilson, A Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms. 26 It shall be observed in the next chapter the provisions imposing limitations in ceiling laws on the amount of land that could be retained by landowners were too meek to have actually restricted landholdings. The applicable permissible limit was placed at an amount which practically allowed owners to retain the majority of their holdings. 27 Repealing of the 1802 Regulation was one of the prime consequences of the 1948 Act. Section 3(a) With effect on and from the notified date and save as otherwise expressly provided in this Act – (a) [the Madras Estates] Land (Reduction of Rent) Act, 1947 (Madras Act XXX of 1947) [in so far as it relates] to matters other than the reduction of rents and the collection of arrears of rent and the Madras Permanent Settlement Regulation, 1802 (Madras Regulation XXV of 1802), the Madras

94  Law of land reform Estates Land Act, 1908 (Madras Act I of 1908), and all other enactments applicable to the estate as such shall be deemed to have been repealed in their application to the estate.] 28 This observation was propounded by Daniel Thorner who is one of the best known authors on the subject of Indian Land Reform. Thorner is said to have conducted a field survey of the country to assess the impacts of various reform programmes conducted in various states. According to him, the state of Jammu and Kashmir operated the most successful land redistribution programme in the country. See Daniel Thorner, “Agrarian Prospect in India,” 1976, accessed March 25, 2019, http://agris.fao.org/agris-search/search.do?recordID=US201300553111. Hereinafter, Thorner, “Agrarian Prospect in India”; Daniel Thorner, The Shaping of Modern India (New Delhi: Allied Publishers Pvt Ltd, 1980). 29 Objective of the Act: “An Act to provide for the Abolition of Big Landed Estates and their transfer to actual tillers.   Whereas no lasting improvement in agricultural production and efficiency is possible without the removal of intermediaries between the tiller of the soil and the State;   And whereas for the achievement of this objective it is expedient to provide for the abolition of such proprietors as own big landed estates and to transfer the land held by them to the actual tillers.” 30 1 kanal = 0.125 acre. 31 Security of tenure is the most significant right that can be provided to a tenant, especially in a situation of widespread evictions. It is essentially a bundle of rights which ensures that the tenants are secured of their tenure, i.e. they have protection from unfair, sudden evictions and can safely claim rights against their landlords without the threat of eviction. It must be understood that, to tenants, tenure meant that they would retain the land they cultivate which was usually their only source of livelihood and thus, providing them with protection of tenure was the most important role any tenancy reform law could play in its application. In an event of secured tenancy, it has been observed that the economic efficiency of the farm multiplies itself. See Abhijit V. Banerjee, Paul J. Gertler, and Maitreesh Ghatak, “Empowerment and Efficiency: Tenancy Reform in West Bengal,” Journal of Political Economy 110, no. 2 (2002): 239–280. 32 The landmark 1935 Resolution adopted by the Indian National Conference which is often cited as an official affirmation of a land reform programme in an Independent India, strongly recommended tenancy reforms as the immediate agenda after the abolition of intermediaries. The resolution recommended “fixity of tenure, with heritable rights along with the right to build houses and plant trees to be provided to all tenants.” Austin, Working a Democratic Constitution at p. 71. 33 The idea that widespread poverty and oppression of the peasantry could be substantially reduced by conferring ownership rights to them was first envisaged by the Congress Socialist Party in 1934. The party included redistribution of lands to tenants and labourers as one item in its primary agenda. Ibid.   It has been internationally affirmed, both theoretically and empirically, that redistribution of agricultural land to the cultivators and conferring them with ownership rights is one of the best means of tackling poverty. See Hans P. Binswanger-Mkhize, Camille Bourguignon, and Rogerius Johannes Eugenius van den Brink, Agricultural Land Redistribution: Toward Greater Consensus (Washington, DC: World Bank Publications, 2009), accessed July 15, 2019, https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=8HWS3GxtMnUC&oi=fnd& pg=PR5&dq=agricultural+land+redistribution&ots=5fYPGbrttH&sig=xLvIlQ 1TdVBXnis3NGMUJCMWKdo.

Alteration of the land tenure system 95 34 The first two five-year plans were concerned mostly with providing tenants with security of tenure and fixing the amount of rent at a reasonable rate. The third five-year plan expressly reiterated the need for conferring ownership rights on tenants and stated that the final goal of any tenancy reform law should be to confer rights of ownership on as large a body of tenants as possible. 35 Absentee landlordism was a classic phenomenon in colonial India where ownership of lands or the right to collect revenue from the land was given by the government or crown as a grant or gift for services rendered by persons. Systems like Jagirdari, Inamdari were the dominant forms of this phenomenon. It was obvious that the owner of the land was not expected to cultivate it personally and would lease out the land for cultivation to tenants or subtenants. Often, these landowners were completely absent from their lands, having only possessory titles, and the tenants were the real occupants. 36 Before the British introduced formal procedures of contractual obligations in the land system of India, the Indian peasant society was dominated by status values as opposed to the contractual values that inhabit a European society; the relationship between tenants and landowners was thereby based on status and no formal contracts. See Oliver Mendelsohn, “The Pathology of the Indian Legal System,” Modern Asian Studies 15, no. 4 (1981): 823–863; Rekha Bandyopadhyay, “Land System in India: A Historical Review,” Economic and Political Weekly (1993): A149–A155. 37 The upper-class tenants were granted protection under the law and they were named protected tenants in most statutes. The protected tenants had a right to purchase the landowner’s interest on the land they cultivated. This right was a part of the redistributive agenda of land reform as it sought to confer ownership rights to tenants who were actual cultivators of land. The right was kept restricted to upper-class tenants who already exercised occupancy and heritable rights over the land they cultivated, excluding all others from its purview. The nature of the right shall be discussed in the next chapter. 38 Refer to table on classes of tenants (Annexure A11); by way of illustration we can observe that different classes of tenants are afforded different rights and, inevitably, some are more clearly protected by the statute whereas some are not.   The Assam Temporary Area Tenancy Act, 1970 divides tenants on the basis of occupancy rights and provides the said right to only one class of tenants, Section4 (1) There shall be, for the purpose of this Act, only the following classes of tenants, namely – (i) Occupancy tenant, that is to say, a tenant holding immediately under a proprietor, land-holder or settlement-holder other than land-holder, and having a right of occupancy in the lands held by him; (ii) non-occupancy tenant, that is to say, a tenant holding immediately under a proprietor, land-holder or settlement-holder other than land-holder but not having a right of occupancy in the land held by him; The Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 1955 under Section 14 divides the tenants into four classes. -For the purposes of this Act, there shall be the following classes of tenants, namely: (a) Khatedar tenants, 1[(aa) Maliks] and (b) Tenants of Khudkasht, and (c) GairKhatedar tenants. Under section 19(1AA) of the same Act, certain tenants of khudkasht are provided a security of tenure.

96  Law of land reform 39 For example, the sharecroppers are one class of tenants who have been largely placed out of the purview of tenancy reform legislations. Similarly, the law did not account for tenants with unregistered tenancies or tenants whose tenancy was terminable at will of the landowner. 40 The table must be read with the survey data produced by the NSS; the ratio of small tenants as against upper class tenants leaves one aghast: in 1960–61, the small tenants cultivating less than five acres account for about 58 per cent of the total leased-in area in the state of West Bengal and at the other end, big tenants, cultivating more than ten acres accounts for only 12.85 per cent of the total area. National Sample Survey, Land Holding Enquiry (Rural), 17th Round, 1960–61, Statewise tables, Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta. 41 Section 2(23) of the Act. 42 The term bargardars represents sharecroppers. 43 While framing the second five-year plan it was realized that the legislations had failed to confer any measure of security to tenants. It was found that there was large-scale eviction of tenants on grounds of personal cultivation and voluntary surrender. Appu, “Tenancy Reform in India.” The plan observed certain reasons to be responsible for such failure: the ignorance on the part of the people of legislative provisions regarding security of tenure, possible lacunae in the law, inadequate land records, and defective administrative arrangements. See Second Five-Year Plan, 1956, the text of the chapter on land reform is available at http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/index2.html, accessed January 26, 2019. 44 The dominant idea of the age was to reform the concept to land tenure to create one of peasant proprietorship. A Kisan Sabha Conference held in Allahabad in 1935 passed a resolution to the same effect. The Indian National Congress in its 57th session declared that “Land is the base of India’s economy. The agrarian system should be so organised that the fruits of labour are enjoyed by those who toil and land is worked as a source of wealth for the community.” 45 The classification of landowners into small, medium, and large sized-holdings was made in the first five-year plan. The commission admitted in their report that the expressions were difficult to define, but nevertheless gave the definition of each category on the basis of size of holdings as determined by the Agrarian Reforms Committee of 1949: owners of land not exceeding one family holding were considered to be small landholders, those holding land in excess of one family holding but less than the limit of resumption for personal cultivation (which usually was three times the family holding) were considered as middle landholders, and others who had land more than the limit of resumption were called large landowners. A Family Holding was defined in the 1949 Report as an amount of land, income derived from which would be sufficient to sustain a family: “being equivalent, according to local conditions and under the existing conditions of technique, either to a plough unit or to a work unit for a family of an average size working with such assistance as is customary in agricultural operations.” 46 Agrarian Reform Committee Report 1949 “Land should be held for use as a source of employment. The use of lands of those who are either non-cultivating landlords or otherwise unable for any period to exercise the right of cultivating them, must come to rest in the village co-operative community subject to the condition that the original lawful holder or his successor will be entitled to come back to the land for genuine cultivation.” 47 The first five-year plan stated that “The central question to be considered in respect of tenants-at-will who are engaged in the cultivation of lands belonging to small and middle owners relates to the terms on which the latter resumes land for personal cultivation.”

Alteration of the land tenure system 97 48 Ceiling limit was the maximum amount of land that a person could own as per the ceiling law of the state. The next chapter is dedicated to a detailed discussion on ceiling laws. 49 The connection between personal cultivation and ceiling limit is a conceptual one and will be better made in the next chapter, which takes a policy perspective on the amount of landholdings that must be made permissible by the ceiling law. It is sufficient to understand for the present purposes that both represented the amount of holdings that could be retained by the landowners in the event of land reform. 50 Third five-year plan: provision regarding resumption for personal cultivation could be abused if medium-sized owners were to act malafide and transfer their lands to relatives or others and so come within the definition of small owners. Planning Commission, “Third Five-Year Plan” (New Delhi: Planning Commission, Government of India, 66 1961), accessed January 26, 2019, http://plan ningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/3rd/welcome.html. 51 “Second Five-Year Plan” (New Delhi: Planning Commission, Government of India, 61 1956), accessed January 26, 2019, http://planningcommission.nic.in/ plans/planrel/fiveyr/index2.html. 52 Appu, “Tenancy Reform in India.” 53 P. C. Joshi, “Land Reform and Agrarian Change in India and Pakistan since 1947: II,” The Journal of Peasant Studies 1, no. 3 (1974): 326–362 at p. 332. 54 Section 13 of the Rajasthan Zamindari and Biswedari Abolition Act, 1959. 55 The National Sample Survey, No. 146, Landholdings Enquiry (Rural), Seventeenth Round, September 1961 – July 1962, Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta, pp. 31, 35.

5 Law of land redistribution

Introduction: need for redistribution and the concept The legal interventions that abolished intermediary titles and reformed tenancies, created an altered land tenure system consisting of new classes of cultivating landowners and secure tenants. This system, combined with the prevailing massive inequality in the distribution of ownership rights in land, formed the subject for the state’s successive land redistribution strategies which, in substance, were the focal idea of the land reform programme in general. The inequality of distribution in the land tenure system was categorized by two distinct and concurrent conditions: there was a substantial proportion of the population who was landless, and there was another fraction who owned very small holdings of less than an acre of land. The NSS data for the year 1958 revealed that 46.89 per cent of households in rural regions owned less than one acre of land, out of which 22 per cent owned none.1 Therefore, both elements representing two different types of tenure were present in conjunction – landlessness, which is generally a characteristic of large estate farms, and the existence of small holdings that features a peasant economy.2 As a corollary to this, the concentration of land in the hands of ex-intermediaries landowning classes was evident by the numbers: the percentage of the population that owned 30 to 50 acres of land was 1.57, land ranging between 20 and 30 acres and 10 and 20 acres was owned by 2.5 per cent and 7.78 per cent, respectively.3 This meant that the minimum size of holding owned by 11.58 per cent of the agrarian population was ten acres, in a land tenure where 46.89 per cent held less than an acre and, of that, 22 per cent owned nothing at all. The Indian agrarian system, therefore, displayed heterogeneity in its content and character: it was a system by which non-owner cultivating peasants and tenants, along with a substantial proportion of self-cultivating small owners of land, actually laboured, while the system was regulated by the other 11.58 per cent land proprietors.4 Evidently, it was not a classic case only of absolute landlessness or insecurity of tenure for tenants or small uneconomic holdings sufficient only for subsistence agriculture; it was rather a combination of all, further compounded by the social disparities of

Law of land redistribution 99 the caste system,5 where the whip of control seemed to remain in the hands of landowners. This regulatory nature of rights (and powers) exercised by proprietors of land over all the other classes of cultivators rested on their ownership in land. The nature of rights that one generally derived from ownership of land prior to the legal interventions was multifaceted – landowners were state agents of revenue collection, lenders of money required to cultivate land, and the like. The initial strategies of reform considerably altered this extended nature of the rights that were exercised by various classes of persons by virtue of their mere ownership claims, in order to create a system devoid of such interests where right of ownership in land was primary, and it could be redistributed. These strategies were, thus, a necessary prerequisite for implementing a mechanism of redistribution, for they eliminated all extensions of the right of ownership and maintained its sanctity by limiting its nature to the control it provided the owner cultivated the land. As is evident from the last chapter, the incumbent status of landowners, even after they were stripped of their ancillary powers, was mighty enough to maintain oppression and poverty in the agrarian system. The abolition laws were not created to confront the distribution of landholdings and so they did not; they only eliminated the ancillary. However, the real source of power of landowners lay in their ownership of land: they were the sole determiners of who could have access to the land in order to make a livelihood out of it and how long they could retain such access; their ownership claim also entitled them to the profits of cultivation, and the greater the amount of land under their ownership, the more power and control they could exercise over other classes of cultivators. This meant that a grand total of 11.48 per cent of persons were regulating the other 46.89 per cent, leading to obvious monopolization of the agrarian economy by the land proprietors and consequent persecution of the masses. The inequality in distribution of ownership was structural to the Indian system and was held to be primarily responsible for the indigent condition of the peasantry. If equilibrium was to be restored in such an agrarian structure, it was necessary that the power of some be curtailed and equitably redistributed among all classes of cultivators as far as was possible. A redistribution of land was in fact a redistribution of the control that cultivators could exercise over their holdings and consequently improve their social and economic status.6 Given the vital importance of land redistribution within the land reform programme, it is apparent that the strategy would hold a pivotal position in the policy discussions relating to reform. Redistribution has in fact been synonymous to reform of land in the developmental discourse of states in general.7 It has been believed that distribution of land to the landless and to smallholders can lay the basic foundations of a democracy8 and can accord requisite political legitimacy to the concerned government.9 Although land redistribution was not the first strategy proposed or adopted in the land reform agenda by the political elite, the means of achieving land redistribution

100  Law of land reform were discussed immediately after a year of independence in 1948 at the 55th session of Congress held at Jaipur which declared imposition of ceilings on agricultural holdings as part of an economic programme.10 The Land to the Tiller motto popularized mostly by the leftist political elites was in fact an Indian variant of a strategy of land redistribution: the tiller was promised ownership of land which could only be achieved by curtailing the private ownership and rights of those who had a surplus of it.11 For the new Indian state, land redistribution (as a part of land reform) constituted the core of the socialistic developmental ideology that the Congress was advocating. Based on the principles of equity and fairness, the concept has historically demonstrated that since it provides poor households with a permanent source of livelihood, it enables them, socially and economically, to pull out of a vicious poverty circle.12 However, since there is a primary requirement for the concept to curtail private property rights of the existing landowners to benefit the other classes, the inherent political and social nature of property rights has presented the single most difficult challenge to the process. For the beneficiaries to receive land in redistribution, it was first necessary that a surplus was created by obtaining land from existing landowners; this could be possible only by further curtailing the ownership rights of the landowners after having eliminating their intermediary status. Redistribution of land is a complicated administrative process, generally sanctioned by a legal order involving a series of concerns related to property rights; the process entails a direct transfer of property rights from the landowners to the landless and, thereby, attracts the maximum attention from the participating political elites. Its proximity to the core ideology of land reform can be ascertained by the nature of the process it seeks to initiate: reformulating the entire tenure system into one that is based on principles of equity and fairness and does not provide for monopolization in the land market. Creating a legal framework capable of efficiently administering such a process in a political–social environment which is callously inclined towards the proprietors of land, is certainly a sensitive and arduous operation. This is especially true when the first phase of the programme curtails the status and power that was enjoyed by landowners for several decades and hence poses the most difficult challenge for the legal regime. This chapter would argue that the initial difficulty of redistributing land was converted into impossibility by the politically empowered ex-intermediary landowners, and this endeavour was aided by the law created for the purpose. The nature and scope of law framed to confront the land structure and redistribute ownership commenced and culminated in the first stride itself: the ceiling legislations.13 The legislations were framed to impose an upper limit on the amount of land held by existing landowners so that a surplus be collected and be redistributed to the beneficiaries; instead they concentrated solely on the process of imposing ceiling limits, defining the compensation payable, etc., without creating

Law of land redistribution 101 any follow-up procedure which would mandate redistribution of the land collected through the imposition of such a ceiling. There was an absolute absence of a legal order that could complete the process of ceiling, which inevitably made it a meaningless exercise for the administration. Imposing ceilings was indeed was one of the first national programmes declared to be a part of the land reform agenda of the new Indian state, but it remained incomplete even after years of its implementation. It must also be noted that the imposition of ceilings was not the sole means in striving towards redistribution of land; such a massive task could not be carried out by just one legal avenue and therefore the law needed to accost the land hierarchy from all possible directions. Thus, the imposition of ceilings was accompanied by two others methods: tenants belonging to certain classes, who were already in occupation of their holdings, were to be accorded rights of ownership over those holdings, and government land was to be assigned to landless persons (and other similar classes of persons). The nature, process and application of all three means of redistribution will form the core discussion of this chapter. After having examined the concept of land redistribution, the three legal models will be assessed against the background of the concept to assert their character and the effect they have on the agrarian structure. The discussion will start with ceiling law, for which all the state statutes have been tabulated according to the general legal process adopted by them; their provisions will be discussed in detail to ascertain the framework of the law developed and whether or not it coincided with the ideology of redistribution. Thereafter, similar assessments will be made for the laws conferring rights on cultivating tenants and assigning land to the landless.

Law imposing ceilings on agricultural holdings The distinction between ideology, programme, and law of land reform drawn in the first part of this work is best displayed in the scheme of the land ceiling programme. The fundamental ideology behind the programme was to make land available for distribution to the landless and small cultivators. This was to be done by fixing, for all landowning classes, a reasonable limit up to which they could hold land; all persons owning more land than the specified limit were to surrender the excess which would thereafter form a part of the surplus collected under the law. Since the surplus constituted a pool of land saved for redistribution purposes, the programme required that the amount of surplus collected should be proportional to the requirements of redistribution and the ceiling limit should be placed accordingly. Further, the agenda for land reform speaks in terms of equilibrium in distribution of rights within the agrarian structure and therefore, the maximum amount of land which could be owned by an individual or a unit of individuals, made permissible by the law, would determine the equilibrium. It is therefore important, that the amount of ceiling limit fixed for agricultural holdings by

102  Law of land reform law is in conformity to the ideology of redistribution and is succeeded by a concrete legal regime directing the administration to conduct the process of distribution of the collected land to the beneficiaries.

The policy of land ceiling The agenda of distributing land to the landless occurred as one of the concerns in the first five-year plan itself;14 there was, however, no certainty as to the state’s policy on redistribution. The plan did speak about reducing the holdings of the large holders in order to provide land for the landless or to increase the size of farms for persons cultivating uneconomic fragments of land, but it stated that, as per the existing factual conditions, such aims of distribution were not likely to be achieved in any substantial manner.15 Para 12 of the plan read as follows: If it were the sole object of policy to reduce the holdings of the larger owners with a view to providing for the landless or for increasing the farms of those who now have uneconomic fragments, the facts at present available suggest that these aims are not likely to be achieved in any substantial measure. The question whether some limit should not be placed on the amount of land that an individual may hold has, therefore, to be answered in terms of general principles rather than in relation to the possible use that could be made of land in excess of any limit that may be set. We have considered carefully the implications of the various courses of action which are possible. It appears to us that, in relation to land (as also in other sectors of the economy) individual property in excess of any norm that may be proposed has to be justified in terms of public interest, and not merely on grounds of individual rights or claims. We are, therefore, in favour of the principle that there should be an upper limit to the amount of land that an individual may hold. As the planners firmly believed that no substantial alternation could be brought about by slicing the large landholdings, they carved out the step of imposing ceilings from the redistribution programme altogether and based the programme on some nebulous general principles. This meant that the entire step of ceiling that was later undertaken by all states in the country was originally kept disconnected with its ends: it was not to find its basis in the redistribution regime but in general public interest. The idea of a ceiling scheme was proposed because there was a need to redistribute and unless this connection was very clearly drawn and translated into the programme, the exercise would certainly be rendered meaningless and its failure would be inevitable.16 The ceiling programme took a clear shape in the second five-year plan. It acknowledged that since the area of land available for cultivation was

Law of land redistribution 103 limited, it was necessary to remove the disparities in distribution of land, if any economic progress is to be expected from the agrarian sector.17 However, like its predecessor, it disregarded redistribution of land in excess of ceilings as a concrete measure for such action and stated that it would only be able to yield limited results. Notwithstanding this position of the committee, it was suggested that some effective steps were taken to afford opportunities to the landless to gain social status and feel a sense of having equal opportunities in their rights to land. The irony within the terms of ceiling policy was only intensified when it went ahead to reinforce the idea that the land reform programme was aiming to reformulate the agrarian structure into one based on peasant proprietorship of land and simultaneously repudiated the idea that curtailing the rights of existing landowners and truncating their landholdings could be of any meaningful use to the whole exercise of reform. In the conditions of India large disparities in the distribution of wealth and income are inconsistent with economic progress in any sector. This consideration applies with even greater force to land. The area of land available for cultivation is necessarily limited. In the past rights in land were the principal factor which determined both social status and economic opportunity for different groups in the rural population. For building up a progressive rural economy, it is essential that disparities in the ownership of land should be greatly reduced. In view of the existing pattern of distribution and size of agricultural holdings, redistribution of land in excess of a ceiling may yield relatively limited results. Nevertheless, it is important that some effective steps should be taken in this direction during the second five year plan so as to afford opportunities to landless sections of the rural population to gain in social status and to feel a sense of opportunity equally with other sections of the community. Reduction of disparities in the ownership of land is also essential for developing a co-operative rural economy, for, co-operation thrives best in homogeneous groups in which there are no large inequalities. Thus, programmes for abolishing intermediary tenures, giving security to tenants and bringing tenants into direct relationship with the State with a view to conferring ownership upon them are steps which lead to the establishment of an agrarian economy based predominantly on peasant ownership.18 In a scenario where the effects of a ceiling law were so heavily doubted, there was another factor that added to the ambiguity in the policy – the size of holdings. A widespread existence of small and uneconomic holdings was considered averse to the central objective of the reform policy of raising agricultural productivity19 and therefore the idea was to convert these uneconomic holdings into ones that are economically viable and thus foster larger agricultural productivity. It also appears visible from the text of the

104  Law of land reform plan that the general sentiment of the policymakers was that small peasant holdings (which redistribution would eventually create) would not be sufficiently productive and therefore there was an inclination towards creating and maintaining large farm holdings.20 Thus, the step of distributing fragments of lands to beneficiaries was to be followed by a plan that would focus on consolidating land for the purposes of co-operative farming.21 The entire strategy was framed on the presumption that small holdings are uneconomic and they would only be obstructive to agricultural productivity, leading to slow economic growth. From the preceding analysis of the plans, the basics of the programme can be summarized as follows: based on general public interest, ceiling was to be fixed for landholdings, a surplus would be created which would then be distributed to the landless and people with uneconomic holdings and, thereafter, since the peasant holdings could not rapidly lead to increase in productivity, the individual holdings would again be consolidated at the village level into large co-operative farms, driven by co-operative societies constructed for the purpose. It must, however, be noted that an outright presumption on the question of efficiency of small holdings as against large farms can be misleading: a large number of economic studies on the size of farms and productivity have suggested that one cannot simply infer a directly proportional relationship between the size of farms and agricultural productivity.22 It is often assumed that peasant farming involving small-scale farms is backward, and if large landholdings are broken up into small ones, it would necessarily lead to loss in productivity. As opposed to this general assumption, there are strong contentions that claim counterintuitive results from such traditional farming: Small-scale farmers generally use land, labour, and capital more efficiently than do large-scale farmers who depend primarily on hired labour. This “inverse farm size–productivity relationship” implies that agriculture generally is characterized by diseconomies of scale, which means that redistributing land from large farmers to family farmers can bring efficiency gains to the economy.23 India has traditionally been a country driven by small-scale peasant farming.24 With the advent of superior proprietorship over land (by the Permanent Settlement Regulations of late 1700s) and growth of technology framed for large farms, the significance of small-scale farming was almost forgotten. Development of peasant farming has been regarded as one of the most effective means of reducing poverty.25 Even if it is assumed that a large farm is higher in productivity than the small ones, it has been observed that large commercial farms only utilize a portion of their holding leaving much arable land either waste or forested or leased out to a tenant.26 In addition to this, since personal cultivation by employment of agricultural labourers was legally permissible on holdings as large as 30 standard acres,27 it was a

Law of land redistribution 105 general practice to break down the farms into small parts and cultivate them by employment of agents and hired labourers. Small farms, on the other hand, are generally operated by a unit of family who employs their physical labour to cultivate those farms instead of using hired labourers and this factor distinguishes them from the large-capital farms; when small cultivators become owners, they care about their own property and require no supervision and are therefore expected to yield better products. The investigation into the matter of the size of farms is a lengthy one and is predominantly a part of economic discourse. The present concern is, however, restricted to a pointed contention: the unswerving assumption in favour of maintaining large landholdings acted in such a manner as to dismantle any leftover faith in the framing and implementation of a ceiling programme. There was already, an inherent difficulty with the efficacy of the programme and the predominant opinion that the exercise would only break down large-productive landholdings, thus creating fragments of uneconomic holdings since no real distribution could be expected, only fortified the disbelief. As a result, the disjunction of the imposition of ceilings from its redistributive objective was strengthened, leading to a situation where the predominant opinion of the administration was that the legal venture was merely laborious and meaningless.28 The ideology of land reform did not seem to coincide with its ceiling initiative and it definitely was unable to translate itself into the policy created for ceiling, for the basis of the ceiling programme did not lie in its original principles. The consequential legal framework created for the purpose, being a product of the programme, could not be expected to incorporate the principles of redistribution and reformation, and therefore, ceiling statutes, which were a means to social reformation, became an end in themselves.

The ceiling statutes Originating from such discordant ideas and policies, statutes imposing ceiling limits were enacted during the 1960s and 70s. The central objective of these legislations was to fix a reasonable limit of ceiling and create a pool of surplus land which would be vested in the state governments.29 For the law to be of any efficacy in a categorically monopolized agrarian structure (as has been discussed previously), it was imperative that a framework of the legal order was created such that it could pierce through the densely occupied structure and make the necessary alterations. The law needed to recognize that it was entering a field dominated by the classes of people whose property rights it was seeking to invade. Therefore, it was expected from the legislations that they create a framework which would implement a strict order that would seek to collect the requisite amount of land, requiring the landowners to surrender parts of their holdings with only a little scope for exceptions. The law would be under threat from the politically and socially empowered landowning classes, for if it did not take an austere position

106  Law of land reform and, instead, created routes to enable these classes to escape or surpass its application, it ran a high risk of inefficacy. The following narrative will examine the ceiling statutes against this background. The legislations have been tabulated in accordance with the general legal procedure that they all have created to achieve their desired purposes. The tables (Annexure A3 to A7) lay out in brief the countrywide position of the law of ceiling on agricultural holdings. It would act as a reference point for the subsequent discussion and would also draw parallels from other groups of land legislations. The following discussion first introduces the general procedure adopted by the legislations and thereafter discusses the key conceptual matters within the law with the tables forming a frame of reference for the analysis.

The general procedure As a legal procedure, imposing ceilings on agricultural holdings is a hefty task involving complicated elements of interfering with the private property rights of the existing landowners, fixing a limit for various types of land existing in the state, providing a mechanism for calculation of a reasonable compensation for truncating all existing landholdings, creating a surplus from the land seized and collected and finally, vesting the administrative authorities with the powers necessary to utilize the lands for redistributive and other public purposes. In a broad sense, the process can be categorized into three stages: collection of surplus, vesting of surplus land, and redistribution; land is collected from the landowners, converted into government land and, thereafter, a strategy for redistribution is to be created by the legislations. Each of these categories can be further divided into a series of steps that implement the process at ground level and determine the nature of the legal framework. For example, the process of fixing of an upper limit is a part of collection of surplus and it determines a key element: the extent to which land can be legally held by an individual as per the provision applicable. “Exemptions” is also a part of the same category and it provides a list of lands and landowners who are entitled to claim exemptions from the application of the Act. The procedure can be carved in the form of a flow chart for brief reference: I

Collection of surplus 1 Determination of ceiling limit 2 Identification unit 3 Landowners are required to surrender their holdings as per limit 4 Exemptions 5 Provisions invalidating certain transfers 6 Process of collection of land 7 Compensation–determination of amount and process

Law of land redistribution 107 II Vesting of surplus III Redistribution 1 Redistribution strategy – identification of beneficiaries 2 Process 3 Payment to be made by beneficiaries 4 Rights allotted over land The same categorization of procedure has formed the basis of the template that has been utilized to tabulate the legislations. The elements that constitute the template lay out the determinative factors of the process and assess all ceiling statutes in order to analyze the various frameworks of the law and compare their provisions. Annexure A7 provides the government data of each state, exhibiting the amount of lands that the particular state was able to collect under its ceiling law and redistribute it to the beneficiaries. Data is available for all the three categories and therefore the template provides a step by step analysis of the entire procedure. This may be utilized to indicate the success or failure of the particular legislation at every step of its procedure and on comparison, identify the one that has been able to achieve its objective. In the discussion that follows, our attempt would be to assess the key conceptual themes of the ceiling law in general, and to utilize the empirical data to deduce state models that worked and those which did not, along with accompanying reasons for both positions.

Determination and extent of ceiling limit One of the cardinal objectives of a land ceiling statute is to fix a maximum limit up to which land can be owned and possessed by an individual or a unit of individuals. Since this limit determines the maximum amount of land that one can hold and would eventually determine the amount of land that is available for redistribution and is allocated to the non-landowning classes, it is also indicative of the corresponding status and power that one may enjoy in a reconstructed society. Therefore, the ceiling limit is not a random number simply fixing a limitation on landholdings: the number places a restriction on the property rights of the landowners, attempts to curtail the status they derive from such landholding, and balances the power spectrum by transferring rights from one end of the spectrum to the other. At an ideological level, the objective of this exercise is to make land available for redistribution and thereby, in calculating the number, the requirement of the particular state (in terms of the number of landless people) would become an important factor. For purposes of reform, the Agricultural Reforms Committee of 1949 envisaged the existence of three kinds of private agricultural holdings in an altered land tenure – a basic holding, an economic holding, and an optimum holding.30 Although the committee refrained from providing any numbers for the various types of holdings envisaged, it provided conceptual

108  Law of land reform definitions for their reference. An economic holding was one which amounts to a piece of land necessary to provide a reasonable standard of living to the cultivator and the family; a basic holding was smaller than an economic holding, but yet not so small so as to be palpably uneconomic. A basic holding could not in itself provide full employment to a family and therefore was required to be reconstituted through various government programmes.31 An optimum holding was the largest allowed by law, i.e. it resembled the ceiling level and it would be ten times an economic holding, varying according to the agronomic characteristics of different states.32 In determining the extent of an economic holding, the committee recognized that, owing to the nature of Indian agriculture which is dominated by peasants and other widely varying factors relating to the type of soil and techniques of agriculture, it is profoundly difficult to suggest one number that would be appropriate for the entire agrarian structure. It was, therefore, left to the judgment of the state governments to define the extent of these types of landholdings according to their local conditions and other specifications. Following the recommendations of the 1949 committee, the second fiveyear plan recommended that the ceiling limit should be fixed by every state at the rate of three times the size of a family holding, which was equated to the concept of economic holding as defined by the 1949 committee.33 A family landholding, as a source of livelihood, was regarded as an extent of holding which would be sufficient to support an average family.34 An average size family for the committee was one consisting of five members and, for any family unit that exceeds five the extent of ceiling could be expanded to a maximum of six times the family holding. Similar limitations were defined by the plan for the clause of personal cultivation that had a significant placement within the abolition and tenancy reform law. It must be emphasized here that as a concept for government reform policy, both the clauses of personal cultivation and the application of a ceiling limit serve similar purposes – in the case of reform where self-cultivation was being emphasized and encouraged, both represented the amount of land that were retainable by the landowners. From a policy perspective, it was sensible to define the extent of both provisions similarly because they were to be made applicable to the same set of landowners; the only substantial distinction in their application was the difference in the times at which they were enacted. Ceilings were imposed almost a decade later than enactment of abolition and tenancy laws that contained the personal cultivation clause. As the discussion in the previous chapter has mentioned, the clause of personal cultivation rarely contained any limitations in its exercise and was largely unconstrained; in other cases, it had no real limitations attached to it and therefore, resumption of land on the basis of this was clearly a legal exercise which was not constrained by any provision in force. A direct consequence of this uninhibited clause was the eviction of tenants where landowners had sufficient time to pull together their holdings and to prepare themselves for the next step of ceiling; the intention of imposing ceilings was declared by the

Law of land redistribution 109 1949 committee report itself, but the actual law came much later. The omission of the specified limitation in the first clause and thereafter the creation of an entire separate legal regime for similar purposes greatly affected the impact of the reform. It has been considered previously that a time lag in between the declaration of the intention of reform and its enactment35 is dangerous for any reform. The fact that personal cultivation was a rather unrestricted right allowed the owners to evict tenants and retain their holdings. When a decade later, ceilings were imposed on the same landowners, they were better prepared to evade the order. In a situation such as this, ceiling laws defined the extent of limitations that were to be placed on landholdings. Generally in the legislations, this limit varied across a range of situations depending, for the most part, upon the type of land and the available irrigation facilities for that land. Excepting the entries which are read in terms of “standard acres” (which are to be calculated as per the specifications in the statue), the minimum ceiling limit prescribed by any state is ten acres in Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. This can be extended up to a limit of 175 acres in the state of Rajasthan depending upon the type of land. In most states, the ceiling range is between 10 and 54 acres. Annexure A3 lays out two significant aspects of determining the ceiling level: the basis on which each state fixes the limit and the limit itself. Generally, the ceiling limit was expressed in terms of a bracket; it could range between two numbers depending on the division that is made by the particular statute. In other cases, this limit was to be decided on the basis of certain factors provided in the statute. For example, the basic limit as per the Andhra Pradesh Land Reforms (Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings) Act, 1973 was fixed at one standard holding for a family of five members.36 The term standard holding was used by many other statutes but was specific to each of them: it did not have a general connotation and its computation depended on the terms that are laid down by the particular statute. The computation of one standard holding was done according to section 5 of the Act which specified the ceiling limit for all classes of wet and dry land: a unit of one standard holding was calculated as ten acres for land falling under the category of Class A double crop wet land (according to the division of land made by the schedule appended to the Act).

Statutory provisions imposing ceilings It can be observed that a considerable number of states (eight in the present Annexure A3) determine their ceiling range by the unit of a standard acre. A standard acre differs from an acre because it does not convert into 4046.86 square meters of area as per the metric system. It is instead calculated as per the specifications provided in the statute itself, or any other system which the statute refers to. This means that a standard acre can be less or more than an acre of land; the area included in a standard acre may

110  Law of land reform be determined by the income derived out of a certain kind of land or its assessment rate of revenue. This also means that in the case of states using this unit to determine the ceiling limit, it can be difficult to derive any inferences about the ceiling limits operative in each, unless the unit is converted into its actual value. It is contended here that as the unit of standard acre is not clearly indicative of the actual limits of ceilings, the process of its conversion into normal acres may be utilized to create a cover on the real ceiling limit and can be manipulated towards personal ends. The extent of ceiling may cease to be a limitation at all in instances where the conversion allows the applicable numbers to expand to include all holdings in a person’s ownership and thus defeat the entire purpose of the law. Therefore it is necessary to critically analyze the process of conversion in order to reveal its true nature. The state of Tamil Nadu is one amongst the states which use the unit for determining its ceiling limit and will be used as an example for the present purposes. Tamil Nadu fixes the ceiling limit for every person and a unit of family consisting of a maximum of five members at a value of 15 standard acres.37 Different limits have been specified for institutions which may range anywhere in between 25 and 60 standard acres (Annexure 3: Extent of Ceiling Limit). This division is made on the basis of the identification unit, the type of land and the revenue assessed for that land (Annexure 3: Basis of Division). One standard acre under the Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceilings on Land) Act, 1961 is defined under section 3(40). The rates differ for different regions and are based upon the type of land and the revenue derived from that land. One unit of standard acre would be equivalent to x acre(s) of land based on its classification as wet or dry land and the amount of land revenue that is assessed on that land. The value of x would depend on the measurement scales laid down by section 3(40)(1) of the Act – Section 3 (40) (1): “standard acre” means in any area in the state except the transferred territory – (a) 0.8 acre of wet land assessed to land revenue at any rate above Rs. 15 per acre, or (b) 1 acre of wet land assessed to land revenue at the rate of Rs. 10 and above but not exceeding Rs. 15 per acre; or (bb) 1.6 acres of wet land irrigated by any Government source other than a source mentioned in item (a); or (c) 1.2 acres of wet land assessed to land revenue at the rate of Rs. 8 and above but below Rs. 10 per acre; or (d) 1.6 acres of wet land assessed to land revenue at the rate of Rs. 6 and above but below Rs. 8 per acre; or (e) 1.75 acres of wet land assessed to land revenue at the rate of Rs. 4 and above but below Rs. 6 per acre; or (f) 2 acres of wet land assessed to land revenue at rate the below Rs. 4 per acre; or

Law of land redistribution 111 (g) 2.5 acres of dry land assessed to land revenue at the rate of Rs. 2 and above per acre; or (h) 3 acres of dry land assessed to land revenue at the rate of Rs. 1.25 and above but below Rs. 2 per acre; or (i) 4 acres of dry land assessed to land revenue at any rate below Rs. 1.25 per acre. As per these rates of conversion, the value of one standard acre of land would range in between 0.8 acre of wet land to 2 acres of wet land and from 2.5 to 4 acres of dry land.38 In order to calculate the ceiling limit applicable on an individual or a family of five members, a value of 15 standard acres has to be calculated in accordance with the measurements scales. An independent study conducted for the state by Joan Mencher critically examines the applicable ceiling conversion rates and offers fascinating inferences: it claims that in most circumstances even at the lowest digit of conversion, one unit of standard acre would double when converted for practical purposes;39 most of the arable land in the state is assessed at a rate ranging between 4 and 8 INR which will fall in clauses (bb) to (f), which may be converted into 1.6 to 2 acres of land. For example, in one of the sample villages in the study, the usual rate of assessment for double crop wet land is Rs. 7.20 per acre, thereby providing a situation where the legal limit for a person holding double-crop wet land is actually 24 acres.40 There is also a fair possibility that a person may possess land belonging to more than one category and it is assessed under different rates, where the cumulative amount of land under their ownership must come to 15 standard acres.41 If a person is the owner of large landholdings consisting of both dry and wet land, calculations suggest that 20 acres of dry land would be converted into a mere five standard acres and accordingly42, the applicable ceiling limit would make it permissible for the person to hold more land, up to ten standard acres under any other category.43 If the other lands are also categorized as dry as per the revenue records and the rate of revenue is levied accordingly, it only gives further scope for the number to expand. In such a situation, the study concludes that it would be possible for 12 to 14 households in a village to exercise control over half of the land in the village, leading to a concentration of landholdings – exactly what the law was supposed to prevent.44 The fundamental problem here is the reliance placed by the ceiling statutes on revenue records for application of the ceiling limit. As will be observed in Chapter 6 of this work, the status of revenue records is extremely unreliable for any statute to utilize the records for its application and moreover, registration of land has been heavily influenced by the powerful landowning classes in the rural region.45 Therefore, if the statute makes land registration and revenue records the basis of application of ceiling limit, it is not a very difficult task for the landowning classes to get their lands registered in a manner that would permit them to retain all their holdings and still

112  Law of land reform fall within the legal ceiling limit. There was thus much scope for a situation where the landowning class could tamper with one of the bases of the application of ceiling law, evade it at their convenience and remain within the legal ceiling limit.46 Since different patta numbers are reflective of separate ownerships, and thereby separate limits of ceilings are to be applied on them, one other manner of evading the law was to register lands under the names of distant relatives or previously evicted tenants who were deeply indebted to the landholder and thus retain real control over land for all practical purposes. It is essential for the present discussion that an integral connection be established between the nature of revenue records and ceiling law. Patta numbers generally constitute the primary component of revenue records and the administration is required to maintain only the numbers and their corresponding ownership titles. In states like Andhra and Telangana, Pattadar passbooks are to be issued to each landholder specifying the patta number that the person owns.47 In a system where there has been historical evidence of an imbalanced agrarian society, the patta numbers can be incomplete and fallacious, for they do not reflect the structure of the village as such, thereby leaving spacious room for the records to be manipulated.48 It is, therefore, an inherent necessity that the land revenue records of a village reflect the sociological construction of the area, as they are intricately connected with the same – not only how much revenue is to be collected and also whom it is to be collected from, but the complete name of the person and family, details of all the households, family structures, family relations among various landholders, relationships of one family to the other, landlord–tenant relationships, land held by the person in other villages, the amount of agricultural credit acquired and the authority which provided the same: all these need to be recorded.49 The state of Tamil Nadu is only one amongst several others which provides for similar ceiling limitations. But it would appear that the idea of a limitation within the concept of ceiling did not occur to most of the legislatures while framing the applicable legal order. In states like Delhi, Gujarat and Maharashtra, the lower bracket of ceiling limit is fixed at 18 acres and the higher can be up to 54 acres of land for one individual or family; Rajasthan’s ceiling on landholdings is limited to 175 acres for one unit of individual or family. These limitations are expressed in terms of normal acres; the others, placed in terms of standard acres or units, can only be known when each is calculated as per the provisions of that statute. This numerical limitation represented the potential of law to curtail the power of a large class of landowners; an endeavour backed by law for the termination of a historical semi-feudal system of landownership, and for the transformation of society. It certainly was a hefty blow to the existing owners, but also, simultaneously, offered the peasants hope that they might be able to live a dignified life. However,

Law of land redistribution 113 there was no such possibility if the number ceased to be an actual limitation for any practical purposes.

Statutory unit of identification The second factor in determining the application of ceiling limit is the unit of persons that the law uses as a base for fixing the limit. It can be observed from Annexure A3 that most statutes in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Sikkim, Rajasthan and others identify their unit of application of ceiling limit as a family. The composition of the unit decides the number of persons who would collectively hold some amount of land as per the specified limit. The base unit is generally fixed for an individual person or a family of five and the lower bracket of ceiling is applicable for it. The limitation varies according to the number of members in the family, together with other determining factors like type of land and revenue assessment. The Indian agrarian society is characterized by ascendancy of family as the unit of operation of landholdings rather than individual; this is one of the connotations of caste being woven into the agricultural land space. An entire family, defined by its caste, is the one that has been holding land for generations now, and therefore, it made sense for policy to have fixed ceilings for a unit of family. The substantial question is then, the composition of the definition of the term; it would not only determine the number of people who could expect their livelihood from that holding but also the extent of power that one family could retain within the structure. If the law seeks to break the extent of control that a bunch of families usually exercises in a rural area, the unit should be so defined that the ceiling limit applies to an entire functional family unit and keep it in accord with the number of dependants on the permissible land. It is therefore, essential that identification of a unit is made dependent on the varied local conditions of each region and only then can it be expected to pierce through the dense structure. Where a family, including major children, is operational as a unit, the base limit can be applied for that operational unit of family that cumulatively applies its physical labour to cultivate the landholding. On the contrary, most legislations seem to have segregated a functional family as per its lineage: each adult son is entitled to be treated as a separate family unit for application of ceiling limit even if his agricultural exercise coincides with that of his father and other brothers. For example, if a father farms with his three sons, the number of ceilings applicable on this operational family will be four. This would not have led to a concentration of holdings if the applicable limit was in fact limiting their holdings in any way; since it was not, application of multiple limits on one operational family could only accelerate the process of concentration. The Andhra Pradesh Land Reforms (Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings) Act, 1973 defines a family unit in its section 2(f) as primarily comprising

114  Law of land reform only of the individual, their spouse(s), minor sons and minor unmarried daughters. The section states Section 2 (f) – (i) in the case of an individual who has a spouse or spouses, such individual, the spouse or spouses and their minor sons and their unmarried minor daughters, if any; (ii) In the case of an individual who has no spouse, such individual and his or her minor sons and unmarried minor daughters; (iii) in the case of an individual who is a divorced husband and who has not remarried, such individual and his minor sons and unmarried minor daughters, whether in his custody or not; and (i) where an individual and his or her spouse are both dead, their minor sons and (ii) unmarried minor daughters. Explanation:- Where a minor son is married, his wife and their offspring, if any, shall also be deemed to be members of the family unit of which the minor son is a member. This is the basic unit of a family for the purposes of imposition of ceiling and may vary according the prevailing situations and the law. Further, section 4 fixes the amount of ceiling at one standard holding for one family unit. It is the next section that is of relevance for the present context – section 4A as inserted in 1977 overrides section 4 and provides for an increase in the permissible limit in certain cases. It reads as follows: Section 4 A – Notwithstanding anything in Section 4, where an individual or an individual who is a member of a family unit, has one or more major sons and any such major son either by himself or together with other members of the family unit of which he is a member, holds no land or holds an extent of land less than the ceiling area, then, the ceiling area, in the case of the said individual or the family unit of which the said individual is a member computed in accordance with Section 4, shall be increased in respect of each such major son by an extent of land equal to the ceiling area applicable to such major son or the family unit of which he is a member, or as the case may be, by the extent of land by which the land held by such major son or the family unit of which he is a member falls short of the ceiling area. The provision states that in cases where the major son of a family unit holds no land or land less than the prescribed ceiling limit, then the ceiling area in respect of such an individual or his family unit (holding less land than

Law of land redistribution 115 the limit) would be increased in respect of each such major son (or his family unit) by the extent of land that he falls short of the ceiling area. This essentially means that each major son of a family unit is allowed to have his own ceiling limit and hold land until he reaches that limit. So, the number of sons in a family would determine the number of ceiling limits applicable to that family as each of the major sons, married or unmarried, is entitled to hold land independent of the ceiling limit applicable to his father. In a family of three sons in Andhra, the entire family can hold three standard acres of land. And, for all practical purposes if the son is major and unmarried he becomes an individual entity for imposition of the ceiling limit. Similarly, the Rajasthan Imposition of Ceilings on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1973 provides distinct definitions of a family unit and a separate unit in sections 2(f) and 2(m), respectively. Section 2 (f) – “family” shall mean a family consisting of husband, wife and their minor children but excluding married minor daughter Section 2 (m) – “separate unit” means an adult son and in case of his death, his widow and children, if any. A family consists of husband, wife, and minor children, excluding a married minor daughter, and a separate unit is of a major son and only in case of his death, his widow and children if any. The ceiling limit is defined for a person50 or a family of five or less than five members (termed as primary unit) under section 4. Furthermore, a separate unit has been provided with the choice of selecting land up to the ceiling area for the primary unit under subsection (2).51 Consequently again, each major son of a family is entitled to hold land as a separate unit from the family. This legal fact must be read with the levels of ceiling that the Rajasthan 1973 Act explicitly makes, which may amount to anywhere between 18 acres and 175 acres depending upon the class of land as specified in the Act. Rajasthan reflects an even more severe situation, where the legally determined ceiling limits are seemingly high and such limits can be applied separately applied more than once to the same family, thereby creating a space within the legal order for very large landholdings to be owned by an individual or family or by both collectively. Therefore, if we read these provisions within the broader rationale that justified adoption of the family as an identification unit for the purposes of application of a ceiling limit, they seem to negate the principles that formed its basic premise. The law itself created spaces for landholder families to continue exercising control over their land, as they did prior to the formation of such law. When each major son is considered a separate unit for imposition of ceiling, in the specific case of a Hindu undivided family, multiple limits may be applied on that family and if smartly construed, there is no necessity for the family to transfer land from one person to another in the same family in an attempt to evade the law. Despite such luxuries, avarice

116  Law of land reform for land remained unsatisfied, and unscrupulous transactions of land were made to mutate the revenue records and thereby scatter the holdings on paper, with the traditional family unit continuing its historical existence in the rural setting, with only a variation of nomenclature. Once the ceiling limit is determined for a unit, the landowners are required to surrender their surplus to the government. This process requires the landowners to furnish returns on the extent of their landholdings to a statutory tribunal established for the purpose or to the revenue authorities, as per the specifications of the Act. With few exceptions, the landowners are entitled to exercise their choice in deciding which holdings they would surrender to the government and which would they retain.52 Thereafter, since seizure of land from private owners constitutionally requires payment of an amount of compensation, the legislations have, as the tables would exhibit, dedicated a substantial portion of their framework to determine a reasonable amount and ease the appalling blow faced by the landowning class.

Computation of compensation From the perspective of property rights, it was a constitutional obligation for any law seeking to infringe private property rights to duly compensate the right-holder. Questions concerning constitutional conflicts that arose from compensation clauses both in Abolition and Ceiling legislations have formed the basis of discussion in Chapter 1 of this work and the present analysis would proceed from that position. The compensation clause symbolizes the sanctity of private property rights in the event that public purpose has been prioritized over them. The jurisprudence behind property rights exhibits a dominant presence of compensation clauses within the discourse, and in the specific context of the Indian ceiling law, the clause has been widely debated and litigated by the landowners. Within the stated framework of law, the reasonableness of the amount of compensation53 was constructed as one of the central matters of concern by the affected classes of landowners. The landowners were able to utilize the clause to their benefit: they transferred the entire attention of the government onto the economic aspect (relating to compensation) of the programme, thereby locking them into lengthy policy debates and consequent litigations.54 It was an accepted fact that the state at that point of time, especially when abolition laws were enacted, was not in a financial position to meet the economic requirements of the reform programme. It had been argued, at the relevant point in time, that the state had no funds to implement the scheme, even if it was to be implemented. This was mainly because of the requirement of reasonable compensation as mandated by the Constitution. The dominant opinion was that the national policy of reform required a huge budget which was beyond the scope of the state to bear.55

Law of land redistribution 117 It was additionally contended that the bourgeois landlord rule was extremely careful not to inflict any real loss on the landowners, as the law mandated a considerable amount of compensation to be paid to them; this amount was being paid in return for an inferior quality of land since the landowners were exercising their choice in filing of their statement and surrendering only such land as was of low quality.56 However, the second five-year plan considered payment of compensation as a material provision of the law which needed no conceptual clarifications on its nature and extent.57 Correspondingly, a solution to the financial constraints of the programme was found: the amount of finances spent by the state governments could be recovered by employing equivalent charges on the beneficiaries, who would be subsequently receiving land in redistribution. A combined reading of columns titled Basis of Calculation (Under Compensation) and Payment by Beneficiaries to the Government in Annexure A4 and A5, respectively, offers a base to test this contention. The Delhi Landholdings (Ceiling) Act, 1960 calculates compensation as twenty times the net income from land and also provides for a payment to be made by beneficiaries. Section 10 of the Act provides for compensation which describes in detail the manner in which the amount is to be determined. Clause (4) of section 10 specifically determines the amount of compensation. Section 10 (4) – Where an Asami acquires Bhumidhari rights in respect of any excess land, the amount payable by him in respect of that land shall be equal to the amount which the Bhumidhar would have been paid under the proviso to sub-section (1) or sub-section (2), if the land had vested in the Government, and amount shall, in the first instance, be paid to the Bhumidhar by the Government and shall be recovered from the Asami in such manner as may be prescribed. Within the present context, an asami58 is a tenant and a bhumidar59 is a landowner. It is evident from the text that in cases where the tenant is acquiring ownership rights of the landowner, that the amount of compensation that is to be paid by the government to the landowners for vesting their land, has to be recovered from the tenants. Another example may be drawn from section 15(4) of the Haryana Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1972, which states that the purchase price of the landholding shall be recovered from the allottee at a rate that does not exceed the amount that is provided for calculation of compensation. The section reads as follows: Section 15 (4): The purchase price of the land, along with interest at the rate of five per centum per annum, shall be payable by the allottee in ten annual equated instalments, at the rate not exceeding that mentioned in column 1 of the table in sub-section (1) of section 16.

118  Law of land reform Provisions akin to these, which recover the lost public funds from persons for whose benefit the expenditure was made, existing in a socio-economic legal framework, contradict the very nature of the legal framework. It was the pervasive low economic position of the peasantry, and the corresponding inequality of status, that invoked a law to be framed and if the same law demands money to be paid by them at a rate that equates the amount of compensation claimed by the landowners, the law does not seem to have synchronized its structure, leading to internal contradictions between its profession and its actual expression.

Vesting of surplus The law determining ceiling limitations and addressing the compensation claims of private land landowners, ergo, was considerably incommensurate to the ground realities of the agrarian system and inadequate to make the necessary alterations. Further to this legal intervention, the next step required the collected land to be vested in the state governments. The process of vesting of the surplus was administration driven; most statutes required the revenue officials to take physical possession of the land after the statutory authority had notified the extent of surplus land that was to be collected from the landowners. The last columns of Annexure A4 are descriptive of this process, which must be read along with government data on the amounts of land ceiled.60 The data reveals that a lot of land declared as surplus was lost in the process of vesting; in the states of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, and Delhi, almost 50 per cent of the land did not make it to the second level of conversion into vested land.61 In a scenario where the applicable ceiling limits were excessively high and land could not be collected as per the expected levels, an additional loss in the next step could only cause further inefficacy in the programme.62 Within this scenario, where imposition of ceilings was largely a precarious exercise, the next step in the process was the core reason for the initiation of a ceiling programme and for all the preceding legal interventions made for reform of land tenure. Ergo, it is a necessity that a study of Indian Land Reform Law analyzes the composition and nature of a redistribution law to examine the synonymy of redistribution with reform. The next section seeks to make the required assessments.

Scheme of redistribution within ceiling law If a law creating a pool of land, after having truncated the existing holdings of landowners, does not culminate in a robust regime that categorically provides the ways and means of utilizing the collected land for the directed purposes of reform law, the entire structure of the law necessarily stands threatened with non-implementation by the authorities. The executive authorities, then, do not find any practical purpose in going

Law of land redistribution 119 through the process at all. The scenario became akin to one where all the state governments and their administrative machinery were made to make a heavy investment, both in terms of money and labour, without any scheme for deriving a productive outcome from such investment. The contention that ceiling statutes became an end, instead of being a means to an end, of restructuring ownership distribution, comes alive in the design of provisions within ceiling legislations that deal with the matter of redistribution. The bulk of legislations merely created a lengthy list of beneficiaries, identifying the various classes of persons who would receive lands in redistribution (Annexure A5), but no strategy was designed to conduct the process. The list suggested the classes of people who should be prioritized to receive land in redistribution. The matter of framing of a strategy was left to be decided at the discretion of the specific state government. The alleged beneficiaries exercised no statutory claim to receive any land63 and neither was any statutory obligation placed on the state governments to enact a scheme for this purpose, in accordance with its local conditions.64 A thorough reading of Annexure A5 is indicative of the fact that all ceiling legislations were evasive in the matter of constructing a legal procedure for redistribution. An analogous avoidance, however, was not found when another procedure had to be created for the determination and adjudication of compensation claims for the landowners. This comparison of different treatments afforded by the law to both procedures is suggestive of an inclination within the legal design towards the landowning classes – the proprietors of land were constitutionally and statutorily entitled to preserve their landholdings, and in the event of these coming into collision with public purpose, they were to be duly compensated for the loss incurred by them; but the beneficiaries of redistribution law were not accorded any legal claims to demand land based on the labour invested by them which was recognized by the reform law. They were, however, obliged to make payment for the land they received in the process to an amount equivalent to the compensation payable by the government to the landowners. In addition to this, if and when any ownership right was granted to certain persons, several limitations were placed on that right. In most cases, as can be derived from the entries in the column entitled Limitation on Rights of Beneficiaries in Annexure A6, the land allotted to the beneficiaries was non-alienable and non-divisible. The concerned state authorities were also empowered to place any other forms of restrictions that they deemed fit. The practical implications of allocation of a limited right of ownership are realized when it is read with a process of collection of land which does not account for the type of collected land. A series of negative entries in column titled Allotment on the Basis of Quality of Land in Annexure A6, suggesting that none of the legislations provided for distributing land on the basis of its quality and usage, is a corollary of the

120  Law of land reform fact that, at the time of collection, the law did not monitor the quality of land, for the landowners exercised full choice in deciding which lands they would retain and which they would surrender. Most of the land that formed the surplus was therefore, inevitably of low quality and often consisted of un-irrigable waste lands.65 If the assignees of law, who generally were landless agricultural labourers and poor peasants belonging to low social castes, were expected to be benefited by owning waste lands which they could neither cultivate because they lacked the capital to invest and nor could they afford a sale for some immediate monetary benefit because they did not have the right to do so, the expectations were completely unfounded. The inalienability of assigned lands could work to their benefit in a land market dominated by money and power, for it would act as a protection from the powerful classes who would seek to buy off the small holdings; but in a procedure which did not ensure a requisite quality of land to be allotted, considering the prime objectives of a socio-economic welfare norm, even a seemingly beneficial provision deemed to afford protection to the beneficiaries could be counterproductive. In sharp contrast to this general vogue of ceiling redistribution laws was the Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act of 1976. The state has been regarded to have constructed the most successful land redistribution programme in the country66 and legislation formed the basis of this programme. The legal framework was structured in a manner that identified the problematic issues within the system, created a strict outline, and immediately confronted the issues without affording any time for the dominant classes to prepare themselves for the imminent scheme. The preamble to the Act expressly stated that its central objective was to transfer ownership land to the landless and ensure that land in the state is put to better use,67 unlike the other statutes which only concentrated on imposing ceilings. The statute conducted the process of imposing ceiling limit and vesting of surplus land in the state government in three crisp steps – first, since the preceding abolition law had allowed for retention of certain kinds of holdings, all lands not held in personal cultivation68 were deemed to be vested in the state, a strict ceiling limit was determined,69 and thereafter, the land held by persons in excess of ceiling limit was automatically vested in the state. Section 4 of the Act conducted the first step: Section 4(1) – Notwithstanding anything contained in any law for the time being in force, but subject to the provisions of this Chapter, all rights, title and interest in land of any person, not cultivating it personally in Kharif 1971, shall be deemed to have extinguished and vested in the State, free from encumbrances, with effect from the first day of May, 1973.

Law of land redistribution 121 Immediately following this, as per the determined ceiling limit, the Act vested the land under personal cultivation, which was in excess of the limit, in the state government: Section 5 (1) – Notwithstanding anything contained in any law for the time being in force but subject to the provisions of this Chapter – (a) Where any land, held by an individual in personal cultivation whether as owner or as tenant or otherwise, was in excess of the ceiling area on the first day of September, 1971, the rights, title and interest of such individual in the excess land shall be deemed to have vested in the State, free from all encumbrances, on the first day of May, 1973; (b) Where aggregate land held in personal cultivation by the members of a family, whether jointly or severally, as owners or as tenants or otherwise, was in excess of the ceiling area on the first day of September, 1971, the rights, title and interest of such members in the excess land shall be deemed to have vested in the State, free from all encumbrances, on the first day of May, 1973. At both levels, there was automatic vesting of land in the government and there could be no loss in the process. This curtailed any time gap which could have given an opportunity to the landowners to manipulate their holdings in an attempt to preserve them. The difference between abolishing titles and truncating holdings of landowners, as has been discussed previously, which was one of the major causes of failure of the programme, was neatly avoided by the 1976 Jammu statute. The vested land was then, required to be disseminated by the state to the beneficiaries listed by the statute70 as per section 15. The section envisaged a transfer of ownership rights to the beneficiaries as it obligated and empowered the state government and the concerned authorities to implement and address all matters relating to redistribution. Section 15 (1) – The Government shall be competent, subject to the provisions of sub-sections (2) and (3), to dispose of land, vested or which may vest in the State under this Act and become surplus and land, which is available under sub-section (2) of section 6 of the Jammu and Kashmir Big Landed Estates Abolition Act, Samvat 2007, in consideration of such levy as is provided for in schedule III and subject to such terms and conditions (including those relating to reservation of adequate land for kahcharai) and in such manner, as may be prescribed, anything contained in any law for the time being in force. In constructing this process, the statute attempted to strike a fine balance in professing the general norm and simultaneously allowing the state

122  Law of land reform government and other concerned authorities enough discretionary powers to ensure sound implementation.71 Furthermore, the statute seems to be aware of the presence of a large section of people who are expecting to be benefitted by its provisions; section 28 contemplates the rights and liabilities of a prospective owner. This is in specific reference to the tenants who are in a vulnerable position in the event of land reform. It ensures that such tenants are immediately afforded their rights of ownership so that they do not stand threatened by the landowners for their security of tenure. Section 28 – (1) Notwithstanding anything contained in any law – (a) a prospective owner of land eligible by or under this Act to acquire ownership rights in land under his personal cultivation shall continue to have all rights and be subject to all liabilities (including the payment to the State of the rent which was payable by him to the ex-landlord before the commencement of the Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1972) as a tenant under the Jammu and Kashmir Tenancy Act, 1990, until he is vested with ownership rights in such land: Provided that he shall be governed by the rules of succession applicable to the occupancy tenants until he becomes owner of such land; The Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reform statute is, therefore, illustrative of a norm constructed with complete knowledge of the anticipated issues that it might have to address, and addressing these in order to ensure a sound implementation. That the state was able to conduct a redistribution programme, widely regarded as being largely successful, can be attributed to the fact that the law was clearly framed for the stated purpose; implementation of the norm is possible when it has been comprehensively framed to achieve a certain objective. If the norm is itself framed to negate its foundational principles and declared objectives, there exist no means for it to achieve those results. Section 28 affords an advanced protection to tenants in order to ensure security of their tenure against the threatening position that the other two laws place them in. The section envisages a unique manner of redistribution which does not involve truncating large holdings and redistributing the surplus. The provision relates to the law conferring rights on tenants to gain ownership from the landowner which is another means of achieving the objectives of restructuring the distribution of ownership rights. So, the ceiling laws primarily created a system of restructuring the land hierarchy that did very little of their perceived expectations. Similar to the abolition statutes, the legal provisions imposing ceilings created, in varying variety of ways, processes to keep the land where it was. Within the scheme of ceiling legislations, redistribution was evidently a legal farce. However, before we make any further hard conclusions, the other two methods of redistribution need to be understood and analyzed.

Law of land redistribution 123

Law conferring rights on tenants to purchase holdings of landowners Both abolition and ceiling laws pose a threat to the security of tenure of the tenants, since both of them curtail various aspects of ownership rights of landowners and exception was made for owner who were personally cultivating, the tenants’ security of tenure was extremely vulnerable.72 The easiest way in which legal personal cultivation could be achieved was either to evict the cultivating tenants or to transform their tenures into irregular, unregistered ones so that they could not claim protection under the law. One substantial manner in which legislations reforming tenancy rights attempted to remedy this situation was to adopt a route of direct transfer of ownership rights from landowners to the tenants who were cultivating their lands. Parts of some state statutes contemplated this possibility and created a procedure for the same, but did not apply the provision for all tenants; most legislations identified a certain class of tenants and afforded them the right to gain ownership of the lands they cultivated and called it preferential treatment. Affirmative entries in the last column of Annexure A9 exhibit the legislations that are inclusive of a provision of preferential treatment for certain types of tenants: states like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Gujarat, among others, are the ones that envisaged such a provision. A transfer of ownership rights from the owners to cultivating tenants is necessarily a redistributive provision; the underlying policy of the provision is to confer ownership rights on the person responsible for cultivation of the land and create an agrarian system favourable to tenants and other labourers. The success of this provision is obviously dependent on the manner in which it has been constructed by the statutes; in cases where the law pushes towards an alteration of the land structure by way of a direct transfer of rights, it has to be framed in a manner that is informed by the political dynamics of the situation and is prepared to encounter the same. Therefore, the composition of this provision has to be carefully constructed to prevent it from being appropriated by the landowning classes because they could easily do so. However, its composition is also generally contaminated by the same factors that led to the non-implementation of other redistributive provisions. For example, section 21 of the Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Tenancy Act, 1950 conditions conferment of this right to tenants on the will of the landowner when he intends to sell the holding. The tenant is entitled to have the first option of purchasing that holding: Section 21 (1) – If the landholder of a site referred to in Sec. 20 intends to sell such site, such tenant at the expense of whom or whose predecessorin-title, a dwelling house is built thereon, shall be given in the manner provided in sub-sec. (2) the first option of purchasing the site at a value determined by the Tribunal.

124  Law of land reform If the tenant receives a chance to exercise this right of purchase, the transaction has to be guided by a tribunal established for the purpose; the purchase price of the land is also determined by the tribunal after having conducted an enquiry.73 Prior to that, the tenant is required to intimate willingness to exercise the right and deposit the requisite amount with the tribunal. If the tenant fails to do so, subsection (5) states that it would be deemed that the right is extinguished and the landowner is free to sell the holding to anyone at any price that the market regulates: Section 21 (5) – If the tenant fails to intimate his willingness to purchase the site within the period referred to in sub-section (2) or fails to deposit the amount of the value within the time specified in sub-section (3), the tenant shall be deemed to have relinquished his right of first option to purchase the site and the landholder shall thereupon be entitled to evict the tenant after either paying him such compensation for the value of the structure of the dwelling house as may be determined by the Tribunal or allowing the tenant at his option to remove the materials of the structure. Therefore, in essence, the tenants’ right to gain ownership of land is conditioned on two factors: the landowner’s will to sell the landholding, and the tenant’s financial ability to complete the required payment; both of which could be negated without difficulty. Landowners would obviously reserve alienation of their lands, for it is better for them to continuously derive income out of it rather than sell it off to the tenants at a regulated price, and the financial status of tenants in the state of Andhra Pradesh to be able to arrange purchase money is highly uncertain. A similar result was obtained from the Bombay Tenancy Act of 1939: the state government made an attempt to transfer all holdings to the cultivating tenants and, in this endeavour, April 18, 1957, was declared to be Tillers’ Day.74 It was declared that all tenants would be deemed to have purchased the land they held under tenancy. However, if for any reason, the tenants refused to benefit from this rule, they would be evicted from their tenancies. The conferment of ownership rights was thereby made compulsory and in doing so, the state had actually made all tenancies insecure. The landowners’ political power enabled them to force tenants to refuse the offer and consequently, also positioned the latter in a state of insecurity. The virile grip of the landowning class on the agricultural soil, therefore, remained untouched by the law of redistribution. The only aspect that remains to be tested is land assignment law, which is another redistributive measure that has mainly been adopted in some southern parts of the country.

Law of land assignment An assignment of land is, in theory, a redistributive measure which provides for transfer of rights in land from one person to another. The phrase

Law of land redistribution 125 has been historically used in the erstwhile Madras Presidency for grant of public lands, usually free of cost, by the state to landless individuals or families.75 The law represents another manner in which land redistribution is attempted to be employed within the agrarian structure by assigning government lands to the landless and, unlike the other two aforesaid measures of redistribution, it does not involve any curtailment of existing ownership rights. The practice of assignment seems to have stemmed from the altruistic motive of providing communities who were historically deprived of landownership, access to land, both for agricultural purposes and as house-sites; but, the ownership rights conferred on the assignees did not generally entail the right to alienate land. Such restrictions on alienation were justified on the grounds that the landless poor to whom the assignments were being made (especially those from dalit and adivasi communities) were susceptible to exploitation and therefore, the assigned land needed to be kept off the market.76 Effectively, therefore, any beneficiary that received land under the process of assignment did not become the owner of assigned land, but merely a holder who could utilize the land for the specified purposes. While land assignment continues to be relevant in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana (all these states inherit or duplicate, in part, the legacy of the revenue administration in the Madras Presidency),77 AP and Telangana account for a lion’s share of all the public lands assigned in the country.78 In Telangana, assignment policy is determined by the Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Land Revenue Act, 1907, before which there appears to have been no coherent policy on the subject. The Andhra Pradesh Assigned Lands (Prohibition of Transfers) Act, 1977 was enacted, which bars, in perpetuity, the transfer of any land that has been assigned to a landless poor person. Removing land from the market, however, could not have been a wise policy decision. In an economy where land is generally an alienable commodity, isolating some land from the market, only exposes it to a range to other threats. Especially in a scenario where the other forms of reforms have not worked very well and the power dynamics has not altered very much, if the law restricts the right of alienability of an assignee, it discards the assignee with any economic benefit that she may be receive by way of sale of that land. The history of redistribution has shown that landholdings that are usually allotted to the beneficiaries are of extremely low quality and can scarcely be utilized in any productive manner,79 unless handsome capital is invested in the land to improve its quality. The classes of persons, who were the assignees under the law, could hardly afford investing any money in land, let alone possessing handsome capitals at their disposal and therefore, illegally selling them to people who could afford to make those investments became the norm.80 The ostensible rationale behind such a hardline stance against alienation was declared to be well-meaning: the probability of the landless poor person

126  Law of land reform being exploited, and the assigned lands ending up in the hands of the moneyed land-owning classes, was obviously high, hence the need to prohibit alienation. In keeping with this idea, the government was empowered under the Act to resume alienated lands and hand them back to the original assignee (with an exception made in cases where another landless poor person had purchased the land in good faith). If the assignee transfers the land a second time, then the government may, on resuming the land, choose to assign it to some other landless poor person. The strongest government drive to cancel illegal transfers of alienated lands, however, coincided with an amendment to the Act, which permitted the government to notify areas, in public interest and for public purpose where assigned land reverted to the government and not be restored to the original assignee.81 As Balagopal points out: This was a clever ploy. The government itself knows that about onefourth of the land assigned to the poor has been alienated, and its opponents say that one-half has been. So by issuing notifications under the amended Act 9 of 1977, it takes the land back to be given to some enterprise or the other, or some special economic zone. It means that so much land goes for ever out of the reach of the poor in general, and not merely from the original grantee of the land.82 These recurring clever ploys to keep landholdings locked for people who could ascertain socio-economic power in the system, seem to be the dominant practice of law. It appears that each time an attempt was made to conduct any redistributive measure, it was carefully and strategically weakened by a provision from within the law. Political, social and economic powers surrounding land relations were responsible both for conducting the weakening process and aiding its practice once they were in force. The mere writing and passing of reform laws that are deficient and are constructed to result in an obstructed, ineffective implementation might have been good if they were not inimical to the traditional structure of land tenure.83 The mere presence of such legislations claiming radical alterations in the general discourse of land law alarmed the landowning classes and instigated them to utilize their political status to further reduce the position of all other classes so that they lay beyond the purview of law. The legislations were certainly able to create a new order and alter the tenure, but not in the manner that the policy would have hoped: large classes of landowners survived the move and maintained their rural status, upper-class tenants were added to the landowning class, all other tenants remained insecure, and landless agricultural labourers did not remain a matter of concern. The cultivating families who received land in the process were unable to make much out of it for the lack of capital, but they could no longer claim that they were landless and therefore poor. It was the framework of the law that was primarily responsible for all that happened with land, for the alleged ineffective implementation was woven

Law of land redistribution 127 into the letter and spirit of the legislations. When legal interventions have to be made to fix an extremely unfair and fluid structure, it has to be ensured that they create strict bottlenecks at all appropriate places and do not allow any leakages. If the interventions themselves offer ways and means of evasion to an already powerful class, it is no surprise that those ways and means were adopted and accomplished. Ineffective implementation of the norms can then be hardly attributed to inefficiency. Even so, the implementation of this entire programme relied a lot on the land administration system, which is to be analyzed in the next chapter. We will see that even in the case of laws that have direct implementation mechanisms, reform did not fare well.

Notes 1 National Sample Survey, First Report on Landholding, Rural Sector, Delhi, 1958. The inequality in distribution of holdings can be represented in the form of a table released by NSS and reproduced in a paper by Raj Krishna. Size Group

0.00 or less than 0.005 acres Less than 1.00 acre Less than 2.50 Less than 5.00 Less than 10.00 Less than 20.00 Less than 30.00 Less than 50.00

Ownership Holdings

Operational Holdings

% of Rural Households

% of total area

% of Rural Households

22.00

_

46.89 60.76 74.42 87.29 95.07 97.57 99.14

1.38 6.31 16.77 35.99 58.94 71.95 84.40

6.34 40.23 54.80 70.71 85.58 94.42 97.28 99.09

% of total area – 1.25 5.93 16.69 36.42 59.71 72.81 85.57

An ownership holding was defined was defined as the area of land held in India in permanent heritable position (occupancy right) with or without the right to transfer such title.   An operation holding was defined as all parcels of land, located anywhere, under a distinct unit of technical and economic management for cultivation or other purposes. It included land owned and self-operated and land leased in. See “First Report on Land Holdings, Rural Sector: Eighth Round July 1954 – March 1955” (National Sample Survey Organization, Delhi 1958), accessed June 21, 2018, http://mospi.nic.in/sites/default/files/publication_reports/nss_rep_10_0.pdf. Hereinafter NSS Data, 1958. Raj Krishna, “Agrarian Reform in India: The Debate on Ceilings,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, no. 3 (1959): 302–317. Hereinafter, Krishna, “Agrarian Reform in India: Debate on Ceilings.” 2 Warriner, Land Reform in Principle and Practice. 3 NSS Data, 1958. 4 The landowning class, being at the top of the land hierarchy, exercised the greatest amount of control over all other classes of persons within the agrarian structure. Along with ownership, they exercised other extensive powers and were the bearers of the profit from cultivation which raised their political and economic

128  Law of land reform status within the structure. Historically, the powers of administration of land structure were exercised by revenue collectors and other state officers who did not exercise ownership rights in land. The Permanent Settlement Regulations passed in various states conferred ownership titles on the revenue collectors, multiplying their power by a huge factor. Here, the argument is that the right of ownership was central to the multifaceted powers exercised by the owners. Even though ownership was legally conferred on the regulatory class much later in the colonial rule, conferring of this right was primarily responsible for the enormous power exercised by the landowning class. 5 Ownership of land had a lot to do (and still does) with the caste of the individual. Land has, for centuries been symbolic of the caste to which an individual belongs; caste determines the extent of access that a person would be entitled to obtain under the social system. Therefore, the bottom of the land hierarchy, consisting mostly of agricultural labourers, sharecroppers, small peasants, among others, coincides with the bottom of the caste hierarchy. See Gail Omvedt, “Caste, Agrarian Relations and Agrarian Conflicts,” Sociological Bulletin 29 no. 2 (September 1980): 142–170. 6 “The landless want land not only as a means of subsistence and a security to borrow with but also as the essential token of status in rural society.” Krishna, “Agrarian Reform in India: Debate on Ceilings” at p 302. 7 Binswanger-Mkhize et al., Agricultural Land Redistribution. 8 Thomas Jefferson’s Statement, 1785 cited in ibid. at p. 3: “Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated land and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate a natural right. The earth is given as common stock for man to labor and live on. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be provided to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not, the fundamental right to labor the earth returns to the unemployed.” 9 World Bank. 2003. “World Development Report 2003: Sustainable Development in a Dynamic World – Transforming Institutions, Growth, and Quality of Life.” World Bank. © World Bank, accessed March 25, 2019, https://open knowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/5985 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO. 10 Krishna, “Agrarian Reform in India.” 11 The programme of Land to the Tiller was popularized by the Indian Communist Party in 1934. The Congress did not include a redistribution programme in its pre-independence agenda as it did not want to indulge in a class war. See Austin, Working a Democratic Constitution. The idea was based on actual reconstruction of the agrarian society by redistributing land to the one who is tilling and confers ownership rights on the person. A tiller included all classes of tenants, especially the ones falling in the lower classes having no occupancy rights, agricultural labourers, and all other peasants. For a detailed discussion on the programme, see Ronald J. Herring, Land to the Tiller: The Political Economy of Agrarian Reform in South Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), accessed March 25, 2019, http://library.wur.nl/WebQuery/clc/190659. 12 Binswanger-Mkhize et al., Agricultural Land Redistribution at p. 10. 13 Warriner, Land Reform in Principle and Practice. 14 The plans admitted that no concrete records existed to indicate the ground realities of land tenure but assessed the system as consisting of numerous small holdings that were largely uneconomic, a small number of middle-peasants with a sprinkling of substantial owners. Para 11, First Five-Year Plan. 15 Para. 12 “Second Five-Year Plan” (New Delhi: Planning Commission, Government of India, 61 1956), accessed January 28, 2019, http://planningcommission. nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/index2.html.

Law of land redistribution 129 16 The attempt to impose a ceiling is generally perceived to be futile. Although limits on the amount of land that can be legally held still exist, the larger impact of the programme was miniscule compared to what was expected. Either the limits imposed were too high or a lot of exemptions were available to be claimed by the landowner: the law or a series of benami transactions were responsible for fragmenting large holdings to bring them within the ceiling limit or landowners were able to trap the state authorities in lengthy litigations based on their compensation claims and the land remained in their occupation. There were a lot of factors responsible for failure of the programme and all of them had their roots in the legal framework, as will be apparent in the discussion which will be undertaken shortly. 17 The key objectives of land and agrarian reform were defined as follows: “The objectives of land reform are twofold: firstly, to remove such impediments upon agricultural production as arise from the character of the agrarian structure; and secondly, to create conditions for evolving, as speedily as may be possible, an agrarian economy with high levels of efficiency and productivity. These aspects are interrelated, some measures of land reform bearing more directly on the first aim, others to a greater extent on the second.” The complete text of the second five-year plan can be accessed at http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/ fiveyr/index2.html, accessed January 28, 2019. 18 Para. 3, Chapter 9, “Second Five-Year Plan,” accessed January 28, 2019, http:// planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/2nd/2planch9.html. 19 “Small and uneconomic agricultural holdings have long been the most difficult problem in the development of the rural economy. There is general agreement that it is through reorganisation along cooperative lines that Indian agriculture can become efficient and productive.” Ibid. 20 Refer to paras. 3, 5, 48, 49 “Second Five-Year Plan.” 21 Para. 4: “During the second five year plan it is proposed to take a series of measures which will lay the foundations for co-operative reorganisation of the rural economy. Once the vast majority of cultivators become owners or virtual owners of land in their own right, programmes for the consolidation of holdings assume a great deal of urgency both in themselves and as a stage in the development of cooperation. In carrying out these programmes sufficient experience has been gained in several parts of the country for marked progress to be achieved in this field during the second five year plan. Conditions have to be created in which an increasing number of activities in rural economic life, both non-agricultural and agricultural, are undertaken through co-operative organisations.” “Second Five-Year Plan.” 22 Professor Michael Lipton, a world-renowned development economist makes a compelling case for the economics of small farm holdings. Referring to the concern as an IR-DR Debate (Inverse Relationship-Direct Relationship of farm size with productivity), Lipton argues that farm size is not the main determinant of land productivity, but it gains importance when other sources of farm growth weaken in developing countries. It is the inverse relationship of farm size and productivity coupled with prevailing land scarcity in developing countries, he argues, that make land reform increase farm output, rather than decreasing it. Michael Lipton, “Goals: Output, Efficiency, Growth Beyond the Inverse Relationship,” in Land Reform in Developing Countries Property Rights and Property Wrongs, ed. Michael Lipton (Oxford: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2009), 65–123. Hereinafter, Lipton, Land Reform in Developing Countries. 23 World Bank, World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development (World Bank, 2007). 24 See generally P. C. Joshi, “Agrarian Social Structure and Social Change,” Sankhyā: The Indian Journal of Statistics, Series B (1960–2002) 31, no. 3/4

130  Law of land reform (1969): 479–490. Hereinafter, Joshi, “Agrarian Social Structure”; Ramkrishna Mukherjee, “Realities of Agrarian Relations in India,” Economic and Political Weekly 16, no. 4 (1981): 109–116, accessed January 28, 2019, www.jstor.org/ stable/4369463. 25 Hereinafter, Lipton, Land Reform in Developing Countries and Joshi, “Agrarian Social Structure.” 26 Bank, World Development Report 2008. 27 Section 3 of the PEPSU Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955. 28 Warriner, Land Reform in Principle and Practice. 29 A general reading of the aims and objectives of the ceiling statutes would reveal this conclusion. With the exception of Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976 no other statute in the country declared redistribution as their central objective. Refer to Annexure A3, Ceiling Legislations Across India. 30 Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, Government of India, “Agrarian Reforms: Report of the National Commission on Agriculture,” Report of the National Commission on Agriculture (New Delhi: Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, Government of India, 1949). Hereinafter, Report of the National Commission on Agriculture, 1949. 31 The ultimate idea of the policymakers was to encourage pooling of land that was redistributed to create consolidated, agriculturally viable holdings in the form of agricultural cooperatives. Para. 29, First Five-Year Plan: “While the extension of co-operative farming and co-operative activities generally will do much to develop the social and economic life of the village and, in particular, will benefit small and middle landholders, the scope of rural organisation has to be conceived in wider terms.” 32 Report of the National Commission on Agriculture, 1949 at p. 156. This decision was met with one dissenting opinion, that of Dr. Rao who held that the maximum holding should not be greater than five times the economic holding and that this amount would fulfil all the purposes considered by the committee in setting up the limit. 33 “Second Five-Year Plan” at para. 40: In view of the fact that only a small fraction of agricultural holdings can be described as large holdings, it will be convenient to place the ceiling at about three family holdings. 34 The first five-year plan defined the term as a family holding may be deemed briefly as being equivalent, according to the local conditions and under the existing conditions of technique, either to a plough unit or to a work unit for a family of average size working with such assistance as is customary in agricultural operations. 35 Refer to Chapter 2, Part I. 36 Andhra Pradesh Land Reforms (Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings) Act, 1973 Section 4 (1): “(1) The ceiling area in the case of family unit consisting of not more than five members shall be an extent of land equal to one standard holding.” 37 Section 5(1)(a) “Subject to the provisions of sub-sections (3-A), (3-B) and (3-C) and of Chapter VIII, the ceiling area in the case of every person (other than the institutions referred to in clauses (c) and (d) and subject to the provisions of sub-sections (3-A), (3-B), (3-C), (4) and (5) and of Chapter VIII, the ceiling area in the case of every family consisting of not more than five members shall be 15 standard acres.” 38 Clauses (a), (f), and (g) of section 3(40)(1), Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceilings on Land) Act, 1961 39 Joan P. Mencher, “Land Ceilings in Tamil Nadu: Facts and Fictions,” Economic and Political Weekly 10, no. 5/7 (1975): 241–254, accessed July 15, 2019, www. jstor.org/stable/4536857. Hereinafter, Mencher, “Land Ceilings in Tamil Nadu: Facts and Fictions.”

Law of land redistribution 131 40 Ibid. 41 Section 5, Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceilings on Agricultural Land), 1961. 42 Under clauses (g), (h), and (i), one standard acre of dry land converts into 2.5, 3, and 4 acres of land, respectively. 43 Mencher, “Land Ceilings in Tamil Nadu: Facts and Fictions” at p. 241. 44 Ibid. 45 The historical inclination of the colonial land tenure system in favour of the landowning class has been one of the principal facts on which this work has placed reliance. This was, in fact, one of the cardinal reasons for the initiation of peasant revolts and the consequent political motivation to push for a reform in the tenure. Since a part of the class of landowners and intermediaries also were revenue officers in certain parts of the country or had close associations with the officers, the creation and maintenance of land revenue records could hardly be of a reliable character for a reform law to make these records the basis of its application. 46 Mencher, “Land Ceilings in Tamil Nadu.” at p. 245; where it is stated that “even in the pre-independence period, village landlords did their best to confuse things by having the local village accountant mix up his records as much as possible. In part, this was done to lower one's land tax, in part to make it harder for others in the village to know exactly how much land one had.” 47 Under the Pattadar Passbooks Act, 1971. 48 The Supreme Court has on various occasions recognized the fact that neither revenue records nor mutation proceedings can be held to be declarations of titles. They may be treated as evidence, but they themselves cannot be regarded as conclusive evidence of title. See Himachal Pradesh v. Keshav Ram and Ors. (1996) 11 SCC 27; Corporation of the City of Bangalore v. M. Papaiah and Anr. (1989) 3 SCC 612; Guru Amarjit Singh v. Rattan Chand and Ors(1993) 4 SCC 349. Although it is noticeable from all these judgments that no explicit reason for the non-acceptance of revenue records as conclusive evidence was given, the judgments themselves may be implied as a comment on the quality of revenue records maintained by the officials. However, C. V. Nagarjuna Reddy J. (the High Court of AP) in G. Satyanarayana v. Government of Andhra Pradesh, 2014 (4) ALD 358 at para. 135, after taking note of the aforementioned decisions of the Supreme Court has concluded that “on a close analysis of the background in which registers were prepared and entries were made, two reasons appear to constitute the basis of this dicta . . . secondly, there may be unscrupulous revenue officials at village and taluk levels who, in collusion with private individuals may manipulate records.” 49 Mencher, “Land Ceilings in Tamil Nadu.” 50 Defined under section 2(j), Rajasthan Imposition of Ceilings on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1973, a person includes “any trust, company, firm or association or body of individuals, whether incorporated or not.” 51 Section 4(2), Rajasthan Imposition of Ceilings on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1973: “A person may also select land for a separate unit up to the ceiling area of the primary unit for each separate unit: Provided that where the separate unit also holds any land or share of land, the same shall be taken into account for calculating the ceiling area.” 52 The fact that almost none of the legislations consider the necessity of examining the type of land that is surrendered by the owners is worrisome. When they are given an open choice in the matter, it is obvious that they would retain the lands of highest cultivable quality and surrender waste lands. This becomes a significant factor when the collected land is to be utilized for redistribution or other public purposes and will be discussed at the appropriate place, later in this chapter.

132  Law of land reform 53 The question regarding reasonableness of the amount of compensation is in fact a lengthy constitutional narrative. The question of determination of the amount arose as early as 1954 in the case of State of West Bengal v. Bella Banerjee AIR 1954 SC 170; it was followed by a landmark ruling in the Bank Nationalisation which ruled that a relevant law can be unconstitutional if the principles determining the amount were not appropriate for valuing the property sought to be acquired. In response to this, Constitution (Fourth Amendment) Act, 1955 was enacted by the legislature in which the word compensation was replaced by amount in Article 30(2). The effect of the change through the amendment was considered by the Supreme Court in the Kesavananda case, where the matter was finally settled. It was opined that although the replacement had removed the difficulty of adequacy of compensation; but the amount paid to the landowners could not be grossly low or illusionary or arbitrary. 54 Ibid. 55 Suhas Chattopadhyay, “On the Class Nature of Land Reforms in India since Independence,” Social Scientist (1973): 3–24. 56 Wolf Ladejinsky, “Land Ceilings and Land Reform,” Economic and Political Weekly 7, no. 5/7 (1972): 401–408 at p. 402. Hereinafter, Ladejinsky, “Land Ceilings and Land Reform.” 57 This is the limited extent to which the plan includes the matter in its discussion: Para. 42: “The basis on which compensation should be paid to owners whose areas are acquired and the basis on which the price of land should be recovered from persons to whom allotments are made are important questions of policy to be considered by each State Government in the light of its conditions. As regards the former, generally speaking, it will be convenient for State Governments to issue compensatory bonds redeemable over a period of, say, 20 years. The compensation to be paid to owners may be determined either as specified amounts related to different classes of land or in terms of a multiple of land revenue or in such other manner as may be considered feasible.” 58 The term asami refers to a cultivator or tenant or non-proprietor tenant. Wilson, Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms. 59 Refer to Chapter 4. 60 There are three trends that can be noticed from the last columns of Annexure A4 in the process of vesting of surplus land in the state government (or three categories) – lands can be vested by taking delivery of physical possession of land as in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh etc.; by notification by the state government (Sikkim and Tamil Nadu); or as in the states of J & K and WB, where a mere declaration of land as surplus would automatically vest that land in the state government. 61 The portion of Vesting of Surplus Land in Annexure A4 have to be read along with the data gathered from various states on the implementation of the ceiling programme (Annexure A7). This data deals with the status of implementation of ceiling law in each state, and specifies how much land was collected as surplus, how much was vested in the government and how much was redistributed. Refer to Annexures A4 and A7. 62 For the states falling in the first category (requiring physical possession), it can be seen that the amount of land vested in the government is half of the surplus – Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur; in the second category, there is obviously almost a 100 per cent conversion of land because of the automatic process adopted by the states; in the third category, West Bengal was able to gather almost 60 per cent of the surplus land. Refer to Annexure A7. 63 This claim can be made based on the reading of all ceiling legislations in the country. No ceiling statute accords any right, statutory or otherwise, to any class of beneficiaries that it lists. A constant negative entry in the portion on Redistributive Strategy in Annexure A5.

Law of land redistribution 133 64 Various examples can be cited from the tables to support this contention: the Uttar Pradesh Imposition of Ceilings on Landholdings Act, 1960 provides that the state government may use the land for any purpose that has been specified by the Land Acquisition Act; the Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961 provides that the state government may use land collected in ceiling for any public purpose; the Himachal Pradesh Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1974 merely stated that the land would be used for development of the state; the Bihar Land Reforms Act did not enlist any beneficiaries or make related provisions, and instead, stated that the acquired land could be used for industrial undertakings or providing civic amenities in place of a provision for redistributing land to the landless. 65 Ladejinsky, “Land Ceilings and Land Reform” at 401–408. 66 Thorner, “Agrarian Prospect in India.” 67 Preamble to the Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act of 1976 reads as follows: “An Act to provide for transfer of land to tillers thereof subject to certain conditions and for better utilization of land in the State of Jammu and Kashmir.” 68 The connotation of term personal cultivation in the state of Jammu and Kashmir did not include cultivation by agricultural labourers, an element of physical involvement in the process is necessary. 69 Section 2(1), Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act of 1976: “ ‘ceiling area’ means the extent of land measuring twelve and a half standard acres”; Category II Category III Category IV

 110 kanals  140 kanals  171 kanals

70 Subsection (2) of section 15, Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act of 1976, constructs a list of beneficiaries:   Section 15(2): The land becoming surplus under this Act shall be allotted according to the priorities given below, namely: (a) first priority shall be given to tillers having less than the basic area of 2.5 standard acres; (b) second priority shall be given to ex-owners having less than the basic area of 2.5 standard acres; (c) third priority shall be given to refugees of 1947 having less than 2.5 standard acres and having no other source of income; (d) fourth priority shall be given to landless agricultural labourers:

Provided that the landless persons of the same locality shall have priority of claim over those residing outside such locality; (e) fifth priority shall be given to refugees of 1947 having more than 2.5 standard acres, but less than five standard acres; provided that all the members of the family of such refugee are actually engaged in agriculture and reside in the village in which the land is situate.

71 There are many provisions in the Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act of 1976 like sections 19, 20, 21 that empower the authorities to implement redistribution. 72 The impact of abolition laws on a tenant’s security has been discussed in detail in the previous chapter. It analyzes the position of tenants under ceiling law. A table (Status of Tenants under Ceiling Legislations, Annexure A13) has been created, which tests each legislation on the provisions it frames for protecting the security of tenants. It is obvious that when ceiling is imposed on a landholding, the owners will surrender the land that is not under their direct control and therefore tenants would stand to be evicted. Certain statutes like that of Himachal Pradesh

134  Law of land reform Ceiling on Holdings Act, 1972 prevent the owners from doing so, whereas others have not seemed to consider such a possibility. 73 Subsection (3) of section 21, Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Tenancy Act, 1950. The relevant portion of the provision is as follows:   “On receipt of such application the Tribunal, after giving notice to the tenant and after holding enquiry, shall determine the value of the site, and shall by an order in writing, require the tenant to deposit the amount of value so determined within three months from the date of such order. On the deposit of such amount the site shall be deemed to have been transferred to the tenant and the amount deposited shall be paid to the landholder and the Tribunal shall, on payment of the prescribed fees, grant a certificate in the prescribed form to the tenant specifying therein the site so transferred and the name of the tenant.” 74 Section 32 of the Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948 provides for  compulsory transfer of ownership rights of tenanted lands to the tenants from 1st April 1957 which was declared by the Government of Maharashtra as “Tillers’ Day.” There was complete sale and purchase on this day. The title of landlord passed immediately to the tenant. 75 The term first finds use in the Standing Orders of the Madras Board of Revenue; Government of Tamil Nadu, “Standing Orders of the Board of Revenue (Land Revenue, Settlement, Miscellaneous)” (1820), http://revenue.tn.nic.in/books/ BSO-VOLUME-1-ENGLISH-FILE-1.pdf, accessed January 26, 2019. 76 In Prabha Sridevan, J.’s language, “these conditions were imposed bearing in mind that it would be easy to exploit persons belonging to the depressed classes who had long been kept in a subjugated condition.” VGP Prem Nagar v. The State of Tamil Nadu 2010 (3) CTC 845. 77 Though the cases that appear before the judiciary on the question of land assignment are from these states, most are from Kerala and Andhra Pradesh which enacted legislations relating to land assignment after independence. 78 K. Balagopal, “Land Unrest in Andhra Pradesh-I: Ceiling Surpluses and Public Lands,” Economic and Political Weekly (2007): 3829–3833. Hereinafter, Balagopal, “Land Unrest in Andhra Pradesh-I.” 79 Daniel Thorner, “Land Reform in India: Some Speculations,” in The Shaping of Modern India (New Delhi: Allied Publishers Pvt Ltd, 1980), 159–167. 80 Balagopal, “Land Unrest in Andhra Pradesh-I.” 81 Andhra Pradesh Assigned Lands (Prohibition of Transfers) (Amendment) Act, 2007. Sections 4(b) and (c) were amended by section 2 of the Act:   “Section 4(b) restore the assigned land, other than those lands/areas as may be notified by the Government from time to time in public interest and for public purpose, – (i) to the original assignee if he or she is eligible as per the norms fixed in this behalf, as on the date of restoration for one time; or (ii) assign to other eligible landless poor person: Provided that where the original assignee or his legal heir, after the first restoration transfers the assigned land, the land shall be resumed for assignment to the other eligible landless poor: Provided further that if no eligible landless poor persons are available in the village/area, the resumed land will be utilized for public purpose. Explanation:-For the purpose of this clause, "Public Interest" and "Public Purpose" shall mean and include, the Weaker Section Housing, Public Utility, Infrastructure development, Promotion of Industries and Tourism or for any other public purpose;

Law of land redistribution 135 (c) in the areas which may be notified by Government from time to time, lands resumed under clause 4(a) above, shall be utilized for public purpose.” 2 K. Balagopal, “Land Unrest in Andhra Pradesh-I.” 8 83 Landejinsky concludes in this paper on agrarian reform that the presence of ineffective land reform law is generally good for the masses. Wolf Ladejinsky, “Agrarian Reform in India,” The Selected Papers of Wolf Ladejinsky: Agrarian Reform as Unfinished Business, Sous La Direction, 1977.

6 Land administration, records, and titling

The law of land records, its purpose and functions The system of land records and administration occupies a fundamental, yet difficult position within the jurisprudence of land law. Administering land is no easy affair, and legal endeavours to lay down principles or procedures have often resulted in conflicting, convoluted land arrangements. Our entire understanding of land is governed by a system of rights. When we hope to administer land, we are inevitably hoping, in one way or another, to distribute rights over land, whether between persons or between the state and a person. Land records form the fundamental evidence of the distribution of such rights. Whether we refer to ownership or to any other form of claim, we are all speaking within the limited terminology of rights over a parcel of land. A movement to reform and redistribute land is an attempt to take rights from a set of owners and distribute the land to another group of persons who do not have any such rights;1 a movement that seeks to focus on bringing economic prosperity is talking about giving ownership of land to those who can exploit the resource to its maximum capacity, while any other movement (assuming one exists) seeks to maintain the status quo. Everything that we think and know about land is intrinsically linked to its title, and we seek to administer land through a system of records and titling – therefore, this chapter reflects, in one way, the flesh and bone of land and its law. The framework of land records reflects our legal understanding of land and facilitates the translation of land to property. This chapter discusses the law of land records and administration as being the core concept of land law, one that functions across legislations, regardless of their political objectives. I say that this chapter is the flesh and bone of land law (and hence specifically difficult for me to write) because, a system of creating and maintaining records of rights for land formalizes the legality of property rights.2 Once a parcel of land is demarcated and allotted to someone as its owner, the land becomes the person’s property and she acquires a bunch of rights over that parcel of land. The writing in land records is the right that the law is supposed to recognize in case of a conflict of claims. A system of land records is the basis for the translation of land to property, a hugely complicated and

Land administration, records, and titling 137 controversial legal process in itself.3 The practical difficulties in converting land to property have been discussed in the first part of Chapter 1;4 here I only seek to state that the translation is formally made by written and systematically maintained land records. A system of land records, therefore, forms the core of our understanding of land. It identifies the persons who can lay their claims over the use of land and the assisting law categorizes those claims in an order of priority. Our entire discussion about land reform in the previous chapters has remained centred around the idea of redistributing titles. We have sought to reform not our understanding of land as such, but the distribution of rights around land. The next part deals with the law of land acquisition, and there, we also speak about the nature of land from the perspective of who owns it: the state, a person or the community as a whole; in addition, we analyze the state’s claim of eminent domain over land. In a substantive way then, land records establish a relationship between a person and land. The person acquires an identity of a landowner (if the right granted is one of ownership) and the law is strategically positioned to protect such an identity. This identity is almost immediately converted into a status by society, for land-ownership has always been considered a symbol of pride and wealth. The purpose of maintaining land records, or revenue records as they were historically called, has been redesigned to provide people with such identities. British India maintained land records for a very limited purpose – it was essential for the revenue administration to identify the people who were liable to pay land revenue. In the post-independence era, land records have acquired a more distinctive purpose: they stand as an extensive narrative of distribution of rights over land. They were one of the primary concerns of our land reform programme; in fact, our redistribution agenda was premised on the idea that ownership of land, along with access, needed to be distributed between the tillers of land. Land records were required to provide the tillers with a legal identity, one which could aid in their socio-economic progress. It is the lack of a legal identity associated with land that was held to be the cause of distress for the landless. Land reform sought to remedy this situation by redistributing titles. As has been reiterated previously, landownership associates itself with power and status and by distributing titles, land reform sought to reform the power dynamics of agrarian structures. The legislations for land acquisition, on the other hand, utilize titles for different purposes. The constitutional procedure for land acquisition mandates that the property owners be awarded an amount of compensation for the loss they suffer. In matters of land acquisition, compensation was required to be paid to those whose name appeared in the land records. The new 2013 land acquisition legislation was premised on the idea that it was necessary to provide legal recognition to all those people associated with land who otherwise lacked title. In effect, in the perception of the law of acquisition, a person would be considered worthy of receiving compensation only if she possessed a legal title to the acquired land. The 2013 Act made a sweeping

138  Law of land reform change in the law by recognizing most groups of people who worked on the land but did not possess any legal documents to that effect. A title to land is, therefore, central to the functionality of the legal system of land and yet, the law has maintained a rather inconclusive concept for its discernment. In fact, discerning the title to a parcel of land is an almost Sisyphean exercise, for there’s never just one claim to land and the law is grossly unclear in establishing an order of priority. Land titling is one of the most obfuscated processes of law. Ownership of land can be gained through various legal means, but the law is unable to protect such ownership. The laws of transfer of property allow land to be a fluid entity in the market, but the law of land records has been historically inefficient to cope with the number of transfers made. Legal transfers are made throughout the country without any alterations in the land records. Even where such alterations are made, land records have not been accepted as conclusive evidence of title.5 A legal title to land is deemed to be true and effective as long as no other better claim is made to that parcel of land,6 thereby making ownership of land perpetually unclear. As a necessary corollary, litigations relating to title of land have overwhelmingly occupied the courts. Contesting title in law is a rather easy affair and so is keeping the dispute alive for decades. In most cases, people are able to make a practical claim of ownership of land on the grounds of interim judgments that maintain the status quo until the dispute is finally settled.7 Although the legal position of records and titling has remained rather ambiguous, the land reform movement, at least in its policy, had not completely ousted the need to reform the system of land records. The five-year plans made recurring statements about the need to reform land records.8 The legal policy of the time acknowledged that the system of land records and titling provides the underpinning of the administration of land law and it was imperative that the substructure be strengthened. It might seem a little odd to think of a land reform programme without a reform of the law maintaining records and title, because an effective reform cannot be imagined without one. However, all of these ideas remained articulated on policy documents and never translated into any effective legislation. The next section will examine the legal situation of records and titling in the twin states of Andhra and Telangana, as an illustration of the failed reform programme. The law of land records is extremely unique to each state and therefore, a comparative tabular framework, as has been applied to study the other parts of land reform, cannot be applied here. Andhra and Telangana have produced the most dense land revenue–record legal framework, and therefore, provide an excellent study for the present purposes.

The Andhra–Telangana legal scenario The last two chapters have argued that the Indian land reform programme consisted of all sorts of elaborate legal interventions, including complicated procedures of abolishing certain titles and transferring certain others, but

Land administration, records, and titling 139 the underlying legal provisions were constructed to destroy the reform agenda. The reform was also conducted without a concrete legislative measure that could construct a substructure on the basis of which reforms could be carried out. It has been the contention of this chapter that revenue and regulation laws form that substructure, and the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana provide a classic example of such a situation. In the Andhra and Telangana regions, the law of records has been utilized to work in opposition to the core objectives of land reform – instead of supporting reformation of land relationships, the law had disrupted the process. The statutes responsible for curtailing the rights of landowning class (e.g. abolition of intermediaries, imposition of ceilings) failed to meet their objectives, and others created to regulate landownership and transactions (like determination of title, prohibition of transfer of lands in certain communities, encroachment of government land, etc.) militated against the efforts of the landless peasants to acquire legal titles to land. Even after enacting the largest body of land reform legislation since its inception in 1956,9 the results of measures undertaken in the erstwhile state of Andhra Pradesh have generally not been regarded as successful.10 This failure had been attributed to the lack of proper implementation of the established norm by the administration. Peasants belonging to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes have lost more land than they were supposed to gain under the state’s redistribution programme – in 1961, 23 per cent of people held ownership to the lands they cultivated; this number was reduced to 12 per cent in the year 1991; the percentage of landless agricultural labourers has risen to 72 per cent; more than 50 per cent of the coastal area of the state is under cultivation by leasing out the land; and almost 100 per cent of these tenancies are unrecorded and informal. It has become a common practice in the state for lands to be purchased through plain paper transactions, where generally 75 to 80 per cent of the purchasers belong to the low economic background and are not recognized as legal owners of the purchased land.11 It has been further observed that the Land Revenue Administration of the state is in a state of virtual paralysis,12 with the custodians of land records, the Panchayat Secretaries, seeming to lack any knowledge of land records and village administration. Furthermore, the dispute resolution system has only disappointed the beneficiaries of social reform legislations, due to its lack of efficacy in solving lengthy and complicated land disputes. The preceding sketch is merely a brief description of the condition of land reform in the twin states; the state government reports have hesitantly and subtly admitted the failure, and have termed the legislative measures as an unfinished agenda,13 while the more candid voices in the state have called it an irretrievably lost opportunity.14 It is rather astonishing to have encountered a failed state of affairs in regions who have not seemed to flounder while producing reform legislations; clearly, in terms of quantity, there was no dearth of post-independence legislative efforts that were launched by the

140  Law of land reform state legislators in the matter of land reform, and neither was there any scarcity of revenue laws that continued to remain in force from colonial times.15 It is the interaction between land revenue and reform laws that is determinative of ground realities and thus is the core subject of interest. The legislative enthusiasm of the states produced a second ceiling legislation in the year 1973, in order to replace the older one after the admitted failure of the first ceiling legislation of 1961. The limitations imposed by the ceiling laws have been discussed previously, but those numbers were only one among the various factors which ensured the failure of law.16 The ceiling limit on a family under the 1973 law was applicable on the extent of land held by the family as per the revenue records, and if the records reveal that a partition has taken place in the family, multiple limits would be applicable to that holding, in accordance with the number of land segments created as a result of partition. The Kanungo Ranga Rao Committee has admitted that, in this fashion, landowners have successfully been able to manipulate records to their benefit. There appears to be a direct linkage in the status of landholdings, as known by the state administration, and the reform measures that it has to undertake; laws in Andhra Pradesh/Telangana have had no unambiguous means of determining real title to land. If an enquiry is to be made to identify the laws that relate to settling of titles on land, it would ideally need to start with the land tenure settlements dating back to 1886, which are rather archaic and copious. Therefore, in order to maintain brevity, this discussion will begin instead with the legislative measures undertaken for revenue and records after 1947, when the newly established state had abolished all tenure systems of zamindari, inams, and jagirs by a series of radical legislations.17 It might be expected that, since the law was making such expeditious interventions in the archaic tenure, there would arise a corresponding need to update the settlement and revenue records in order to document the alterations that were being made and facilitate the process of change. However, it must also be considered that the historical reason for maintaining land records (which was the collection of revenue) was also being abolished by the new law. After independence, land revenue was no longer such a major source of revenue to the government as it used to be, and maintenance of land records lost its significance,18 as did the Land Revenue Administration; as a consequence, a transformation in their nature, functioning and relevance in consonance with the overall reform of land tenure could barely be seen. For a long time after land tenure was altered, the survey and settlement records were guided by rules and regulations framed under colonial legislations. In 1971, the record of rights was brought under a statute: the AP Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 1971. Prior to this statute, a few attempts were made to survey and settle records of lands: Land Revenue Rules of 1951, Telangana Area Land Census Rules of 1954, Government Order No. 9 dated 27–10–1949 of Reorganisation of Survey and Settlement

Land administration, records, and titling 141 Department, Hyderabad Records of Rights in Land Regulation 1358 F (1948), Laoni Rules of 1950, besides the Board Standing Orders for land assignment. All of these regulations have together produced a series of interrelated provisions and documents that regulate title to land and, as per the rationale of G. Satyanarayana v. Government of Andhra Pradesh, the following documents are considered to constitute core revenue records – in Andhra region, the Diglot or A – Register that originated under the settlement of 1886– 1887, Ledger/Chitta constituting the settlement record (otherwise known as Adandal/Annual Settlement of occupation) prepared under the Land Census of 1954, and the Register of Holdings maintained under BSO – 31; in Telangana region, the Sethwar Register kept under the Hyderabad Land Revenue Act, 1317 F, Supplementary Sethwar, Wasool Baqui Register, Khasra Pahani prepared under the Land Census of 1954 conducted under Tenancy Act of 1950, Pahani, Chowfsla, and Faisal Patti. As per section 35 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, these records are public records and would constitute a relevant fact in case of a dispute of title; based on this principle of evidence law, the evidentiary value of a record of rights has been defined under section 5 of the 1971 Act where a presumption has been raised in favour of the correctness of the records.19 Jurisprudence on the evidentiary value of revenue records suggests that the records carry high evidentiary value, provided the Record of Rights is prepared and maintained under provisions of the relevant statutes or the Regulations, as the case may be.20 However, the 1971 Act has, under section 13,21 repealed the 1358 F Regulation and all standing orders relating to records of rights of land which were the source of the records in the Telangana region. This would mean that the Sethwar Register, pahani and other settlement records have lost their evidentiary value after the repeal of their source legislation and neither do the rules framed under the 1971 legislation recognize any of the settlement records as records of titles that have been made outside of its purview. An absence of any connection between settlement records and record of titles is bewildering, because it would be impossible to prepare and update land records without referring to the previous settlements made under the relevant law in force as envisaged under section 3(1) of the Act.22 The states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have three departments that are in charge of maintaining land records – the Survey and Settlement Department, Revenue Department, and the Registration Department – but it has been observed that none works in coordination with the others.23 Land transactions have been conducted in the states by mere registration of sale deeds without initiation of mutation proceedings in the revenue records, creating a grave discrepancy between registration and revenue records. Although section 4 places a duty upon both the person involved in the transaction and the registration officer to intimate the acquisition of rights to the concerned revenue officer,24 and the revenue officer is required to act on receiving such

142  Law of land reform intimation, unless such intimation is made, the officer is under no statutory obligation to update the records. Neither settlement regulations nor records are even a concern for the 1971 Act. The situation of land-distribution in Andhra and Telangana has been neatly described by Balagopal where, among other things, he highlights the fact that even where lands were allotted to people, the papers given to them made no clear indications of the location of the land, which effectively meant that people received no land in the process – The issues then are that in many cases, the distribution was only on paper: a piece of paper indicating the land grant was given but the recipient was not put in possession of the land. Indeed, in quite a few instances there was no clear indication of the land granted: a survey number covering a large extent would be shown on the grant and the extent granted would be shown as one or two acres (the rule being a maximum of 2 l/2 acres of wet land or five acres of dry land), without showing where it lies in the land. Sometimes the land granted would already be encroached on by someone else and they would refuse to budge. No assistance is given to the grantee to help get possession of the land. Most often the land, being stone and bush filled, would need much work on it to make it cultivable, and the government would neither undertake the task nor provide capital to the grantee to undertake it. A landless poor person who has to labour every day in somebody else’s fields to keep the family alive cannot afford to take time off to clear the land assigned to him/her of stones and bushes. And so they have often sold it cheap to someone who has the capital to bring it under cultivation. The government never heeded the demand that if assignment is to be meaningful, it should improve the land, make it cultivable, and in rain-scarce areas provide some water source too. Finally, there were cases of the powerful encroaching onto the assigned land by force and dispossessing the grantee.25 When the established legal system was unable to convey land to the beneficiaries as per its objectives, the landless peasantry took it upon themselves to claim their right to land.26 Agitators of land, usually belonging to leftist political fronts, indicted the failure of the government to provide land to the landless for agriculture and shelter, and encouraged the landless to occupy vacant government lands, which they were due to receive under the redistribution laws of the state, in order to drive home the belief that the landless hold a right to land. In legal terms, this exercise, however, was purely of a symbolic nature because the act of taking over government lands tags the persons as encroachers27 under land regulation norms; no legal right to land can be acquired in this manner as land rights are tightly circumscribed by the law that usually works exclusively in favour of the landed class or the government. Section 7A(1) of the Andhra Pradesh Land Encroachment Act,

Land administration, records, and titling 143 190528 empowers the collector to order the immediate eviction of persons who have taken unauthorized possession of government land, by calling on police assistance where necessary, and to take back possession of the land forthwith. Section 7A (1) – Encroachment by Group of Persons on Government Land and their Eviction: Where the District Collector knows or has reason to believe that a group or groups of persons without any entitlement and with the common object of occupying any land, which is the property of the Government, are occupying or have occupied any such land, and if such group or groups of persons have not vacated the land on demand by the District Collector or any officer authorised by him in this behalf, the District Collector shall, notwithstanding anything in this Act, order without any notice, the immediate eviction of the encroacher from the land and the taking of possession of the land; and thereupon it shall be lawful for any officer authorised by the District Collector in this behalf to evict the encroachers from the land by force, taking such police assistance as may be necessary, and take possession of the land. In addition to this, the combined effect of section 7A (3) and section 12A makes the order of eviction passed by the Collector immune from being challenged in any court unless the state government itself wishes to initiate proceedings against its officers for clearing government land of encroachers. Section 7A (3) – Notwithstanding anything in this Act, but subject to the provisions of Section12-A, any order of eviction passed by the District Collector under sub-section (1) shall be final and shall not be questioned in any Court. Section 12A (1) Power of Government to call for records and pass orders – The State Government may, in their discretion, at any time, either suo motu or an application made to them, call for and examine, the records relating to any decision or order passed or proceeding taken by any authority or officer subordinate to them under this Act for the purpose of satisfying themselves as to the legality or propriety of such decision or order, as to the regularity of such proceeding and pass such order in reference thereto as they think fit. Not only does this refuse to accord any legal right to landless people who acquire government lands in order to declare their right to land, it also legitimizes the official action of penalizing such people and evicting them from the land. Even in a situation where the prevailing government decides to regularize the possession by making the land leasable or assignable under the relevant statutes and proceeds to confer rights on the persons in question, it still needs to follow the same legal route consisting of records and

144  Law of land reform regulations which would make it possible for other persons to claim a better title to the land than the persons who acquired possession.29 The motto of all land reform measures in the country to do what little can be done without hurting the rich too much30 has been further upheld by the law that regulates lands occupied by forests and scheduled tribes. In spite of the general declaration made that lands in the scheduled areas can be occupied by no one other than persons belonging to the concerned tribe,31 the legal provisions (Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulation, 1959 amended in 1970) have been seen to accord the rights of occupation of forest and scheduled land to everyone but the protected scheduled tribes. A legal prohibition on transfer of scheduled lands to nontribals was in force only after 1917 in the Andhra area and 1963 in the Telangana area, and until 1959, tribal land could be purchased by a nontribal with the consent of the Collector.32 Given the demographic reflected in revenue records, the endeavour of tracing back the title to scheduled land and applying prohibition of transfer from a particular date could not have worked. Therefore, until September 30, 2005, out of the 72,000 cases decided under the LTR for determining of title to scheduled lands, a total of 33,319 cases were decided in favour of non-tribal persons and the others against them; of the 321,683 acres of land involved in these cases, 162,989 acres were confirmed as being owned by non-tribal persons and the remaining 133,636 acres of land went to the tribal population.33 These figures suggest that even after an outright legal prohibition on the transfer of scheduled lands to anyone outside the tribe, close to half of the land has managed to slither away from the scheduled tribes. In this situation of absence of land for cultivation, where members of the scheduled tribes have little or no access to land,34 and were forced to attempt to claim their customary right on forest land, the law accorded them the status of encroachers on forest lands. The extent of encroachment on forest lands in the state of Andhra Pradesh alone was 20 per cent of the countrywide figure, second only to the state of Assam. Formalization of property rights through a system of records and titling has always been an opportunity for the landowners to protect their own interests and the functioning of the land records system is clear evidence to showcase such dynamics. The concept of private property rights was conceived to secure the rights of ownership of the landowners against everyone else. The system of records and tilting was established to function in such a way as to accord protection to the owners of land. When reform of land was proposed, the system of records and titling was required to aid in the process of redistribution and then provide protection to the new owners of land, equivalent to that which the erstwhile owners had enjoyed for decades. However, these expectations were misconceived for two reasons – first, records provided a preliminary protection to landowners which stood against the whole idea of redistribution, and second, the entire administration of records was managed by the politics of landowners, to safeguard

Land administration, records, and titling 145 their rights. If land reform policy was to actually achieve some reform, it had to strategically overcome both of these factors. Under a redistributive regime, a reformed land records and titling system should have functioned to support and protect the newly acquired titles by the landless. The web of land laws created by Andhra–Telangana was, at least in its declaratory note, an attempt to make such alterations to the tenure. For the legislations to function at ground level, it was necessary that the laws of redistribution worked in coordination with those of records and titling. Instead, the laws were drafted to do the exact opposite. Even the different statutes of records law did not coordinate with one another; transfers were legally possible without any amendment of records, redistributed rights faced conflicting claims and the people received inconclusive titles. An erosion of the evidentiary value of revenue registers only added to the list of problems. Where laws were drafted to specifically protect the rights of forest dwellers, the concept of encroachment came to the rescue of the state. When I asserted that the records and titling system were a substructure to the functioning of a land reform regime, I meant that the process of reform needed to begin with the alteration of the power dynamics inherent in land relationships. This indeed, was a difficult task to perform for a legal reform that seemed to enjoy getting entangled in its own technicalities. The web of laws that Andhra–Telangana have produced is a classic example of an obfuscated legal regime that apparently exists only to fail, and certainly seems incapable of successfully implementing a system of land reform in the country. A rather unreformed revenue-record-titling legal system was one of the major reasons for the failure of land reform as an ideology. Side by side with this, we also needed to do some serious rethinking of our understanding of property rights in land.

Notes 1 Therefore, the entire argument of redistribution is also premised on the idea of property rights. The redistribution argument assumes that transfer of private property rights from the landed classes (mostly traditional) to the non-landed would reduce inequality in land distribution and consequently provide an adequate means of livelihood to millions of people. The argument is strong and has been central to this work. The blatant inequality in land distribution is directly linked to income inequality but there is of course, however, a larger thematic question that needs consideration: whether private property rights, even in redistributive regimes, can provide answers to the contemporary struggles of land and land relationships, which includes the questions of environmentally sustainable use of land? Or can the redistributive regime be conceived outside of the private property rights theory? Social jurisprudence has always argued against the idea of ownership or property in land altogether and is instead based on the idea of labour. It has argued that land cannot and does not belong to any one person; it belongs to all. Such jurisprudence is yet to be developed in the Indian context and it is important that these larger concerns generate a new jurisprudence for land. The use of land, other than being directly linked to economics and sociology, is also directly linked to the environment and therefore, demands serious

146  Law of land reform jurisprudential reconsideration. This small work, however, is conducting only a normative study of land law, as it stands today, and is therefore, limited by that scope. See generally Morris Ginsberg, On Justice in Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1965); Large, “This Land Is Whose Land-Changing Concepts of Land as Property.” 2 See generally Thomas W. Merrill, “Formalization, Possession, and Ownership The Role of Property in Secure Societies: Panel 1: Land Titling, Inclusion, and the Role of Property Rights in Secure Societies,” Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference Journal 6 (2017): 113–128; Sebastian Galiani and Ernesto Schargrodsky, “Land Property Rights and Resource Allocation,” Journal of Law & Economics 54 (2011): S329–S346; Michael Trebilcock and Paul-Erik Veel, “Property Rights and Development: The Contingent Case for Formalization,” University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law 30 (2008/2009): 397–482. 3 Ibid.; also see Bruce G. Carruthers and Laura Ariovich, “The Sociology of Property Rights,” Annual Review of Sociology 30 (2004): 23–46. 4 Refer to the initial discussion in Chapter 1 where land is argued to be different from property. 5 Prachee Mishra Roopal Suhag, “Land Records and Title in India” (PRS, September 2017), accessed January 29, 2019, www.prsindia.org/uploads/media/Ana lytical%20Report/Land%20Records%20and%20Titles%20in%20India.pdf. 6 Ibid. Land Titles are conceived to be presumptive in nature. 7 D. C. Wadhwa, “Guaranteeing Title to Land,” Economic and Political Weekly 37, no. 47 (2002): 4699–4722. 8 Para. 8, First Five-Year Plan: “A revenue administration depends, in the last resort, upon a good system of village records. In States like West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Rajasthan, and Ajmer, there are scarcely any village records. In Hyderabad and certain other areas, over large tracts, there existed a system of village records maintained by zamindars and jagirdars through their own petty employees. These records were seldom of adequate quality and could not be fully relied upon. Records of rights and other land records become even more important at a time when rapid changes affecting land have become a normal feature of legislative activity. It would not in fact be too much to say that in some States because of defective revenue records the implementation of reforms already enacted will remain incomplete and may even raise new problems which will come in the way of good administration.”   Para. 35, First Five-Year Plan: “Equally, it is important to maintain a continuous record of information concerning progress in the implementation of land reform programmes adopted by the States.”   Para. 17, Second Five-Year Plan: “During the past few years, there have been instances in some States of large-scale ejectment of tenants, and of ‘voluntary surrender’ of tenancies. The main causes are ignorance on the part of the people of legislative provisions regarding security of tenure, possible lacunae in the law, inadequate land records and defective administrative arrangements.” 9 Refer to the table on land legislations in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana (Annexure A15). It lists 68 land legislations enacted in the states, along with a brief description and other relevant provisions related to each. 10 LGAF Report, 2014; Koneru Ranga Rao Land Committee Report, 2006. 11 Ibid. at p. 5. 12 Koneru Ranga Rao Land Committee Report, 2006: “The Land Committee notes with regret that the land administration over the last decade has gradually weakened to a virtual state of paralysis today. The traditional systems of land administration stand diluted. A significant percentage of the land records face decay. It has been estimated that India loses 1.3 per cent economic growth annually as a result of disputed land titles, which inhibit supply of capital and credit for agriculture.”

Land administration, records, and titling 147 3 Ibid. at p. 33. 1 14 K. Balagopal, “Land Unrest in Andhra Pradesh-I: Ceiling Surpluses and Public Lands,” Economic and Political Weekly 42, no. 38 (2007): 3829–3833. 15 The regions of Andhra–Telangana have, since colonial times, been dominated by a copious quantity of legislations, regulations and Board Standing Orders. The Permanent Settlement Regulation of 1802 provided for the issue of permanent title deeds called sunned–i–milkayat–istimarari by the government to the zamindars and other landholders. The Patta Regulation (Regulation 30 of 1802) provided for the grant of patta by zamindars/landholders to a ryot and the execution of its counterpart by the ryot, called the muchilika. This regulation created a state of confusion in the mutual rights and duties of landholders and ryots. The patta was essentially a document of lease given by the landholder to the tenant, specifying the terms and conditions of tenure. In order to clarify the situation, the Estates Lands Act 1 of 1908 was passed; this attempted to regulate the relations between landholders and ryots. Simultaneously, however, attempts to settle the land tenure on the basis of a ryotwari system were being carried out by Thomas Munro, resulting in the settlement of 1886–87. It was this settlement that created the Settlement Register, termed Diglot or A-Register which forms core revenue records. The same regulation also sought to settle inams. The Diglot register was considered a core revenue record for the Andhra region as per the rationale of the judgment by C V Nagarjuna in G. Satya Narayana v. Government of Andhra Pradesh, 2014 (4) ALD 358, 2014 (3) ALT 473. 16 The Planning Commission Task Force also recognizes the fact that the law has obstructed its own implementation. 17 AP (Andhra Area) Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948; AP (Andhra Area) Inams (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1956; Hyderabad Abolition of Jagirs Regulation 1358 F (1948 AP); Hyderabad Abolition of Inams Act, 1955. 18 Para. 96, G. Satyanarayana v. Government of Andhra Pradesh, 2014 (4) ALD 358, 2014 (3) ALT 473. The government had also reduced village accounts from 40 to 22 in Telangana area and from 38 to 23 in Andhra Area vide G.O.Ms. No. 599, Revenue (N) Department, dated July 1, 1976 and G.O.Ms. No, 1474 Revenue (N) Department, dated December 15, 1979. 19 Section 6: “Every entry in the record of rights shall be presumed to be true until the contrary is proved or until it is otherwise amended in accordance with the provisions of this Act. Any mortgage or charge created earlier to a mortgage or charge created in favour of a credit agency shall lose its priority if it is not entered in the pattadar pass book.” 20 Rajaswararao v. Naringarao AIR 1952 Hyderabad 75, Myram Lachaiah v. Nafeezunnisa Begum ILR 72 AP 652, Md. Ibrahim v. Secretary to the Government of India 1996 (2) ALT 950, Avadh Kishore v. Ram Gopal AIR 1979 SC 861, Kasturchand v. Harbilash (2000) 7 SCC 611. 21 Section 13: “The Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Record of Rights in Land Regulation, 1358 Fasli (Regulation No. LVIII of 1358 F.) and all standing orders and any other provisions of law relating to the record of rights of land as in force in the State are hereby repealed.   Provided that the provisions of Section 8 of the Andhra Pradesh General Clauses Act, 1891 (Act 1 of 1891) shall be applicable in respect of the repeal of the said enactment, standing orders and other provisions of law, and Sections 8 and 18 of the said Act shall be applicable as if the said enactment, standing orders, provisions of law had been repealed and re-enacted by an Andhra Pradesh Act.” 22 Section 3(1): “As soon as may be after the commencement of this Act in any area, there shall be 1[prepared and brought up to date from time to time, by the

148  Law of land reform recording authority] in such manner, and thereafter maintained in such form as may be prescribed, a record of rights in all lands in every village in that area and such record of rights shall contain the following particulars, namely. – (a) the names of all persons who are owners, pattadars, mortgagees, occupants or tenants of lands; (b) the nature and extent of the respective rights or interest of such persons and the conditions or liabilities if any, attaching thereto; (c) the rent, revenue or other amount, if any, payable by, or to any of such persons; (d) such other particulars as may be prescribed.” 3 Land Government Assessment Framework Report. 2 24 Section 4: “(1) Any person acquiring by succession, survivorship, inheritance, the partition, Government patta, decree of a court or otherwise any right as owner pattadar, mortgagee, occupant or tenant of a land and any person acquiring any right as occupant of a land by any other method shall intimate in writing his acquisition of such right, to the Mandal Revenue Officer within ninety days from the date of such acquisition, and the said Mandal Revenue Officer shall give or send a written acknowledgement of the receipt of such intimation to the person making it:” “(2) Notwithstanding anything contained in the Registration Act, 1908, every registering officer appointed under the Act and registering a document relating to a transaction in land, such as sale, mortgage, gift, lease or otherwise shall intimate the Mandal Revenue Officer of the Mandal in which the property is situate of such transaction.” 25 Balagopal, “Land Unrest in Andhra Pradesh-I,” 2007. 26 Historically, peasant revolts have been the strongest in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and West Bengal. 27 The term encroacher has not been expressly defined under the Act. Liabilities have been placed under the statute on persons who have taken unauthorized occupation of land on which right of property has been bestowed on government as per section 2 of the Act. 28 It must be noted that the 1905 Act is a colonial statute that provided measures for checking unauthorized occupation of lands which were the property of the government. Protection of public lands, especially lands belonging to two classes, poramboke and assessed waste, was its central objective. The Act levied assessment on persons who it recognized as encroachers. Section 7A was added to the colonial enactment by an amendment in 1978, during the land reform times; possibly to protect the government lands so that they could be redistributed to the landless peasants. 29 Balagopal, “Land Unrest in Andhra Pradesh-I,” 2007 30 K. Balagopal, “Land Unrest in Andhra Pradesh-III: Illegal Acquisition in Tribal Areas,” Economic and Political Weekly 42, no. 40 (2007): 4029–4034 at p. 4031. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid. 33 This figure has been used by K. Balagopal while writing about land unrest in Andhra Pradesh. 34 If they are unable to withstand the onslaught of the non-tribals, and if the government will do only so much damage to the privileges of the influential in the interests of the wretched, the only thing the adivasis can do is to fall back on the forest.

Part III

Law of land acquisition

7 Framework of the law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity A combined working of land reform and acquisition law The legal regulation of land by the state – interaction of laws of land reform and acquisition Where the law of land reform had been making seemingly rigorous attempts of infusing a certain level of equality in the distribution of landholdings, the law of land acquisition has had an obvious and lasting history of rendering people landless1 for the purposes of nation development.2 Although, both the reform and acquisition laws are based on similar principles of jurisprudence which regulate the relationship between the state and an individual, according the state with an eminency in claims over all landholdings3 within its territory, the purposes for which both were framed and implemented have been austerely contrasting. Enacted immediately after independence, the statutes of land reform were constructed with the motto of transferring land to the tiller,4 where a loose understanding of the term tiller referred to any cultivator of land. There wasn’t any sufficient clarity within the political quarters about categorization of a tiller, it could either be a small holder or a tenant or a subtenant or even an agricultural labourer.5 But, on a broad scale, the reform law intended to benefit the cultivating class, or those who did not have adequate legal access to land. The land acquisition law, as against reform, was an old legislation that continued to be the principal acquisition law until 2013. Its primary purpose was to lay down a smooth procedure for the state to exercise its eminent domain powers. Eminent domain has been used by the state to grant land either to itself or to any group of persons who would be capable of building infrastructural and industrial projects. After liberalization, these groups of persons are usually identified as giant private corporations.6 As has been observed previously in Part II of this work, the land reform ideology was categorically aimed at eliminating the existence of landlordism7 in the agrarian structure and conferring rights on the actual cultivators of land.8 The land acquisition statutes have been, instead wishing to acquire land from the existing cultivators in order to make sufficient space for industrial growth. Theoretically, therefore, the two forms of laws that regulate the relationship between the state and individuals, if not properly structured, would be incompatible with each other – making co-existence impossible. Both the

152  Law of land acquisition laws had picked different classes within the land hierarchy as their clients and if, they both did not complement each other in their functioning, their respective clients could potentially suffer at the prosperity of the other. The last part concluded, after a detail assessment, that the legal structure for land reform was created in order to collapse and it will be seen in second section of this chapter that, unlike reform, the legal framework for land acquisition has been constructed with a firm foundation, devoid of any internal lapses. It will be the central argument of this chapter that the law of land acquisition is, in fact, a facilitator to the failure of the land reform programme – rather than securing the rights of cultivators, it has effectively catered to converting the archaic rural landlordism into the new age private corporate landlordism.9 Both the laws have, with the former being self-collapsing and the latter being robust in their framework, together reinforced the structures of land relationships that keep the cultivator at the absolute bottom of land hierarchy: they have systematically legalized the phenomenon of landlordism to prevail, only in its contemporary semblance. Presently, there exist about a 100 statutes10 across the country that provide for compulsory acquisition of land by the state and they have collectively worked towards transferring ownership and occupation of massive blocks of land from cultivators to the state and associated corporations.11 Along with the principal legislation of 1894, the central and state legislatures have produced an extensive category of allied legislations that acquire land for purposes that can vary from slum rehabilitation to specific developmental projects. Within the land law discourse, the number of acquisition legislations may not seem inordinate, especially when compared with reform legislations. However, over 100 other legislations apart from a principal statute that already has a capacity of accommodating a wide variety of purposes for which land can be acquired, generates a sense of unease with the law. When the 1894 legislation has itself remained a cause of continuous and vehement policy debates owning to its arbitrary nature, the need for enacting other statutes for conducting land acquisitions that could have been covered by the 1894 statute is suspiciously unclear, especially the ones that either validate previous acquisitions or are dedicate to specific developmental projects. As would be seen in the next section, some of these allied statutes do not even abide by the standard of procedure established by the principal Act; they are enacted for specific projects and require minimalistic statutory surveillance. Apart from adding to the thickness of books on land law, the allied statutes create an exorbitant variety of public purposes and rationalize land acquisitions each time one is considered necessary by the government. The definition of public purpose forms the foundation of any acquisition law, and the more it can be dilated, the lesser would there be any limitations on its conception and the greater are the chances of people losing their lands to priorities greater than their livelihood. The present chapter seeks to specifically assess this trend from a legal standpoint, by using tables that analyze and compare the provisions of all relevant acquisition statues

Law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity 153 (Annexures A16 to A19) and keeping land reform law as a counterpart of land acquisition – in order to understand the combined working of the two. While regulating the pattern of landownership, the two sets of laws targeted the different sections of the society in discordant manners and therefore, created a scenario of legal incompatibility. The land reform ideology, while recognizing labour and native land rights, attempted to allocate occupation of land to the cultivators and acquisition statutes were framed to take away that land from the cultivators and transfer legal occupation to the nation developers. Since the amount of available land was limited, all the necessary land usages needed to be adjusted: if both agriculture and industrialization were important, then the distribution had to be carefully made. Any one that prevailed over another would necessarily have a greater command in the economy. The solution found by the state to harmonize this incompatibility and ensure the most equitable utilization of land resources was simple: acquisition laws were framed with an overriding clause which permitted them to prevail regardless of any conflicting law or ideology12 and equipped the state to inadvertently exercise its powers of eminent domain. These laws, therefore, were created to be dominant and prevalent. It has been a consistent theme of this work that in order to understand the real working of land law along with its consequences on the condition of land and its cultivators, it is necessary that its various disintegrated provisions and statutes are read and understood together. Until the previous sections, this technique was limited to statutes that belonged to the same group, i.e. land reform. In the present context, two groups of land laws, land acquisition and reform, which are otherwise considered mutually exclusive, would be read together as a pair. Both the sets of laws are based on similar principles of eminent domain and public purpose13 and they similarly regulate the relationship between state and an individual with respect to landownership. The fundamental ideas that form the basis of the two legal frameworks are alike, only the mannerisms of their conduct differ: under both legal structures, the state is empowered to take land away from its previous legal owner and utilize it for common benefit; but, the extent of power that has been granted to the state by the two legal structures varies, along with the procedure that is adopted for such acquisition, and so does the purposes for which the taken land can be appropriated. This fundamental similarity between the two legal structures provides an even plane for the two to affect each other’s functionality and consequently, the general pattern of landownership in the country. The present chapter has begun with a combined reading of the laws of land reform and acquisition which would be demonstrative of an accurate assessment of the power structures that prevail along with and by the functioning of a legal scheme that regulates the state–individual land relationship. It would further contend that the scheme of land law, in general, has been constructed to induce mass landlessness14 in the country: the two sets of laws have together and meticulously provided for a legal system that specifically ensures privileged occupation of

154  Law of land acquisition land. The power hierarchy in land relationships is reinstated by the law, which precisely was required to be ameliorated by it. This is made possible by a careful and gradual implementation of the combination of an extremely fragile legal structure for land reform and an arbitrarily strong legal structure of land acquisition, backed up by private economic interests. In order to reinforce this line of argument, the chapter would, thereafter, proceed to the second section which administers a detailed and individual analysis of the complete legal scheme of land acquisition with the use of tables, as has previously been done for land reform. This analysis would reflect the accurate nature of acquisition laws, their functioning and impact on the agrarian structure. The idea of reforming land tenure into a structure that favoured equitable distribution of the resource was especially carved out to be implemented by the ceiling legislations that were popularly enacted during the 1960s and 70s. These legislations, along with a portion of tenancy statutes, were to alter the structure of landownership of the country by taking from the colonial supreme landowning class and distributing it to the actual tillers of land.15 The previous part of this work has seen that the legal scheme prepared for this purpose was extremely fragile and there was no way in which the provisions would have made any difference in the ground reality of landownership and occupation. Provisions destroying the central objective of the redistributive regime were weaved into the framework of the statutes themselves and therefore, the failure of the scheme was inevitable. In effect, this failure meant that similar to the colonial times, the phenomenon of landlordism would prevail and the mass of land tillers would remain without legal ownership of the land they cultivated on. The colonial intermediaries continued to remain in direct or indirect occupation of land in the new independent India and the tillers now were only to save themselves from a hypocritical legal regime that did the exact opposite to its declared objective.16 Alongside this, the state manoeuvred its policies towards liberalization of the economy and suddenly, land was converted into a dominantly economic commodity which was a fundamental requirement for all development purposes. The dangers associated with an economic model of liberalism, post-liberalism or neo-liberalism for the notion of property rights generates anxiety in its own making, but in a scenario where landownership rights of the cultivator are categorically devalued and a legal system supports such devaluation, a fair redistribution is difficult. A policy shift of this nature works towards transferring land from those who either were already in ownership of land or received any land in the process of redistribution to powerful parties that commanded preexisting financial status. In theory, the laws of reform and acquisition could complement each other’s functioning if they consisted of equally efficacious provisions. Since, they catered to different sections of the land hierarchy which inevitably have conflicting interests in land, an operative legal system for land regulation could attempt to inflict a balance in the general usage of land. This could create equivalent opportunities for all sections of persons to gain a right in landownership.17 A robust legal regime for land redistribution that cared

Law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity 155 enough for its beneficiaries to receive land and acquire the power to retain it, could have provided the legislations of land acquisition a strong landownership structure to work on. What the acquisition statutes instead received from reform laws (post-economic liberalization of 1991), was a structure that did not accord or recognize any rights on any of the cultivators of land, whether a tenant or an agricultural labourer. A land structure such as this, with structural biases and systematic concentration of land, gave acquisition statutes a convenient plane to function. In cases where legal rights of ownership were accorded, they could be conveniently neglected with a revenue record system that refuses to keep any stabilized records of land titles18 and in other cases where legal rights were not accorded at all, the ground was even clearer for acquisition laws. Until 2013, the central acquisition statute did not recognize any other category of persons other than legal owners of land for the purposes of payment of compensation,19 which meant that all other dependants on land who were otherwise entitled to legal titles under reform law, but could not receive any, were now vulnerable to be displaced from the land that they laboured on, without any amount of compensation. They first lost the hope to receive a legal entitlement of land to the reform regime and thereafter, accessibility to that land to the acquisition regime. Accordingly, by keeping legal title distant from all classes of cultivators, the law secured land to be owned by certain others, possibly in the expectation of reaping maximum benefits from its available resources. During the colonial rule, land was secured to these certain others which were the intermediaries between the government and the cultivating class in order to guarantee periodic payments of revenue taxes.20 After the ceasing of the colonial rule along with the abolition of intermediary class, the land reform law, according to its framework for operation, replaced the archaic zamindars with a new category of landowners that continued to command rural power and dictate land relationships. This was possible because the law was singularly directed to abolish the intermediary status of the class and it maintained their landowning status21 and the ceiling laws that were supposed to reduce their extent of landholdings did not quite do the same. Therefore, a new landowning class was created within the legal space to replace the old one.22 Consequent to this trend of landownership, landlessness was an inevitable phenomenon to prevail. A legal reinstatement of the land–power structures in the agrarian scene met with the newly introduced industrializing economy that was ready to make advancements in the nature of property rights practiced in the country. Since the land rights were only limitedly available to a certain privileged agrarian class, it was obvious that the said advancement would also only be occurring within that close-knit section of individuals and would be driven by elitist interests. Henceforth, the era of liberalization and the following economic advancements were introduced to the Indian property rights in land which meant that a policy drift was being made in order to accommodate the newly found interests. The general legal and policy sentiment was transformed into one that regarded nation development in the

156  Law of land acquisition highest regard and private corporations as the agents who could make the dream possible. Implementation of the 1894 Act was drastically altered to fix land for these developmental projects,23 its notion of public purpose was expanded in all possible directions – to an extent that the state was beginning to be known as an agent of private corporations24 whose primary task was to arrange land for them at the cheapest rates and enabling them to derive maximum profits, the state legislators were enacting one legislation after another that acquired land for specific projects and purposes and special economic zones25 were being established all over the country for a hassle-free acquisition of land and advancement of infrastructural facilities.26 The dominance and power that these legislations commanded over the structure of land relationships was nothing compared to what the reform laws ever possessed. As would be analyzed in the next section, the provisions crafted in these legislations were sharp and unqualified by any other factor: no other provisions capable of defying the central objective of the statue existed and therefore, they permitted the state to have all procedural luxuries to conduct their purpose. Filled with provisions that accorded wide powers to the executive, the land acquisition statutes literally ran at the discretion of the government in concern. Adding to this position, were the incessant rulings of the judiciary with their abetting interpretations of these statutes that glorified government’s strategy, its procedures of land acquisition and grant of landholdings to private corporate houses. The entire legal system was therefore, collectively working towards altering the pattern of landownership where the replaced landowning class was being freshened with new elements of corporatism. The landowner intermediary class that once existed under the colonial legal system had a specific task to perform for the colonial government: they were to run the revenue collection system so that the process was conducive to the state; in contemporary India, the remains of landowning class have recently been dominated by private corporations who, also performed a specific task for the government that was conducive with global advancements: nation development. The concomitant of the colonial system was landlessness, misery and acute poverty amongst the peasantry class in an agrarian economy, and the same seems to be true of the current system. This modification in the semblance of agrarian structure was smooth, seemingly progressive, functioning for the ones who mattered (the preferred class of individuals)27 and legal for all practical purposes.

Compulsory acquisition of land – the framework of law, its functioning and impact on the land structure An introduction to the concepts and concerns The law of land acquisition has perpetually remained a matter of popular altercation within the legal–policy discourse – it occupies a considerable

Law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity 157 space in development economics28 as the overall growth of the economy is expansively determined by the nature of property rights practiced in the region, is known to be integral to the growth of the infrastructure–­industrial sector and therefore the economy, appears as a primary concern for the protectors of private property rights29 since it hammers the pure concept of private property on its head, brings the various socially and economically diverse sections of the society into a direct collision of interest for the accessibility and usage of landed property, produces another course of discussion that has to engage with issues of displacement and rehabilitation of the persons who are displaced by the law for developmental purposes,30 has created a state of patterned inequality31 in the distribution of land and is simultaneously seen to involve a veritably deep concern for recognition of forests, native and tribal land rights. The subject attracts immense of amount of attention from all political quarters for two pressing reasons: it firstly assembles various differing ideologies regarding the concept of state sovereignty and its fundamental relationship with the people on a single plane and secondly, grossly instigates the protracted socio-economic power structures that are inherent in the pattern of Indian landownership. These power structures of land relations have been intricately contrived to drag each vulnerable section to the bottom of the land hierarchy: caste, class, and gender are individually and together positioned at the core of distribution of landholdings and thereby, placing the most vulnerable of them at the absolute bottom of the land hierarchy. A systematic legal interference with these power structures, only to reinforce their inbuilt adversity, had to produce events of organized political violence against the state.32 Commonly, the framework of land acquisition law of a region is nearly reflective of the both the pattern of landownership and demographic of the landowners – where the state possesses uninhibited powers of acquiring land and practices the same more often than not, the holdings are generally found to be in occupation of the state, its agents or private corporations. And as it turns out, India is seen to have an abundance of statutes that systematize power of the state to acquire land as per its will. With an extensive outline as described above and the political unrest that is generated, the law of land acquisition gathers enormous amount of theoretical and practical significance. According the state with the power to take land as and when it deems necessary, the law enters the intricately complex structure of land relationships between variant sections of the society and intervenes, in particular, with its social element. Acquisition law perceives land as an economic entity which is instrumental in the advancement of industrial developmental projects and consequently ignores the social ties land may have with its cultivators.33 Effectively, antithetical to its substantive nature, land is reduced to a marketable single-dimensional entity which is preferably transferred to the one that would be capable of utilizing its resources with the highest profit rates and this person is usually not the cultivator, for she stands at the bottom any social or economic hierarchy. In

158  Law of land acquisition theory therefore, acquisition law has been positioned to disturb the distribution of landownership that was sought to be achieved by land reform law.34 Where land is inherent in the social fabric, state regulation of land, in fact, needs to understand the association and adjust its approach accordingly. An agrarian-based developing economy requires meticulous and gradual planning of its property acquisition laws in order to ensure equitable and profitable access of land to all sections of the society and both reform and acquisition form essential parts of this plan. Land acquisition law arranges its regulation of landownership through a considerably wide range of statutory provisions. Usually (and until 2013), most of the popular land acquisitions have been conducted under the provisions of the principal statute of 1894, but numerous other acquisitions have been made as per a wide range of allied statutes that also provide for a procedure of acquisition. Akin to the previous part, in order to fathom these statutes, their impact and functioning, they have been tabulated into two designs: since most of the recent acquisitions have been made under the 1894 Act, Annexures A16 to A18 assesses working of the Act against the certain significant concepts along with all its state amendments and Annexure A19 enlists all the allied statutes that join the principal statute in the law of acquisition and assesses their procedures and purposes. Both these tables are together reflective of the status and working of land acquisition statutes across the country. This methodology would be followed by a comparative table that assesses the 1894 and 2013 Act together. Among other attributes, these tables categorically focus on the two jurisprudential concepts that accord acquisition law with its requisite legitimacy: calculation of the compensation amount and manner of determining a public purpose. The law of land acquisition constitutes of a cumulative of about 100 statutes enforced across the country that prescribe a legal procedure for the state to exercise its power of eminent domain.35 Jurisprudential principles require that this power is only exercised against an amount of compensation and for a public purpose. Both of these prerequisites are supposed to provide acquisition law with equity and fairness of procedure since the law would otherwise be merely infringing individual liberty of persons without any justification or regard for personal property rights. Thereby, the requirements of compensation and public purpose have to carefully constructed each time a statute is created in order to ensure that its provisions are not arbitrary to any section of the society. Both the principles are based on the ideology that prioritizes greater common good over individual liberty and freedom;36 the definition of this common good or public purpose, as it is commonly known in India, legitimizes the infringement of private property rights of an individual and the amount of compensation redeems the loss suffered by the person in the process. Additionally, common good is construed as being inclusive of individual betterment which would mean that the person whose land is being taken by the government is also expected to be a beneficiary of the state policy that necessitated the acquisition.

Law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity 159 Land acquisition law, therefore, in both its framework and functioning, undertakes a heavy task of balancing apparently outrageous differences in claims of ownership or occupation of land: it is seen to identify a purpose that overarches the balancing act and often, these purposes, although sought to be for common benefit, have seen to generate economical lapses in the society.37 In playing with the land–power structures and with its attempt at neo-liberal policies in the recent past, the state has usually aligned with corporate houses that were capable of undertaking huge infrastructure development projects38 and, thereby, stood against the interests of the cultivating class. With the kind of reform regime that there was, this kind of head-on collision of interests between the privatized corporations and cultivating classes was an automatic consequence. The element of public or commonality of benefit, in the purpose of land acquisition would perhaps then, be inclined towards those sections of the society who are either themselves involved in the corporations or are their clients in business. The 100 legislations framed for prescribing a procedure for land acquisition have created an extensive variety of public purposes for which acquisitions can be made: from the leading erstwhile statue, the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 (replaced now with the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act of 2013), which prescribed a general law for land acquisitions, to the specific statutes that may be enacted for individual state projects, the acquisition law finds an immense amount of space to legitimize practically all sorts of purposes. Any event of land acquisition is a vigorous interaction of law with the socio-economic conditions of the land structure leading to accelerated alterations in the pattern of landownerships. It is filled with bundles of complex legal provisions that govern the procedure of transfer of occupation of land, pending interests of the ex-occupiers that need to be redeemed under law and the prospective interests of the persons to whom it is given for use. Depending upon the statute under which the land is acquired and the type of acquisition that is made, the applicable legal procedures would differ. A typical case would be of section 6(1) of the 1894 Act where any land could be notified for a public purpose by the appropriate government; procedures related to awarding of compensation by the collector and taking possession of notified land would be conducted as per Part II of the Act. If, however, the acquisition is made for a company, additional provisions of Part VII would have to be complied with; that require, among other things, an agreement to be struck between the company and concerned government that validates the terms of land transfer. If the government is desirous of bypassing these procedural formalities and taking immediate possession of the land after its notification, it can do so under the urgency clause laid down in section 17 of the Act (Annexure A16). This allows the collector to take immediate possession of the notified land, without completing the formalities of compensation. Other cases of acquisition, that are not so popular outside the legal discourse, occur as per the provisions of allied statutes which may or may not

160  Law of land acquisition abide by the standards of procedure laid down in the 1894 Act. On most occasions, the procedure requires a simple notification in the central/state gazette to the effect (the initial columns of Annexure A17). In others, where no actual legal procedure has been followed in acquiring a parcel of land, the legislature has legalized the acquisition by a later statute (Annexure A19). In cases of important massive projects, individual statutes have been dedicated to acquiring land for them (Annexure A19). And if no location can be identified within this range of provisions and statutes, the legislature has had no reluctance in constructing another legislation that would provide the purpose with sufficient legality. On other occasions, the state has resorted to alternative means of taking land for innumerable purposes which have recently gained the name of land pooling. The method of land pooling does not involve any primary legislation; it is mostly conducted through policies, executive orders and amendments made to certain statutes. The state, therefore, seems to have given itself a sufficient variety of choices in the procedure that it would want to employ in acquisition of any parcel of land. The law of land acquisition presents a classic case of a legal regime that has been cautiously and systematically utilized by the state to cultivate a scenario of privileges and thereby, necessary exclusions. Land’s association with the society and its configuration makes this scenario inherent in the very foundation of a social order. As has been mentioned before, in its interaction with the land system, acquisition law collectively impinges a legion of categories of persons who derive their income from land, without even any acknowledgement of their existence. These categories are present in massive numbers and in such socially diverse characteristics that their division can only be made at a regional level; there remains no way in which a genuine acquisition law, acquiring land for a purpose of common good to the community, can forget their existence. Assuming that the doctrine of eminent domain is backed by principles of fairness and equity, the reality of its legal operation would still be determined by the manner in which this power is exercised on a regular basis. In contrast to land reform law, a general law of land acquisition, that has the liberty to decide its purpose of taking land, acquires a much greater scope in identifying the groups of persons it would cater to. It also, simultaneously and necessarily possesses the power to entirely wipe out certain other groups from its purview and therefore, having any access to land resources. This is how, it has the ability to create mass landlessness in the region of its applicability, if utilized properly towards such pointed ends. The Indian operation of acquisition law has met all of its arbitrary possibilities. Acquisitions for public purposes know no jurisprudential limitations anymore – almost all conceivable purposes are now of public nature – acquisitions for companies have been converted into those for public purpose, despite being distinct types of acquisitions as per the erstwhile 1894 statute;39 urgency clauses in the statutes (principle and allied) are invoked more than the normal provisions;40 statutes are retrospectively

Law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity 161 applied to validate previous acquisitions;41 not one statute, except possibly the most recent enactment of 2013 recognizes the multiple layers of land occupation that are factually present on ground; compensation rates for the displaced hardly suffice their livelihood42 and the possibility of displacement and a need for concrete provisions for rehabilitation completely escapes the legislative imagination.43 Legal acquisition might not have become the reason for landlessness in the country, if the law had accounted for its most obvious consequence and perhaps also, regulated its possibility of arbitrary operation. Having received a rough idea about the reality that acquisition law works with in each of its episodes of operation with the land system, in order to make sense of this convoluted mess of issues and the associated legal provisions, it is necessary that the present discussion is divided into certain concepts that are determinative of the nature of law. Thereby, four conceptual categories can be recognized which could cleanly divide land acquisition law into a navigable subject: the legal construction of public purpose, types and procedures of land acquisitions, purpose of compensation and resettlement, and rehabilitation policy adopted as a corollary of acquisition law. The following discussion would be conducted under these four heads and the tables would provide assistance in its process of analysis and deliberation.

Legal construction of public purpose The public in public purpose The public in the popular phrase public purpose generally refers to those groups of persons whose interest forms a priority in matters of land occupation; on the basis of this phrase, it is considered legitimate to evacuate the existing occupiers of land by compensating them in monetary terms and instead granting the parcel of land to other persons in order to conduct another activity that qualifies its definition.44 It is true that usually the term demands a generality in its connotation,45 which would mean that no one specific group should be identified in the community that the term refers to,46 but for all practical purposes, if the purpose is deemed to be generally beneficial to all, it would obviously be catering to a certain or considerable number of individual interests.47 A generally advantageous purpose is, after all, formed by a collective of individual interests. It might not be necessary though, that the entire community or the section that endured the pains of displacement would stand to benefit from the purpose; it has been ordained that even if the purpose is beneficial to any section of the community, however big or small their proportion may be, it is sufficiently public to be legalized. In a widely diverse Indian society, organized through land distribution structures, the notion of a preferred public for whose needs and advancements, land can be made available by law, wherever and whenever it may be

162  Law of land acquisition required, can prove to be adverse for the other public, if its interests are not directly involved. There is a fundamental difficulty in constructing a general phrase called public purpose in a society which has immense complications in even identifying the various groups of individuals who form that public, especially the ones constituting the land hierarchy.48 Indian land law mostly speaks of its involved parties in terms of binaries: the landed and the landless; the maximum level of unfolding is done up to only two or three levels within the landless class and landed class is largely considered singular.49 In matters of land relations, the reform and revenue statutes (the statutes other than land acquisition that regulate state–individual land relationship) have kept a grossly simplistic understanding of the layers of individuals occupying land at any one instance.50 Their understanding of classes present on a given land parcel does not go beyond Thorner’s classification that simply divided the persons into a malik, kisan, and mazdoor.51 When acquisition law enters this scenario with a presumption that it could create only limited disturbance to the land structure, because there aren’t many groups of people (at the maximum three) who could possibly be affected by itself, it undervalues its own capabilities. Thereby, when acquisition law measures its objective against its consequences, the general ignorance of law and its utter disregard of existence of one side of the social spectrum (which usually is the landless or displaced) makes the other side much greater in importance and the purpose much deeper in morality. The legal notion of a public purpose, therefore, cannot afford to have a merely simplistic, generic understanding. The public necessarily constitutes of distinguished and sometimes overlapping groups of individuals who may interact with one another but may not always share common source of resources. A land structure or hierarchy or relations is nothing but the interaction of the variant groups acting on land with one another. Some groups hold a legal tile and some don’t.52 Some hold occupation of land but not a legal title.53 Some others hold neither title nor occupation, but still derive a considerable portion of their income from land.54 Certain others hold customary possession of land with or without any legal recognition;55 and with a limited resource of land and innumerable groups of depended people, it is obvious that the number of people holding a legal title or occupation is far less than other who don’t. But that does not make the others any less confided in their landed resources. The law may not reach them per se, but it cannot wipe out their existence. Additionally, these groups generally have an acute disparity in their social and economic statuses and so does the nature of work they conduct on their land. Neither do they share any common source of livelihood. The goods and services produced for economically advantageous classes, for example a shopping mall, can be of very limited benefit to the non-advantageous classes. Public purpose would therefore need to be careful in its assumption of invariably possessing a commonality element, when there are only a few elements are common within the group that it refers to.

Law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity 163 In a rapidly growing liberalized economy, this assumption of distribution of benefits to one and all is almost never true; the division between economic classes is wide enough for the resources and amenities to remain limited in their accessibility.56 The general nature of activities for which land is being popularly acquired is founded on private profitable interests. Necessarily therefore, the second category stands excluded in the process. The statutes of acquisition, unlike the ones of reform, do not even pretend to make any provisions for the displaced or the landless. They do precisely what they are meant to: empower the state with administrative power and procedures to serve the interest of the preferred public. If the other public cannot include itself to receive the benefits of the process, the law does not make any attempts of making any inclusive provisions or at least, defining the phrase in a manner that makes some space for them to fit in. Consequently, the legal procedure of land acquisition has had the capacity to produce two categories of the public, when (and mostly) the two do not coincide: first is the preferred one, the beneficiaries who gain the acquired land along with those who would be benefitted from the proposed activity and the second is the displaced (and thereby landless) category of persons who have borne the burdens of the process. Unless the public purpose includes both these categories of persons in its list of commonalities of benefit, the economic divide between them is prone to expand with each such event of acquisition – if the purpose does not, in any conceivable manner, serve the interests of the displaced class, it would only suffer loss of land and livelihood in order to cater to the need of the preferred class. The state’s overarching moral claim on land is based on the assumption that the two categories of public created by its exercise of eminent domain powers coincide and the benefits of the purpose are distributed to the both of them. The state takes land and overrides individual liberty in order to utilize the limited resource of land to the common good of all. If however, the purpose is such that it has a limited capacity to cater to the interests of only one of these two categories of persons, the other is necessarily excluded from the purview of the law and it is usually the second category that is vulnerable to such exclusion. The litigation against construction of the Yamuna Expressway can be cited here as an example. For an argument made by the petitioners against acquisition of excess agricultural land for amusement parks around the expressway, the court stated as follows: The concept of Public Purpose has to be held wider than public necessity. Merely because the benefit goes to a particular section of the society, the acquisition does not cease to be for a public purpose.57 Furthermore, if those are the only kinds of purposes that are in practice, the second category of public faces a complete expulsion from the general land usages. The legal procedure of acquisition has been designed to adjust

164  Law of land acquisition the needs and luxuries of the ones who are included in the public purpose phrase; the others, who are displaced by it, if they do not form a part of the purpose, need to wait for the resettlement policies to reinstate them. This exclusivity of the legal system of land acquisition is considered by the state as its tough attempts at doing the greater good for the community; its heart may pain at the sight of people losing their source of livelihood, but the necessity of the purpose, its moral superiority and inevitability of developmental goals compels the state to do such a thing.58 And obviously, if in the task of nation building, some people have to sacrifice a few things, they must also realize that their life and wealth would also be growing with the nation.59 Although, there might be only one small hitch in this nation of dreams: its own exclusivity of operation. Almost all demographic surveys of the events of land acquisitions, conducted by state or non-state agencies, have revealed that at least 40 per cent of the displaced persons belong to tribal communities and small-scale farmers.60 The majority of purposes of acquisitions, however, are related to building of industrial corridors, highways, special economic zones, shopping malls and other luxurious infrastructural facilities.61 Other than providing people some temporary jobs in the construction of these facilities, it is difficult to conceive of any other way in which persons with low economic status, or the other public, would possess any interest in these constructions, most of which are usually on their previously arable land. So far, the argument has been strictly based on the social realities of landownership in the country; this, however, is not the central concern of this section. The idea was to understand the preferred land use patterns of the state that it proclaims through the public purpose clause and accordingly regulates the distribution of land. Thereby, also directly administers the lives and livelihood of all who derive their income from land. The understanding of public purpose is cardinal to this land administration. The phrase was originally supposed to provide acquisition law with a morality and fairness of claim over individual occupation and use of a limited resource; its contemporary use, however, has seemed to have lost track in its understanding of the public it was to cater to. The current legal understanding of the phrase equates itself with the wish of the government in all its wisdom and certainty of decision; any other institution within the country was considered incapable of understanding the complex socio-economic conditions of land related matters.62 The further discussion would move into assessing the legal construction of the phrase. In consonance with the central theme of this work, it would again be contended here that the law meticulously works towards creating the social and economic realities that have been discussed above. The established legal understanding of public purpose is nothing but what the prevailing government deems fit; principles of morality or fairness have no longer anything to do with its understanding. It might also be difficult to point out a time at which these principles were involved in its interpretation.

Law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity 165 The legal public purpose The land acquisition statutory framework does not lay down any definition of the phrase that involves specific principles that need to be present for an activity to be of public purpose; it instead, creates a list of activities, the purposes of which may be catering to the interests of the public. This is true for both the 1894 and the 2013 Acts. In legal understanding, the phrase is considered as one of those general principles that demand a certain flexibility of construction, if they are to be genuinely operated. Accordingly, the principle Act of 1894 does not attempt to lay out any definitional limitations and instead creates a list of provisions that could qualify as serving the purposes of public: planned development of villages,63 establishment of educational or health institutions,64 construction of residential colonies,65 slum rehabilitation,66 developmental schemes sponsored by the government,67 among others. These listed purposes have a commonality in their fundamental nature: all eight of them possess an element of social welfare that is to be initiated by the state or any of its agencies. The provision also specifically refers to certain sections of the public whose interests are to be served: people residing in village or town sites,68 poor or landless,69 people displaced or affected by governmental schemes,70 people affected by natural calamities and people living in slums.71 From the thematic constitution of the provision, it would therefore be expected that, these groups of persons form the primary beneficiaries of the law of acquisition and the nature of proposed development that needs to be carried out on the acquired land should also involve a welfare element. The development needs to be neatly planned and executed through governmental agencies. Since existence of a public purpose is a prerequisite to initiate any acquisition proceedings under section 6 of the Act, the entire play is depended on how the phrase is construed. In addition to this, the provision categorically distinguishes in section 3(f) (viii), after a 1984 amendment,72 acquisition for public purposes (i.e. activities akin to the ones listed earlier) from acquisition for private companies.73 The private profitable interests of corporations, although consisting of possible welfare developmental elements, were expressly excluded from statutory understanding of public purpose. After 1984, the phrase was not to include acquisitions for private companies; at the end of listed activities, the amendment added the following phrase to clause (viii): but does not include acquisition of land for companies74 Therefore, if private corporations were desirous of government assistance in acquiring land for their projects, a combined reading of section 3(f)(viii), 6(1), and Part VII was applicable. Section 3(f)(viii) differentiated between public purpose acquisition and acquisition for companies. Section 6, along with the other provisions of Part II, established a general procedure that

166  Law of land acquisition needed to be adopted every time an acquisition was to be made. Part VII laid down an additional procedure for when acquisition was being made for a company. Effectively, this meant that the Act made it possible for companies to legally acquire land, but other than the general procedure of acquiring land, the added provisions of Part VII were to be compulsorily followed. The amendment, however, did not generate any considerable alteration in the manner of judicial interpretation of the clause. The legal position of public purpose preceding 1984 entertained the idea of private corporations acquiring land for its ends and it continued to do so after the amendment of section 3(f)(viii). The courts affirmed that acquisition for a company could not be made without satisfying the requirements of Part VII. But, that did not mean that acquisition for companies could not be read within the public purpose clause. In 1961, a bench of five judges in the case of Pandit Jhandu Lal & Other v. State of Punjab & Anr75 decided that the presence of Part VII did not necessarily mean that acquisition for a company for a public purpose could not be made otherwise. Acquisition for a company could also be for a public purpose as long as the cost of the process was being paid wholly or partially by public funds. The court, therefore, associated the two distinct purposes of acquisition with a linking factor: the source of funding of the proposed activity, binding them into a whole: In the case of an acquisition for Company simpliciter, the declaration cannot be made without satisfying the requirements of Part VII. But that does not necessarily mean that an acquisition for a Company for a public purpose cannot be made otherwise than under the provisions of Part VII, if the cost or a portion of the cost of the acquisition is to come out of public funds. In other words, the essential condition for acquisition for a public purpose is that the cost of the acquisition should be borne, wholly or in part, out of public funds. Hence, an acquisition for a Company may also be made for a public purpose, within the meaning of the Act, if a part or the whole of the cost of acquisition is met by public funds.76 The distinction was disseminated and so was the need to follow the procedure of Part VII. Since acquisition for a company could also be simultaneously one of a public purpose, the courts found no necessity for the government to waste their time following any other set out procedure. After this and many other similar decisions,77 the law ordained that if the government was involved in paying any portion of the acquisition amount, it would convert the character of the proposed purpose and make it sufficiently public for the purposes of the Act. Ensued to this legal position, the state began to exert its wisdom on operating the public purpose clause. After its breathtaking performance in reform and redistribution policies, the state moved to undertake the laborious task of augmenting private interests in development of the public. Wherefore, it needed to create legal passages

Law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity 167 for the private corporations to stoop through and the most convenient way of doing that, without suffering much economic loss, was to sprinkle some pocket change into the private fund reserved for acquisition. The courts were willing to legalize this trend. In the case of Smt. Somwati & Ors. v. The State of Punjab78 an amount of INR 100 was sanctioned by the government in a total acquisition cost of INR 4, 50,000 and admitted by the court for an acquisition of agricultural land for the purposes of setting up a factory for the manufacture of compressors and other equipment. In order to maintain the previous and correct legal views expressed by various high courts in the country, which permitted such token amounts to convert the characteristic of acquisition, the majority of a bench of five judges of the Supreme Court in 1983 validated the acquisition: We would like to add that the view taken in Senga Naicken’s case, ILR 50 Mad 308: (AIR 1927 Mad 245) has been followed by the various High Courts in India. On the basis of the correctness of that view the state governments have been acquiring private properties all over the country contributing only token amounts towards the cost of acquisition. Tides to many such properties would be unsettled if we were now to take the view that “partly at public expense” means substantially at public expense. Therefore, on the principle of stare decisis the view taken in Senga Naicken’s case, ILR 50 Mad 308: (AIR 1927 Mad 245) should not be disturbed.79 Thereafter, the political vibes of the necessity to amend the Act began to haunt the legislature which produced the 1984 amendment to section 3(f). But the courts refused to alter their manner of interpretation of public purpose. In a series of decisions,80 the Supreme Court fixated itself on the precedents established by it before 1984. It expressly recognized the rider added by the amendment Act, but decided to override its meaning and purpose: One thing which deserves particular notice is the rider at the end of clause (f) by which the acquisition of land for companies is excluded from the purview of the expression “public purpose.” However, notwithstanding this dichotomy, speaking from the point of view of public purpose, the provisions of Part V and Part VII are not mutually exclusive as elaborated later.81 The legal trend, therefore, continued with greater vigour. Presence or absence of an exclusive distinction between the two purposes of acquisition did not seem to make any variation in the manner of its accepted judicial understanding. Over the later years, all conceivable boundaries of the phrase were broken and the judiciary retired itself from the capacity to understand its meaning and application: since acquisition dealt with

168  Law of land acquisition complex social-economic matters, the supreme courts judges considered themselves ill equipped to make any decisions: It is not possible for courts to consider competing claims and conflicting interests and to conclude which way the balance tilts. There is no objective, justiciable or manageable standards to judge the issues nor can such questions be decided on a priori considerations.82 And so was gained the popular concept of public purpose. The intrinsic details of land relationships within their socio-economic contexts were not only ignored in its interpretation, but were also practically rendered irrelevant to its construction because they were too complex to be understood. A purpose that was built on the utilitarian foundations of developing the society and bringing the greater good to the community decided to disdain the elements that composed the concerned community or society or public (whichever term may be preferred). It might be relevant to ask then, who were the public that the purpose was employing its services to? If the law maintained ignorance in its understanding of the public, their realities of life, the kind of social and economic status they possess and the complexities of their interaction with one another, then how could it possibly know whether a stated purpose could be actually useful to any of them? How could it possibly know whether one policy that was claiming to benefit one section of the society was not mutilating another and how were their conflicting interests to be balanced? It is this acontextual understanding that allowed the phrase to mean anything, anything at all, whether the purpose directly or indirectly interested any section of the public or not: expansion of a chemical factory,83 making savings in foreign exchange,84 construction of diamond parks, infrastructural corridors, manufacture of refrigerator compressors, china-ware and porcelain-ware,85 housing a member of the foreign consulate,86 development of financial districts,87 building of an access path for a Saibaba temple.88 Without its context, the notion of public and the purposes that would cater to the public becomes distant from the actual public that existed on ground, especially the ones who belonged to the lower sections of the society. It could perfectly oust any number of groups from its beneficial arrangement, include only the most advantageous sections of the society and still be public purpose. The groups that were in fact included in its original legal connotation under section 3(f), like the disadvantaged or displaced persons had practically disappeared in existence when public purpose was equated with acquisition for private companies. Instead, development demanded that all businesses should have the maximum scope of growth. This is not to imply that industrial development does not warrant any consideration in matters of land acquisition; the Act provided a specific separate procedure for acquisition for companies. But, its popular reading in the limited context of development converted the state’s role in acquisition for companies to one of a

Law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity 169 loyal agent that utilizes its entire machinery towards meeting the principal’s ends. The phrase public purpose demonstrated a classic phenomenon of a classist law that used its generality and obfuscated understanding as a tool to gratify particular class interests.89 The nation development that has been the fundamental moral high ground for the state has in fact at arrived the cost of the impoverishment and proletarianization of approximately tens of millions of rural people who were typically already among the country’s most poor and marginalized.90 Amongst this much popular and developed understanding of public purpose, there was a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court who, successively in two judgments, directly challenged the prevalence of such a notion of public purpose. They recognized the differences in identities of the displaced and the placed and the need for the court to be particularly vigilant of a trend that promotes a classist view of public purpose. Public purpose has to be viewed from an angle which is consistent within the concept of welfare state. Any attempt by the state to acquire land by prompting a public purpose to benefit a particular group of people or to serve any particular interest at the cost of the interest of a larger section of the people, especially the common people, defeats the very concept of public purpose.91 Compulsory taking of one’s property is a serious matter. If the property belongs to economically disadvantaged segment of the society or people suffering from other handicaps, then the court is not only entitled but is duty bound to scrutinise the action/decision of the state with greater vigilance, care and circumspection; keeping in view the fact that landowner is likely to become landless and deprived of the only source of his livelihood and/or shelter.92 The 2013 Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act that replaced the 1894 Act was, at least in its first appearance, a step further from its predecessor. For starters, it did not declare itself to be a statute that is only concerned with acquiring land but not with its ability to be arbitrary in its procedure or its obvious consequences of displacement. It considered ideas of consent, social impact of the process, food security and resettlement that were otherwise unknown to land acquisition law. The Act, however, reinstated the popular versions of the phrase public purpose in its definitional provisions. It accumulated elements from both the 1894 statute and the judicial interpretation that the phrase had received and created an ample definition of its own. The application of the Act is determined by section 2(1). It states that the provisions of the Act would apply when the government acquires land for its own use and for a public purpose and thereafter enlists a number of purposes which would be included for application of the Act. Subsection 2(b) of section 2 further states that land can also be acquired for a private company

170  Law of land acquisition for a public purpose. At the end of subsection 2, two provisos seeking consent of the affected families are placed that need to be conducted as per the procedure established. This may imply two things: one, that the government could acquire land for its own use and it could also acquire land for a public purpose; two, when land is to be acquired for a private company, it has to be done for a public purpose. Since this legislation is fairly new and has gotten out of the effect of ordinances limiting its application very recently, it remains to be seen that how would its provisions work differently from the previous statue, or would they be different at all. The legal notions of public purpose and development have been trending by the state, mostly deliberately, in this particularly sanctimonious manner in order to provide for the daunting needs and irresistible advances of capitalism.93 The Indian state has been gradually and increasingly creating its own regimes of dispossession94 and therefore, necessarily altering its concept of property rights. A concept of obfuscated public purpose that pleases particular class interests, that has been popularized by the state, has both formed the premise of a legal system of land acquisition that infuses a norm of necessary oppression in the polity and legitimizes such necessity of oppression. While creating such concepts, the state has also simultaneously created a large set of proficient legal procedures in order to practice its conceptual milestones in property law. These procedures, lying both within and without the technicalities of a land acquisition law, provide a robust framework for the state to determine its eminency of claim in land.

The legal choices of procedures available for acquiring land The legal scheme for land regulation is generous in its offering of procedures to the state and they can be applied in all probable cases of land acquisition. With a continuously flourishing public purpose phrase, if the legal scheme offered only one line of procedure, it would have been a far too simple and monotonous an administrative strategy. Each statute providing for land acquisition, while customizing its purpose and applicability, laid down its own version of the procedure. It either created a distinct procedure for its purpose or made amendments to the Act of 1894 to suit its needs. The principle Act of 1894 provided one general procedure and three other alternatives. The 2013 Act, although more detailed in its framework, also accounted for four types of acquisitions (one general along with three alternatives). Outside of these provisions, there is also one other procedure that is periodically adopted by both central and state legislatures – land is acquired by an executive notification and that notification is later legalized in the next acquisition statute enacted by the concerned legislature (the first column in Annexure A19). It will be seen in this section, that each of these procedures was welded well within the framework of its respective statute. Contradictory to the reform legislations, the compulsion of taking land was weaved in much tighter in the general acquisition statutes. Generally,

Law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity 171 affected parties were only given the right to object to the amount of compensation decided for them by the collector.95 The acquisition was actually compulsory for them; no fake ceiling limits or acquisition of titles or exit routes had been made legally available. The 1894 Act established the most prominently known administrative procedure of acquiring land – for a public purpose. Beginning from a preliminary notification under section 4, the Act seamlessly progressed towards acquiring final possession of the land in target. At every crucial point in the procedure, where there existed a possibility of a lapse, the concerned government was given formidable powers to ensure compliance of its decision. Where section 5A provided an opportunity to the person interested in the concerned land,96 to object to the proposed acquisition, the government itself was given the final power of deciding the objection – Section 5 A (2): “. . . The decision of the [appropriate Government] on the objections shall be final.” Besides, the same subsection (2) of section 5A provided that this decision of the government is to be made on the basis of a report that the collector submits to it along with his recommendations on the matter, effectively finalizing the matter. The other possible danger zone for the process was its foundational provision that makes its applicability conditional to the existence of a public purpose. Section 4 necessitated that a notification of acquisition be made only when the purpose of acquisition is for the public or a company. If the purpose was adjudicated as not falling within the definition of section 3(f), then the entire acquisition procedure would nullify. The solution of overpowering this difficulty was formulated under section 6(3): Section 6(3): “The said declaration shall be conclusive evidence that the land is needed for a public purpose or for a company, as the case may be; and, after making such declaration, the [appropriate Government] may acquire the land in manner hereinafter appearing.” A declaration made to the effect that a land is needed for a public purpose was a statutorily accepted conclusive evidence of the fact. The courts also accepted this as the settled legal position, granting the state with finality in all its decisions and making the law unquestionable. The same was applicable for acquisition for a company, apart from the additional requirements of Part VII, which, owning to the definition accorded to public purpose, were hardly required to be followed. The other two alternatives of procedure, which can be adopted by the state, are acquisition under urgency clause and temporary acquisition (last columns of Annexure A16). Section 17 incorporated a situation where, for the lack of available time and urgency of the matter, the government might

172  Law of land acquisition need to make immediate acquisitions. For instance, if a river changes its course, the communities living on the bank of that river would need immediate resettlement, or the railways would need to change its tracks. The provision allowed the government to take instant possession of required land, even before the process of settling compensation claims is finishes, which would otherwise be a requirement under normal circumstances. The operation of this provision, however, has been seen to be slightly different. Amendments made to it by certain state legislatures have been rather disquieting. The state of Andhra Pradesh, for example, can be presented here. It mostly believes in giving individual importance to developmental projects (the state of AP in Annexure A19). The Nagarjuna Sagar Project (Acquisition of Land) Act of 1956, Vishakhapatnam Steel Project (Acquisition of Land) Act of 1972 follow the general procedure lay down in the 1894 Act, but with certain modifications. After identifying its own purpose of acquisition, distinct from the general norm, i.e. project purpose under section 3(1) and empowering the state government for acquiring land for the project, the Vishakhapatnam Steel Project Act of 1972 included itself into the urgency clause of the 1894 Act: Section 3(2) (ii): after sub-clause (iii) of clause (b) of sub section (2) of section 17 of the Central Act as amended by the Nagarjunasagar Project (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1956 (Act 32 of 1956), the following shall be added, namely: – “or (iv) for any purpose incidental to or connected with the Visakhapatnam Steel Project in the area to which the Visakhapatnam Steel Project (Acquisition of Lands) Act, 1972 extends”; By accommodating its purpose within the definition of urgency, the 1972 state Act broke into the general procedure of acquisition as it originally adopted and created an escape passage. The general process required completion of the process of awarding compensation for the acquisition to proceed. Once the urgency clause under section 17 of the 1894 Act was invoked, the concerned government, in this case, the Andhra Pradesh state government would be free to take immediate possession of the notified land without completing the full procedure. The AP government could choose to follow a combined reading of section 3(2)(ii) of the 1894 Act and section 17 of the 1894 Act, if it was looking for a procedure to acquire land for the mentioned project purpose. The table on allied statutes (Annexure A19) displays an extensive variety of procedures that are prevalent in matters of land acquisition. Other than the housing board and municipality statutes that are common across states, the column on Purpose for Which Land Can Be Acquired demonstrates that the other frequently occurring statutes are the state land acquisition laws. States like Himachal Pradesh and Kerala have their own land

Law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity 173 acquisition statutes. These statutes create their own purpose and procedure for land acquisition independent of the 1894 Act. Other kind of commonly occurring statutes are the ones that are enacted for independent state project. The table demonstrates the various kinds of procedures that these legislations adopt for their functioning: some make amendments to the established procedure of the principal Act and certain others suffice with simple gazette notifications. Contrary to the 1894 Act, the 2013 Act, while re-establishing the general procedure for land acquisition, genuinely attempted to create a comprehensive operative system in its framework. Although it considered the possibility of involving the extent of displacement within the methodology of assessing the nature of public purpose provisions for social impact assessment under its second chapter and consent of the affected families formed a part of the Act. It recognized the reality of layered occupation of land and the possibility of prospective food insecurity for lack of agricultural land in its third chapter. Moreover, aside of increasing the amount of compensation, the Act also provided for concrete provisions for rehabilitation of the affected families. The legislation suddenly brought a completely new perspective to the law of land acquisition that India had not seen before. All the provisions of the Act, although not in complete agreement with the revolutionary movement that followed it, were directing towards an acquisition law that at least attempted to understand the public it was applying its provisions to and the purpose that formed its fundamental basis. However, the 2015 Ordinance amended all these crucial procedural provisions and made their very applicability depended on government discretion. Section 5 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Ordinance of 2015 gave certain projects a free way through the procedure of 2013 Act: Section 5: In the principal Act, after Chapter III, the following Chapter shall be inserted, namely: – “CHAPTER IIIA PROVISIONS OF CHAPTER II AND CHAPTER III NOT TO APPLY TO CERTAIN PROJECTS 10A (1). The appropriate Government may, in the public interest, by notification, exempt any of the following projects from the application of the provisions of Chapter II and Chapter III of this Act, namely: – (a) such projects vital to national security or defence of India and every part thereof, including preparation for defence or defence production; (b) rural infrastructure including electrification; (c) affordable housing and housing for the poor people; (d) industrial corridors set up by the appropriate Government and its

174  Law of land acquisition undertakings (in which case the land shall be acquired up to one kilometre on both sides of designated railway line or roads for such industrial corridor); and (e) infrastructure projects including projects under public-private partnership where the ownership of land continues to vest with the Government: Aside from this ordinance, that was re-promulgated thrice,97 the 2013 Act provided to maintain an interesting discretionary relationship with the allied statutes – section 105 read with fourth schedule of the Act listed a set of enactments which would be excluded from the application of the Act: Section 105 (1): Subject to sub-section (3), the provisions of this Act shall not apply to the enactments relating land acquisition specified in the Fourth Schedule. (2) Subject to sub-section (2) of section 106, the Central Government may, by notification, omit or add to any of the enactments specified in the Fourth Schedule. Enactments could be added to or deleted from the list as per the provisions laid down in section 106. The list includes enactments like Land Acquisition (Mines) Act 1885, National Highways Act 1956, Coal Bearing Areas Acquisition and Development Act, 1957 which have been systematically and repeatedly used, especially in states like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh among others, to dispossess innumerable tribes that associate their lives with the land they possess. None of these statutes have any provisions of resettling the displaced or compensating them fairly; these enactments had aligned themselves to the 1894 Act for compensation and other like provisions. Alongside replacing the 1894 Act, the statute of 2013 conditioned its relationship with the allied statutes specified in the fourth schedule on a direction from the central government that was to be promulgated after one year of the commencement of the Act. Section 105 (3): The Central Government shall, by notification, within one year from the date of commencement of this Act, direct that any of the provisions of this Act relating to the determination of compensation in accordance with the First Schedule and rehabilitation and resettlement specified in the Second and Third Schedule, being beneficial to the affected families, shall apply to the cases of land acquisition under the enactments specified in the Fourth Schedule or shall apply with such exceptions or modifications that do not reduce the compensation or dilute the provisions of this Act relating to compensation or rehabilitation and resettlement as may be specified in the notification, as the case may be.

Law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity 175 The provisions of compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement could be applied to the statutes listed in the fourth schedule, when the central government makes a notification to such effect. The word shall in the provision implies an obligation on the central government to make the notification, but the government has been rather busy since the 2013, in promulgating and re-promulgating the ordinances that limit application on the Act; the question of extending it to statutes of the fourth schedule doesn’t seem to be in its current list of priorities.

Alternated choices for acquisition Outside of the legal framework of land acquisition, the state possesses two separate and alternate choices of procedures for acquiring land – land grants and land pooling. Although, neither of these two procedures fall within the technical definition of land acquisition, but both have had similar elements of state coercion and compulsion, along with effects of dispossessing and displacing people, as the land acquisition law. Both procedures have existed parallel and additional to the acquisition law; their purpose seems to ensure that the state, in any situation, does not feel any paucity in the availability of procedures when it wants to develop the greater glory of the nation; in case, the various options within the land acquisition statutes, as have been described previously, fall short! The phenomenon of granting government wastelands to industries, apart from its power of acquiring private lands, has demonstrated to be a legal bonanza98 for the state. It offers to resolve two pressing arguments against land acquisition – since the land under transfer is only a government land, it claims to not cause any displacement and secondly, since the land is considered as wasteland or land or poor quality, it claims not to threaten the economics farm produce. The latter argument has been a usual statement, suggesting that acquisition of fertile and arable land is certainly undesirable, but grant of wasteland or land of poor quality to industries is unproblematic. I refer to the procedure of land grants to industries as a phenomenon because apart from acquisition, it is the other commonly used strategy to arrange land for industrial development. The various land grants provisions across states collectively give effect to the prevalence and reputation of this phenomenon. The states have often, simplistically and without any regard or recognition to relationships that are organically built by people around usage of land, identified tracks of wasteland which are considered to be of no use in the eyes of law and are owned by the government, as per revenue records, and either granted it to industries or declared them to be a part of special economic zones. Both the claims made in support of land grants are based on a deceptive understanding of the reality land relationships in the country. For one, revenue records cannot be trusted for identification of wasteland; for another, even where the identified land is a government land, it would never be unoccupied;

176  Law of land acquisition it would generally be used by people in a variety of ways – grazing, fishing, bearing valuable trees or vegetation, growing small crops, temporary shelter, etc. The law refers to such utilities as encroachment of government land. For yet another, transferring of such lands would essentially mean displacement of all the surrounding communities without any claim of compensation, for the land does not legally belong to them, thereby causing more damage than an acquisition statute that promises to compensate. One such glaring event that happened in Orissa, can be mentioned here as an example – when 4,004 acres of land was to be handed over to iron and steel project of POSCO in Jagatsinghpur district, 3,566 acres of land was declared to be government land and therefore by implication uncultivated and unoccupied.99 The land was instead filled with betel vines and cashew fruit trees that were maintained by communities of three surrounding villages for decades. Although, these communities could have found protection under state land regulation laws,100 their land was granted to the industrial corporation. The second, comparatively modern and an allegedly polished procedure that has been popularized as a preferred democratic and sustainable alternative to land acquisition is land pooling and reconstitution. In simplistic and generic terms, land pooling is a policy procedure where the government asks people to contribute land which would be utilized by a public/private agency to develop infrastructural and public facilities; after such development, the agency would keep some land with itself and return the remaining portion of the land to owners in proportion to their original share.101 The starring point of this measure is its claim of consensual element – that there is no coercion involved in collecting land, along with other claims like that the state has to persuade the landowners with appealing benefits in order to gain approval, that it is economically viable (also because the monetary compensation required to be paid in land pooling is much less than in acquisition) and that it promises to return a portion of developed land to the owner, making it a compelling alternative. After Gujarat began to utilize land pooling as a policy technique for collecting land, mostly for urban development, and made India familiar with another process of collecting land so that it could be privately developed, many other states have been tempted to make use of the procedure. The state governments have seemed to believe that the consent element of the procedure would provide them with the requisite legitimacy, that they otherwise were facing deep troubles with. The most recent and gleaming usages of land pooling schemes have been done in the states of Delhi and Andhra Pradesh – Delhi wanted to massively expand its urban limits and thereby framed a land pooling policy in 2013 and the following year, Andhra wanted to build a world class capital city, after losing Hyderabad, named Amravati which would become a pioneer smart city of India with world class standards. I would use a brief narration of the story of Amravati to describe the mannerism of conducting a pooling policy in India, since it is the most freshly conceived and ostentatious project of a megacity undertaken by any state.

Law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity 177 Once the declaration of construction of a megacity was made and blueprints were finalized by an International corporation (whose name doesn’t seem to appear very much in the news, it is only referred to as Singapore International Corporation), the government of Andhra began to mobilize 33,000 acres of extremely fertile double-crop land (locally called Jareebu lands) in the Krishna, Guntur, and Western Godavari districts. The location of the land, although not approved by the Sivaramakrishnan Committee,102 2014, was finalized by the government stating historical glories associated with the area which had the potential of shore up the pride of the people of Andhra who had been hurt by the bifurcation.103 Clearly, the workers and farmers living and cultivating in those regions that make Andhra the rice bowl of India are not the people whose pride, or even livelihood, formed even a small portion of the deep concern showed by state government. Thus began the voluntary Land Pooling Scheme for Amravati. The Land Pooling Scheme Rules, 2015 were drafted under the AP Capital Region Development Authority Act, 2014, which only incidentally gave the Capital Region Development Authority absolute powers to acquire, sell, transfer or alienate the land for the purposes of development or redevelopment to private parties. The land and property related provisions of the Act portray an interesting combination of provisions – Chapter XIII of the Act consists of provisions relating to both a negotiated settlement between the landowner and government and another dedicated to deem the required land in a development plan to be for a public purpose under the provisions of the 2013 Act: Section 125: The Authority may acquire land by mutual agreement by paying such amount and also on such other terms and conditions as may be agreed upon through negotiated settlement in such manner as may be prescribed. Section 126: Any land required, reserved or designated in any development plan shall be deemed to be the land needed for public purpose within the meaning of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 and may be acquired by the Government on the request by the Authority or other authority or functional unit. In addition to this puzzling combination of provisions, Rule 9(1) of the 2015 Land Pooling Scheme Rules states that the land acquired under section 126 of the Act would also form a part of the LPS scheme, thereby negating the difference between pooled land and acquired land. Rule 9(1) Draft LPS: As soon as may be, after the notification of intention to make the LPS, the Commissioner shall complete the preparation of the draft LPS within 180 days in consultation with land owners. The lands falling under acquisition within LARR Act, 2013 shall also be included while preparing draft LPS.

178  Law of land acquisition The three provisions, therefore, offer a flawless procedure for the government of AP to realize its dream project – a land pooling scheme that involves provisions for acquisition whenever required! Could there have been a better legal scheme that aided construction of a modern megacity cum flourishing economic centre on the ground of lacks of farmers and agricultural labourers who could possibly (and most certainly) meet an end of their socio-economic life? It is upon these legal provisions that the state has constructed its democratic land pooling policy. Apart from regular police action104 and parallel political intimidation105 in the area, which was deemed necessary after the farmer began protesting against the scheme, the government has been relentlessly threatening to re-promulgate the land acquisition ordinance for the state and instead using the acquisition law to take their lands, if the farmers do not agree to accept the deal offered to them.106 It could do so because of a supporting legal scheme. The state deliberately created a situation where, regardless of the desires of the people, construction of the megacity on their lands had become inevitable. Land acquisition law in India is therefore, both compulsive and stubborn by nature. Once officiated, it creates an atmosphere of inevitability about its consequences. The legal process is constructed to ensure that an atmosphere of continuous threat to property and livelihood rights is maintained. One process or another, one legal provision or another, one purpose or another would suffice the taking of land by the state. Within such a scheme, the notion of private property rights automatically begins to fade away. The only factor extenuating this is the provision of compulsory compensation, which will follow the present discussion. Its meaningful presence or absence determines whether the land acquisition law possessed a conscience and accordingly, it does not just occupy a formal or ceremonial significance in the composition of a right to property. With repeated and increasing events of land acquisitions, its significance has only gained greater intrinsic value. It is, after all, the only legal claim that can be confidently made by the dispossessed. Along with compensation, the next section also concerns itself with provisions of resettlement and rehabilitation, for they are, the only substantial means of re-establishing concepts of fairness and equity within the land acquisition framework. A monetary compensation alone can, after all, have only a restricted utility to the lives of people who lose both their right to property and primary source of livelihood.

Notes 1 Fixing an understanding of the term landless is a rather speculative exercise. Various agencies of the state have been using the term in different constructions. It is unclear whether the term includes homestead land or not, so is its minimum land requirement and so is the quality of land in question. Although the term landless is loosely defined, the National Sample Survey Organisation identifies a person as landless if she possesses no land or a parcel of below 0.002

Law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity 179 hectares or 215 square feet. The Draft National Land Reform Policy of 2013, while basing its estimates on the NSSO data of 2003–04, claimed that landlessness was a steadily rising phenomenon in both rural and urban India and estimated that about 41.63 per cent of households do not possess any land, other than homestead. The Finance Ministry, in 2015, approximated this number at about 300 million people. See “Draft National Land Reform Policy” (Department of Land Resources, Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, July 24, 2013), accessed January 29, 2019, http://rural.nic.in/sites/downloads/ latest/Draft_National_Land_Reforms_Policy_July_2013.pdf.   Also see Roshan Kishore, “How Many Indians Are Landless?” May 4, 2015, accessed February 29, 2019, www.livemint.com/Opinion/PUzqHSs3xejXk4hm 2djTPM/How-many-Indians-are-landless.html. 2 The legal framework of land acquisition is often accused of being one of the primary causes of increasing number of landless households in the country. Since land acquisition is generally made for conducting industrial development activities on land, it often evicts the existing occupiers of land. The literature on displacement and rehabilitation has largely accused the framework of 1894 statute and the developmental policies of the government as the reason for a very large number of people losing their land and livelihood. See generally Smitu Kothari, “Whose Nation? The Displaced as Victims of Development,” Economic and Political Weekly (1996): 1476–1485; Usha Ramanathan, “Displacement and the Law,” Economic and Political Weekly (1996): 1486–1491. 3 Chapter 1 entails a detailed discussion of the doctrine of eminent domain. 4 Refer the previous part. 5 Refer Chapter 3. 6 The state in a liberalized regime acts almost exclusively in the interests of private–corporate interests, which necessarily means a general withdrawal of state support from traditional production houses, small scale industries and peasant agriculture. See Prabhat Patnaik, “Economic Liberalisation and the Working Poor” Economic & Political Weekly 51, no. 29 (July 16, 2016). 7 The term landlordism is usually used to refer to the colonial phenomenon of prevalent ownership of land by landlords who kept tenants on their land for cultivation, against a fixed-rent payment agreement. Most often, in India, these landlords were also the official revenue collectors of the state. Refer to Chapters 3 and 4 for details. The present discussion uses the term to refer to their continuity of presence in the land structure, even after alleged laws of eliminating the intermediaries and landlords. The fact that the intermediary abolition laws did not aim to eliminate the landowner status of intermediaries has been discussed in some length by M. L. Dantwala in his popular essay on land reform. M. L. Dantwala, “Prospects and Problems of Land Reform in India,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 6, no. 1 (1957): 3–15. 8 This claim has been made and discussed in detail in Chapter 4, Part II, of this work. 9 In the recent past, the trend of landownership has been increasingly shifting towards corporate group ownerships, rather than individuals. The manner in which the land acquisition law has been operated, private corporations have been exercising ownership rights on much more land than they were in the past. The term private corporate landlordism is used, in this context, to refer to a state where the corporations have become the new lords of the land, where they utilize the land resource to serve their economic interests. The transition of the Indian society from traditional agrarian practices to the modern corporate dominancy has been explained from a sociological standpoint by C. P. Bhambhri – C. P. Bhambhri, “The Indian Transition,” Social Scientist 41, no. 1/2 (February 2013): 69–85.

180  Law of land acquisition 10 The allied statutes of land acquisition at both the central and state level come in a variety of forms and sizes. There is definitely a pattern to their existence, for example, almost all states have laws empowering the municipal corporation to acquire land, or the state to acquire land for rehabilitation of slums, or validating a few acquisitions or acquiring land for particular projects. All these statutes have been enlisted and assessed in Annexure A19 for the purpose and procedure that they follow to proceed with acquisition of land. 11 The rising trend of using the public purpose clause under the acquisition Act for acquiring land for companies has been established by a substantial amount of literature on the subject. This trend of using a statute in a particular way is also one of the primary reasons for the 1894 statue to run into the extent of controversy that it did, leading to its repeal in 2013. See generally Colin Gonsalves, “Judicial Failure on Land Acquisition for Corporations,” Economic and Political Weekly (2010): 37–42; Kothari, “Whose Nation?”; Muzaffar Assadi, “Karnataka’s New Agricultural Policy: Making Way for Corporate Landlordism,” Economic and Political Weekly (1995): 3340–3342; V. Ranganathan, “Eminent Domain or Eminent Thievery? Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor,” Economic and Political Weekly (2006): 2697–2700. 12 For instance, the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Act of 1962 amended section 7 of the Act to override any judgment or decree of any court in order to validate certain acquisitions made for companies; the Special Economic Zones Act of 2005, that empowers the state to declare any area as a special economic zone, overrides all other laws through its Section 51 and once the land is so notified, it can be utilized by the developer for any industrial activity. 13 The definition of the phrase public purpose would be discussed in detail in the next section. 14 The recent Draft National Reform Policy claims that almost 47 per cent of the rural population lives without any access to land; the usual term which one associates with land acquisition and its impact on the land structure is displacement. We say that land acquisition displaces people from their original landed locations and places them in a state of anticipation of finding or receiving a new habitat. The literature on land acquisition popularly pointed out to the inherent inequity in the erstwhile law of land acquisition – its most obvious lack of provision for rehabilitating the persons it displaced. They claimed on the basis of empirical data that mass displacements have resulted from the incessant operation of land acquisition law. Landlessness, on the contrary, is usually associated with land reform; it is land reform that is expected to target the non-landed class and reduce landlessness in the country. I instead use the term landlessness, in my present discussion for a pointed purpose – in order to break the linguistic barriers in the study of land law. If a landless person, irrespective of her technical categorization, is a person who does not own any land or a land that cannot provide her a livelihood, then presuming that the law is having sufficient impacts on the tenure, her situation could be a result of either of the two statutes – either reform was unable to provide her land, or acquisition took her land away. It is in this context that the term should be read in the present discussion. For use of the term displacement, see Ramanathan, “Displacement and the Law”; Kothari, “Whose Nation?”; Walter Fernandes and Enakshi Ganguly Thukral, Development, Displacement, and Rehabilitation: Issues for a National Debate (New Delhi: Indian Social Institute, 1989). 15 For details on the process of land ceiling law, please refer to Chapter 4. 16 Ibid.; the fact that the presence of a redistributive regime in name and its absence in substance was counterproductive to the declared objective has been discussed in Chapter 4.

Law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity 181 17 There have been some views floating in the legal policy discourse about the relation of land reform and acquisition laws. See generally Anisa Draboo, “Why the Modi Government Must Work on Land Reform before Land Acquisition,” Scroll. In, July 22, 2015, accessed January 29, 2019, https://scroll.in/article/741036/ why-the-modi-government-must-work-on-land-reform-before-land-acquisition. 18 The revenue records system is rather carelessly kept in India. Despite forming one of the foundational elements of a reformative regime, the law of keeping records never received genuine political attention. Attempting to conduct a title scrutiny literally means a lengthy and laborious assessment of all the relevant documents, which may or may not corroborate each other. This matter has received an independent analysis in Chapter 6 that discusses the state of revenue, records and regulation laws in the country. The present contention is taking off from the conclusion derived in Chapter 6. 19 A combined reading of section 3(b) 3(f) second proviso clause (iv) of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. 20 Refer to Chapter 3 for the detailed discussion on intermediaries and their role in the land tenure system. 21 It has been affirmed in Chapter 4 that intermediary class that existed at the top of land hierarchy during the colonial land system, possessed a dual character: they were both landowners employing cultivating tenants and government appointed revenue collection agents. The most popular, and allegedly most successful land reform legislations, Zamindari and other Intermediaries Abolition Laws were directed to eliminate one of the dual character of the intermediaries – their intermediary status and maintained their landowning status. 22 This contention is flowing from the arguments made in Chapter 4 where I have discussed the impact of zamindari abolition laws on the then existing land tenure system. 23 The operation of the 1894 Act and its clause for public purpose that has been read to equate with the developmental strategies of the government, has in fact generated another discourse that needs to focus on the displacement caused by development, its empirical study and solutions. The usage of 1894 Act to promote developmental activities is no hidden secret. See generally Kothari, “Whose Nation?”; Fernandes and Thukral, Development, Displacement, and Rehabilitation; C. J. De Wet, Development-Induced Displacement: Problems, Policies, and People, vol. 18 (Oxford: Berghahn books, 2006), accessed January 29, 2019, https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=1SQpTIxa63MC&oi=fnd& pg=PP6&dq=development+induced+displacement&ots=ugXFd_eRy7&sig=g_ GrphIIk-dZLFYKsiFoGen3tlM. The same contention would be addressed in the next section of this chapter. 24 Gonsalves, “Judicial Failure on Land Acquisition for Corporations”; “The State as a Real Estate Agent for Corporate India,” Rediff, accessed January 13, 2017, http://business.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/oct/15/slide-show-1-will-the-cry-ofthe-farmers-ever-be-heard.htm. 25 A Special Economic Zone is a specially demarcated area of land which is legally owned and operated by a private company and is deemed to be a foreign territory for the purposes of trade, duty and tariffs. These zones enjoy exemptions from custom duties, income tax, sales tax and service tax. The Special Economic Zones Act was enacted in 2005 that provided the required legal endorsement to the policy. 26 After the enactment of the Special Economic Zones Act of 2005, 237 SEZs occupying 86,107 hectares of land have been approved by the central and state governments. 27 This will be covered in the next section of this chapter.

182  Law of land acquisition 28 The concept and role of property rights is generally considered vital for the realm of developmental economics. The working of an economy prefers the property rights regime practiced within the region to be well defined. See Timothy Besely and Maitreesh Ghatak, “Property Rights and Economic Development,” in Handbook of Development Economics, vol. 5, ed. Dani Rodrik and Mark R. Rosenzweig (New York: Elsevier, 2010), 4524–4595, accessed January 29, 2019, http://personal.lse.ac.uk/ghatak/handbook.pdf. 29 Since the notion of private property entails in its core the idea of owning a property to the effect of being able to exclude all others from its dominion, a legal principle providing the state with a power to take or acquire land from a person as per public needs generates an anxiety to the supporters of private property. Its relation with the process of land acquisition and the power of eminent domain has been discussed in the first chapter of this work. 30 The phenomenon of displacing people from their places of livelihood for purposes of development is usually referred to as Development–Induced–Displacement and the people that suffer displacement are called Displaced Persons (DPs) or Project–Affected–Persons (PAPs) within the policy language. Development of the nation by building infrastructures has actually become a conceited affair of the nations that claim to be in the middle of a process of development and displacement is acknowledged as an unwanted but inevitable consequence of this process. The discourse of Development Induced Development attempts to study the nature of displacement caused by developmental process and addresses the concerns of rehabilitation of the affected people. Since indigenous tribes occupy the most desirable land, they constitute the largest percentage of the displaced population. A number of regional studies have been conducted in India that studies the range of displacements carried by specific projects. See Walter Fernandes, “Sixty Years of Development-Induced Displacement in India,” India Social Development Report (2008): 89–102; Walter Fernandes, “Singur and the Displacement Scenario,” Economic and Political Weekly (2007): 203–206; Jose Murickan, Development-Induced Displacement: Case of Kerala (Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2003); W. Courtland Robinson, “Risks and Rights: The Causes, Consequences, and Challenges of Development-Induced Displacement,” Occasional Paper, The Brookings Institution-SAIS Project on Internal Displacement, May 2003. 31 The term patterned inequality was first used by Manus I. Midlarsky in 1988 to describe the distribution of land in Latin America and explaining the reasons for political violence associated with land. I use the term here for a specific purpose: in order to indicate that the inequality of distribution of landholdings is not merely irregular or accidental. It is a concentrated affair that the law and policy on land have worked towards for years now and have produced a pattern where only the financially or socially able are allowed to exercise any level of control over land. This thesis has formed one of the central concerns of this work and land acquisition is the most recent and also, the most popular law that has actively aided to bring about this pattern of inequality. Facts, figures, and provisions supporting this argument would be assessed throughout this chapter. For example, among the persons that the acquisition law displaces, almost 40 per cent of those DPs are either tribals or small-scale farmers. 32 The most glaring example of upsurges of political violence due to land conflicts is in the context of Maosim in the first decade of 21st century which rose due to agrarian crisis in the region and transfer of resource rich land to the corporate houses for appropriation. A 2009 Draft Report by Sub-Group IV of the ‘Committee on State Agrarian Relations and Unfinished Task of Land Reforms’ referred the situation as ‘the biggest grab of land after Columbus in the making’.

Law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity 183 Neera Chandhoke, “Compound Inequalities and Political Violence in India,” India International Centre Quarterly 39, no. 1 (2012): 64–73. 33 See Walter Fernandes, “Land as Livelihood vs Land as Commodity in India,” Agenda 1 (2008): 1–5. Fernandes empirically discusses the alterations in the policy debates after liberalization of the economy at pp. 3–4. 34 Usha Ramanathan, “A Word on Eminent Domain,” Displaced by Development: Confronting Marginalization and Gender Injustice (2009): 133–145. Hereinafter, Ramanathan, “A Word on Eminent Domain.” 35 Refer to Chapter 1. 36 Land acquisition finds its philosophical foundations in the ideology that private property can be taken by the state under its eminent domain powers for a purpose that is commonly beneficial to the society. For references, see Chapter 1. 37 Activities of acquiring land to conduct large scale infrastructural developments have time and again been alleged for instigating a complex cycle of impoverishment in the country. Chandhoke, “Compound Inequalities and Political Violence in India.” 38 This alliance of the state with private corporations is a popular occurrence in land acquisition matters. Ramanathan, “A Word on Eminent Domain.” 39 Smt. Somwati v. State of Punjab, 1963 AIR 151, 1963 SCR (3) 774; Jage Ram v. State of Haryana, 1971 AIR 1033, 1971 SCR (3) 871; Manubhai Jehtalal Patel v. State of Gujarat, AIR 1984 SC 120, 1984 56 CompCas 85 SC; R L Arora v. State of UP, 1964 AIR 1230, 1964 SCR (6) 784; Pratibha Nema v. State of MP, AIR 2003 SC 3140, (2003) 10 SCC 626. 40 Urgency clause under section 17 of the 1894 Act has been invoked consistently by the government to process land acquisition matters. If and when challenged, the courts have shown varying trends in its adjudication. See First Land Acquisition Collector and Ors. v. Niroshi Prakash Ganguli and Anr, (2002) 4 SCC 160; Radhe Shyam (Dead) through LRs v. State of Up and Ors., 2005(3) UPLBEC 2549. 41 Refer to Annexure A19: Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisitions and Development) Act, 1957; Andhra Pradesh Slum Improvement (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1956; Vishakhapatnam Steal Project (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1972. 42 Disputes over the amount of compensation in cases of land acquisition are most common in land litigations. 43 Before 2013, there existed only Rehabilitative Policies for the DPs. Not one acquisition law includes a provision dedicated to mandate resettlement and rehabilitation of the DPs. 44 “The morality of the law which effects displacement is posited on the ‘larger public good.’ It is couched in the language of ‘public purpose.’ It reasons that the state will have to act to protect, and advance generally, the interests of people.” Ramanathan, “Displacement and the Law.” at p. 1487. 45 One of the cases in which the court categorically expressed this understanding was Arnold Rodricks v. State of Maharashtra, AIR 1966 SC 1988 where it stated that “Public Purpose requires an element of general interest of the community and whatever furthers the general interest must be regarded as public purpose.” 46 Ibid. 47 “Experience with public purpose has demonstrated its utilitarian potential. Utilitarianism is a pragmatic philosophy, advocating the seeking of the greatest happiness of the greatest number. It does not actually advocate the marginalisation of those who get excluded from the benefits of the system; yet it is implicit in its very statement. Public purpose works to similar effect. What is public purpose for a category of persons may represent the trauma of displacement for another. The exercise of state power is governed by the identification of the

184  Law of land acquisition public purpose, without the constraint of addressing the adverse impact it may have on the affected population.” Ibid. 48 The description of Indian occupation of land is heavily depended on a historical review of land system. See generally Rekha Bandyopadhyay, “Land System in India: A Historical Review,” Economic and Political Weekly (1993): A149–A155. 49 This statement can be acquired from the categorization made under land reform laws. Refer to Chapters 3, 4, and 5. 50 Ibid. 51 Thorner, “Agrarian Prospect in India.” Refer to Part II for further elaboration. 52 Generically speaking, a person may possess legal title to land if they hold a title deed to their name and their name occurs in the revenue records of the area. In the majority of cases, these records hardly match with one another. For details, refer to Chapter 6. 53 Holding legal physical possession of land and holding its title papers are two distinct things in India. In the case of tribals, the situation can become so worse that an FIR is considered a valid proof of a person physically occupying land. Refer to Chapter 6. 54 These groups constitute a wide range of agricultural and seasonal workers, sharecroppers, and lower classes of tenants. 55 Here, I refer to the variant tribes in India occupying forest land across the country. 56 See generally Vamsi Vakulabharanam, “Does Class Matter? Class Structure and Worsening Inequality in India,” Economic and Political Weekly (2010): 67–76. Vakulabharanam compares the data from the NSS regarding household consumer expenditure conducted in 1993–94 and 2004–05 in order to demonstrate the distance between urban elites (owners, managers and professionals), rural rent classes (such as moneylenders and absentee landlords), and unskilled urban workers and marginal farmers. 57 Nand Kishore Gupta v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2010) 10 SCC 282 58 “I am most unhappy that development projects displace tribal people from their habitat, especially as project authorities do not always take care to properly rehabilitate the affected population. But sometimes there is no alternative and we have to go ahead in the larger interest.” Letter from Indira Gandhi to Baba Amte, August 30, 1984. Cited in Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard, eds., The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams, vol. II (Camelford: Wadebridge Ecological Centre, 1986), 245. 59 “If you are to suffer, you should suffer in the interest of the country.” Jawaharlal Nehru, speaking to villagers who were to be displaced by the Hirakud Dam, 1948. Cited at www.indiawaterportal.org/topics/development-and-displace ment, accessed July 15, 2019. 60 Rina Chandran, “India’s Coal Mining Ambition Hurts Indigenous Group, Amnesty Says,” Thomson Reuters Foundation, July 13, 2016, accessed January 29, 2019, https://in.reuters.com/article/india-coal-displacement-tribals-mining/indias-coalmining-ambition-hurts-indigenous-group-amnesty-says-idINKCN0ZT0YP; Prachi Salve, “Tribals Account for a Third of Communities Displaced by Large Projects,” IndiaSpend, June 17, 2014, accessed January 29, 2019, http://archive. indiaspend.com/cover-story/tribals-account-for-a-third-of-communitiesdisplaced-by-large-projects-11821. 61 The recent body of writing on the subject of land acquisition and conse quent displacement indicates a trend in the purposes for which land is being heavily acquired by the state. Most of the land that is acquired in the North East, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh is for private corporations to develop various

Law of land acquisition and its inherent inequity 185 facilities – mining, construction of highways, etc. See Fernandes, “Singur and the Displacement Scenario”; Deb Kumar Bose, “Land Acquisition in West Bengal,” Economic and Political Weekly 42, no. 17 (2007): 1574–1575; Murickan, Development-Induced Displacement; Samir Kumar Das, Blisters on Their Feet: Tales of Internally Displaced Persons in India’s North East (SAGE Publications India, 2008), accessed January 29, 2019, https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en &lr=&id=d7SGAwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=sameer+kumar+das+blister s+on+their+feet&ots=t5OBKC7JPX&sig=iAaO3_D2Oxx_HewCgnC_IfeP7CM. 62 Dhampur Sugar (Kashipur) Ltd. v. State of Uttranchal, (2007) 8 SCC; Daulat Singh Surana v. Collector, 2002 (1) SC 290; Charanjit Lal Chowdhary v. Union of India, 1950 SCR 869. 63 Section 3(f)(i) of the 1894 Act. 64 Section 3(f)(vi) of the 1894 Act. 65 Section 3(f)(v) of the 1894 Act. 66 Section 3(f)(vi) of the 1894 Act. 67 Section 3(f)(vii) of the 1894 Act. 68 Section 3(f)(i) and (ii) of the 1894 Act. 69 Section 3(f)(v) of the 1894 Act. 70 Section 3(f)(vi) of the 1894 Act. 71 Section 3(f)(v) of the 1894 Act. 72 The Land Acquisition (Amendment) Act, 1984. 73 Part VII of the Act was dedicated to acquisition of land for private companies. 74 Section 3(f)(viii): the provision of any premises or building for locating a public office, but does not include acquisition of land for companies. 75 1961 AIR 343, 1961 SCR (2) 459. 76 Ibid. at para. 11. 77 R L Arora v. the State of Uttar Pradesh AIR 1962 SC 764; Smt. Somawati & Ors. v. State of Gujarat AIR 1963 SC 151; Senga Naicken’s case ILR 50 Mad 308. 78 1963 AIR 151, 1963 SCR (3) 774. 79 Ibid. 80 Pratibha Nema v. State of MP, 2003 10 SCC 626; Indrajit C. Parekh v. State of Gujarat, AIR 1975 SC 1182, (1975) 1 SCC 824; Devinder Singh v. State of Punjab, (2007) 145 PLR 337; Chaitram Verma v. Land Acquisition Officer, AIR 1994 MP 74. 81 Ibid.; Pratibha Nema v. State of MP at para. 6. 82 C K Thakker J in Dhampur Sugar (Kashipur) Ltd v. State of Uttaranchal, 2007 8 SCC 418 at para. 48. 83 Motibhai Vithalbhai Patel v. State of Gujarat, AIR 1961 Guj 93, (1961) 2 GLR 1. 84 Ibid. 85 Jage Ram v. State of Haryana, AIR 1980 SC 2018. 86 State of Bombay v. Ali Gulashan, 1955 AIR 810, 1955 SCR (2) 867. 87 Suraram Pratap Reddy & Ors v. District. Collector, Ranga Reddy, (2008) 9 SCC 552. 88 Bajirao Kote v. State of Maharashtra, 1995 2 SCC 422. 89 “Terms like ‘public interest’ and ‘development’ are always obfuscations of particular class interests. Dispossessing land for these projects made possible accumulation that disproportionately benefitted industrial bourgeoisie, dominant agrarian classes and public sector elites.” Pranab Bardhan, The Political Economy of Development in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984). 90 Fernandes, “Sixty Years of Development-Induced Displacement in India” at 89–102.

186  Law of land acquisition 91 Dev Sharan v. State of Uttar Pradesh, (2011) 4 SCC 769. 92 Banda Development Authority v. Motilal Agarwal, (2011) 5 SCC 394. 93 “At any given time states have a set of economic purposes for which they are willing and able to dispossess land. With respect to private property, this is partly a legal matter of what is considered a “public purpose” under relevant eminent domain statutes and domestic case law (common and state land are typically dispossessed with little legal impediment). However, it remains primarily a political question since, as we have seen in India, states amend these laws to suit their purposes at any given time; and, further, because states might not choose to dispossess land for all the purposes allowed to them by law.” Michael Levien, “From Primitive Accumulation to Regimes of Dispossession: Six Theses on India’s Land Question,” Economic & Political Weekly 30 (2015): 146–157. 94 Ibid. 95 This contention has been made in the next section of this chapter. 96 Section 3(b), Land Acquisition Act, 1894. 97 From December 2014 to August 2015 three ordinances had been amending the procedures of the 2013 Act, while every attempt of the government to pass a bill in the parliament was failing. 98 The term bonanza is used by K. Balagopal to refer to land grants in his second article of the series on Land Unrest in Andhra published in EPW in 2007. K. Balagopal, “Land Unrest in Andhra Pradesh-II: Impact of Grants to Industries,” Economic and Political Weekly, 2007, 3906–3911. 99 Ibid. at p. 3906. 100 Orissa Prevention of Land Encroachment Act, 1972 and Scheduled Tribes and Other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. 101 Land pooling is referred to as a technique of land collection that promotes efficient, sustainable, and equitable land development. 102 The committee was appointed for the selection of the new capital for the state of Telangana. 103 C. Ramachandraiah, “Making of Amaravati,” Economic & Political Weekly 51, no. 17 (2016): 69. Hereinafter, Ramachandraiah, “Making of Amravati.” 104 Eight battalions of police (that is, about 10,000 police personnel) descended on the villages. Police outposts were set up and prohibitory orders were imposed in all the villages. There were also police in civil dress in every village. Those belonging to the main opposition party, or to backward/dalit communities were treated roughly. 105 Short deadlines were set to pressurize farmers for speedy surrender of lands even before their implications were understood by them. 106 “I know what to do with you if you don’t give me your lands,” Ramachandraiah, “Making of Amravati.”

8 Displacement, dispossession,1 compensation, and rehabilitation in matters of land reform and acquisitions

An introduction to the essential concepts: public purpose, development, and displacement The last chapter has observed that the land acquisition law maintains a bizarre and a rather absurd notion of public purpose.2 The legal concept displays a strange situation of a property regime in the country; one that guarantees a constitutional right to private property, but creates a robust legal procedure to enable an efficient surpassing of the right. The phrase has gained a reputation of not being limited by any discernible principles of either equity or fairness.3 It seems to have no clarity in its understanding of the public or their relations with land and its resources.4 However, amongst all this mess, the phrase has repeatedly found a single and seamless alignment with an ideology called national development.5 The government has utilized and the courts have endorsed a practice of using development as an overriding, universal idea that necessarily and at all times would be in benefit of the general public.6 Therefore, regardless of the problems associated with generalizing the connotation of the phrase public purpose,7 the concept of development has received a blanket affirmation in the interpretation of the phrase. In fact, instead of the legal principle of public purpose determining the nature of developmental activities, a reversal in roles can be noted – when the concept of public purpose is composed without any fundamentals of the public or their necessities, development receives an open and an unrestricted field to construct its own scheme of an ideology, which is mostly determined by the active political sentiment, without any fears of basic principles. As would be observed shortly, such similarities in understanding of the two terms are mostly made in a loose, superficial manner without assessing their character or consequences. It is this similarity that provides developmental activities with the requisite legitimacy which they would require in their processes. The framework of such an ideology is adopted at a central level and guides all the terms and policies of state functionality and its general principles of governance.

188  Law of land acquisition Contemporary India has chosen a much popular notion of development that speaks in boastful terms of liberalization, privatization and globalization.8 With private corporations as the agents, government as the facilitator and economic dominion as the stated aim, the nation has been set forth on a path of development that is alluring to the bourgeois who expect to grow with the process. The backwards are neither members of this system and certainly not its beneficiaries. The Indian idea of development has displayed characteristics of a calculated math equation that is expected to produce a desired result when the given formulas are applied with precision; however, what it lacks is a fundamental sense of humanity. Within such an approach, development is synonymous with any activity that may show prospects of a lucrative business. These developmental projects are advertised to the public with assurances of generating employment in the industrial and service sector and therefore, beneficial to the population in general. While the prospects may seem appealing, they have occupied the imagination of the public and made them indifferent to their core character and consequences. Developmental projects, in the recent times, have increasingly been trying to modernize the standard of living of the elites; smart cities are being constructed, special economic zones have been established, modern housing colonies are the most popular projects, industrial corridors, expressways, offices of multinational corporations – the list can go on. All of such activities can be developing the living of only the elites, which might not have been such a massive problem, if they were not destroying lives and livelihoods of millions of backward classes in the process of doing so. The ideology of development in India, therefore, seems to be circumscribed by cosmetic notions of modernization that display only selected aspects of the activities. It excludes its most obvious consequence: displacement. The concepts of public purpose, development, and displacement have together produced a special legal situation for land and property rights in the country. Combined with the state agenda for redistribution of land, they create a legal regime where two ideologies – one of redistribution and another of involuntary and compulsory dispossession that stand erect in stark contrast of one another. This contradiction makes it difficult to discern any fundamentals of the discourse, outside of a pure political will; it creates a scenario where no coherent conceptual analysis of the discourse can be made. In presence of a robust system of land acquisition, one that regularly dispossesses people from their lands, the system cannot be stated to be one that respects the concept of a private property right. Within such a system, the only available aspect of property rights seems to be one of receiving compensation for the lost land.9 It is almost a situation where a landholder can expect nothing else from the law, but to receive a compensational amount. A concept of property rights, on the contrary, would demand a restricted application of the power of eminent domain and a certain definition of public purpose which is able to regulate the acquisitions. Nor can it be expressly stated that the state owns all land in the country and maintains a law of land

Matters of land reform and acquisitions 189 acquisition only for formal procedural fairness purposes. Although, at least until the 2013 Act came into operation, the practice of the 1894 Act and allied statues seemed to reveal some similar characteristics. As much as there appears to be a conflict in the normative framework in the land and property laws of India, the operation of the law has shown particular tendencies. It has been observed that these two particularly opposing concepts apply for particular classes of individuals. Once the land reform agenda was meticulously made to fail, it was possible for the state to maintain the power structures in land relationships. The constitutional right to property in land did not include a right to receive land in redistribution and remained restricted to its element of compensation. Thereafter, dispossession by compulsory acquisition of land has displaced around 20 to 60 million people across the country for developmental purposes.10 Of this wide figure, 80 per cent of the displaced are either tribals or dalits or other backward classes, for whom the concept of a secure property right in land is certainly a myth. The state has regularly displaced them from their habitats, often repeatedly,11 and found some other specific classes of people who could make better use of the land the displaced were possessing. For lack of formal rights in land, their claims of compensation cannot be easily made. A similar situation, however, is not true for the public belonging to the upper classes. They constitute 15 to 20 per cent of the displaced groups; that is not to say that the number is irrelevant, but the backward classes are a majority within the displaced, and if generalizations have to be made, their status and conditions would form the dominant factor for such generalization. The rights of upper classes in land seem to be distinct from those of lower classes; they enjoy a legal system that respects their freedom and dignity.

The development–displacement duo There is one other significant aspect to this legal regime: our legal policy perceives of development and displacement as two distinct phenomena that are casually related to one another by a cause–effect bond: development needs space to make its way and thereby, necessarily displaces the previous inhabitants of land. Displacement then becomes a subject of concern when development has finished its work and it is read as a separate field called development-induced displacement.12 India understands development as disjunct from its affects; a dominantly materialistic perception that believes in striking visual outcomes while disregarding its real consequences. Since development only causes displacement as a side effect, while doing something else that is considered of greater relevance and for a specific public, it does not bear the responsibility of any insignificant alterations that it may bring about in its usual course of business. This idea of development has been the dominant factor of interpreting the public purpose clause, as has been seen in the last chapter. The present discussion would focus on

190  Law of land acquisition the provisions that are usually known as the supplementary section of land acquisition law and seeks to understand displacement and the provisions of compensation and rehabilitation where displacement has largely become an unwanted, but inevitable corollary of development. This manner of understanding development and displacement as different from one another is, however, a problematic policy perspective. When we study displacement as merely an outcome of development, two presumptions are automatically made: one that there is little that development could do for the displaced and two, that the displaced are an obstruction in the course of development because they demand rights that do not conform to the economics of development. I find it unnerving to believe in a notion of development that does not entail displacement as a factor in calculating the level of expected growth. I make this statement on the understanding that development would intent to inculcate a general culture of growth in the country, where exclusion of certain sections of the society would not be an option to achieve the stated growth.13 When development induces displacement, it shatters all the existing means for a person and community to possess any standard of living. It may very well be constructing infrastructures that would advance living of a certain section of the elite population, but the destruction of livelihoods that it causes cannot be neglected in its calculation of progress. Displacement is not just something that happens in the course of development; it renders people landless and leaves them with almost no alternate means of sustenance. The dominant notion of development and public purpose runs parallel to such reality of displacement. It is not a development for tribals or dalits or other small farmers, but for those who possess a standard of living that can be advanced. The displaced form a part of the other public that we discussed in the last chapter while understanding the concept of public purpose. Contrary to the preferred public14 whose advancement is the primary goal of development, this other public is excluded from the scenery of a perfectly developed nation. The most unnerving element of this process is that this exclusion is considered both necessary and natural in the course of administering a nation.15

Understanding displacement The one thing that the development–displacement duo completely disrespects is the meaning of losing land for a person or community. Indian land law, in general, has not been framed to appreciate the meaning of land and of relationships that are built around land.16 Therefore, it also automatically underestimates the consequences of dispossessing people of their land. The former part of this book has attempted to assert a need for redistribution. Land reform was to understand the relationships that people have with land and therefore, propel a restructuring of the society by reforming the social– land hierarchy. The idea of public purpose as only material development or

Matters of land reform and acquisitions 191 privatization of the economy demolishes this position entirely. It dispossesses people from their land and finds it sufficient to pay a compensatory price for their loss. Neither is it capable of understanding the intricacies of land relationships, nor does it regard land as anything more than a monetized commodity which is only to be used for naked profit making objectives. Dispossession, therefore, has been normalized within the legal system regulating land and its relationships. In effect, the law automatically also normalizes a general sense of vulnerability and insecurity among the masses. A classist practice of the acquisition law ensures that this sense of insecurity is contained within the most underprivileged sections of the society, for that was necessary for the development of the preferred public. Dispossession is, in fact, an experience of trauma and it is this continuous sense of trauma and anxiety that the law is propelling. Especially when it is not followed by a robust resettlement and rehabilitation programme and even in cases where alternatives are provided by the government, the effects do not disappear magically. The displaced need to re-construct their lives from scratch. It leads to innumerable psychological, social, cultural, and economic consequences that are eternal in nature and that are beyond our restricted legal imagination. In essence, displacement by dispossession means destruction of a course of life cultivated by a community. Regardless of the presence, absence, aid, or restrictions of the state, people have historically developed lives for themselves.17 Within the boundaries of the existing legal system and its execution, they have engaged with society and economy of the nation and the nature, in their own unique way,18 to make a place for themselves in the polity. When law displaces them, it destroys such self-built ecosystems; often without the responsibility of rebuilding them. Displacement dismantles production systems, disrupts trade and market links of people and interrupts local labour markets that are established by the community for earning their livelihoods. Communities need to simply desert their ancestral sacred zones, graveyards, temples, community lands, and every other element of their life that they attach to their lands. It disorganizes informal social networks that provide mutual support along with scattering their kinship groups and family systems.19 It destroys webs of complex social relationships which are built around land and which provided avenues of representation, mediation, and conflict resolutions.20 After all this, displacement destroys the very cultural identity of the community, which was attached to their land, and any other remaining constituents of their lives with no choice or hope to return to their previous establishments. Nor is there any trace of expectation from the law to receive anything remotely equivalent to their loss. Compensation can hardly replace any of these losses.21 The stories of resettlement and rehabilitation have been narrated to reveal great disappointment for the displaced,22 to an extent that most people refuse to take the resettlement options provided to them by the government.23 There is one category of persons within the displaced that

192  Law of land acquisition have faced multiple displacements.24 Basically, the law has given them no reason to believe in its operation and instead, the law and the development policies executed through it seem to be a destruction tool in the hands of the government. Scholars working in the field have claimed that the displaced are exposed to a high risk of getting trapped into a spiral of impoverishments.25 Instead of developing the nation with an ideal of providing security and dignity to all citizens, this process is actually and actively rendering them vulnerable to a life of poverty and misery by snatching the little security and dignity they possessed along with their land. It is a wonder that we refer to such a scenario as one of development of the whole nation and this could only be made possible by completely eliminating the displaced from the calculation of national scales of growth like the Gross Domestic Product or others. Therefore, the operation of land acquisition law mandatorily induces vulnerability and insecurity into the lives of the dispossessed. Until now, the present chapter has attended to the character of the principles and procedures of acquisition of land and the nature of its consequences. The focus of this chapter, however, is to study the legal provisions that begin to function once land has been acquired by the state. The previous discussion was significant to understand the social and economic position that the law creates and thereafter has to work with. In order to ameliorate its effects the law has created a set of provisions to manage the situation of people who make an exit from their landholdings. The present chapter would now focus on the framework and substantive content of these provisions – compensation, resettlement, and rehabilitation. Contrary to the procedures established by a land acquisition statute, these provisions are made to be applied to the other public who stands displaced in any event of land acquisition. It would be observed here that, the structure of the law has remained grossly inadequate to rectify a situation created by its own operation; that the provisions of compensation, resettlement and rehabilitation have actually been rendered of secondary importance in the wake of developing the nation. Within the framework of land acquisition law, the provisions acquiring land have been taking prime positions. The last chapter has seen the robustness with which the provisions are created and implemented. The portion of the law that deals with compensation, resettlement and rehabilitation, however, has not been created with the same seriousness. The 2013 Act has made some substantial changes, but, until very recently, these provisions have only formed a supplementary part of the acquisition law. While resettlement and rehabilitation were almost completely absent from the law, provisions of compensation have been rather dissatisfying. The next section would observe the nature of these provisions. These provisions have had the capability of inducing a sense of justice and fairness into a land acquisition statute; but, our land law does not seem to be inclined to inculcate any of them.

Matters of land reform and acquisitions 193

Compensating the erstwhile landowners and displaced The right to property has been considered the basis of a free society26 and the clause of compensation has had a historical usage in protecting such freedom of individuals.27 A monetary compensation is a price that the state pays to individuals for violation of their freedom. It is expected to place a restriction on the state’s power of eminent domain and thereby balance the power dynamics between the state and an individual with respect to rights to hold land. The clause of compensation has also been the most accessible point of contestations for people wanting to claim their right to property against state interventions. Our constitutional history reflects a saga of compensation related litigations that have shaped the basis of Indian constitutional jurisprudence.28 The adequacy of the sum of compensation in land reform matters had instigated wide debates within the legal sphere regarding the status, framework and composition of the right to property. The resultant constitution of the right to property is what can be seen today in the form of Article 300A of the constitution29 and forms the basis of present land acquisition matters. There exists an intimate connection between the right to property and of compensation. Compensation is, in fact, considered the prime function of the right to property; since the right is in substance a right of nonintervention, compensation becomes its first pragmatic outcome. In order to ensure that freedom and liberty of individuals is protected, the concept of compensation functions in a variety of ways – it seeks to provide the persons with a just equivalent of what they have been deprived of;30 it is expected to curb the power of state’s eminent domain by placing financial restrictions on the process; it regulates a substantial portion of the power dynamics between the state and individuals with respect to land and property and it is seen to smoothen the procedure of acquisition by reducing the possibilities of a resistance.31 The historical and contemporary understanding of the term compensation, its placement within the contours of right to property, the transition of its role from land reform to land acquisition matters, and its conceptual underpinnings would be the focus of this section. The social and economic realities of the process of acquisition and displacement discussed in the previous section would background the present analysis of the law. It would also be observed here that the responsibility for articulating the concept of compensation has drastically altered with the changes in the form of property rights and the patterns of land acquisitions in the recent past. This part had begun with the fundamental idea of combining the two separate parts of land laws – reform and acquisition and the same would be continued in this chapter. The compensation clause of the right to property has played different roles in reform and acquisition matters and both would be observed closely. Additionally, the present section would also be taking off from the arguments presented in Chapter 1 that have questioned the jurisprudence of

194  Law of land acquisition property rights that has been developed in India. It was primarily contented there that land needed to be distinguished from a general form of property because it was intertwined with the life, livelihood, and social relationships of people that no other form of property could claim to possess.32 Owning to this distinction, a right to land could not have a singular dimension of freedom; it ought to entail elements of life and equality for it to complete itself. This section would observe the role of a compensation clause within such a framework of interpretation.

The shaping of a fundamental right to property through deliberations over the compensation clause: an Indian construction of a property regime In the Indian constitutional history, the clause of compensation has been a means to manoeuvre with the nature and framework of the right to property. There certainly have been other parts of the right to property that have been contested, but none has attracted as much attention as the compensation clause; at least not enough to alter its fundamental composition.33 Since its conception under Article 19(1)(f) as a part of the fundamental right to freedom, along with Article 31 that secured the right of non-intervention, until its conversion to a constitutional right in the form of Article 300A and protections in the form of Article 31A, B, and C, it were the litigations challenging the adequacy of the compensation payable in land reform matters that instigated alterations in its substantive nature. Almost all the leading cases on the matter – Kameshwar Singh,34 Subodh Gopal,35 Bela Banerjee,36 Kesavananda Bharti37 – were concerning the compensation clauses of various land reform statutes and their related constitutional amendments. The right to property, its distinctive aspect of landed property, its inbuilt characteristic of protecting freedom of individuals and its historical necessity of redistribution were understood differently by the judiciary and the legislature. Neither differed on the ideology of conducting land reforms; both were of the humble opinion that societal reform through land redistribution was an immediate necessity, especially for a welfare state. The conflict was, instead, on the amount of compensation that was required to be paid in the process.38 Since the basic principles of determining the amount of compensation were constitutional provisions, the legislature decided to conduct all alterations in the form of constitutional amendments. With the first amendment itself, the issue of conflict was not merely the principles determining adequacy of amount, but the resolving the question of who among the judiciary and legislature, was supreme in deciding matters of constitutional importance.39 This conversion was so swift that the cases related to land and property are hardly studied as a part of land law; they are, instead, essential constituents of constitutional amendment jurisprudence.40 A vast majority of the litigations challenging the property provisions of the constitution were concerned with land reform statutes. Among the most popular

Matters of land reform and acquisitions 195 challenges, were one concerning the compensation payable in land reform matters. The clause of compensation, therefore, was not merely determining the amount of money payable to an ex-owner of land; it was actually providing a platform to the litigants, judiciary and the legislature to shape the property regime of the country. It represented a substantial right of the ex-owners, one that needed complete settlement before the actual purposes of acquisitions could be thought about. When the new Indian state was beginning to deliberate on the nature of its property regime, the framework of its compensation clause was the most difficult to settle. India had begun its legal and policy journey with multiple and ambitious declarations of massive reforms in the land tenure system, but it found itself with insufficient financial means to achieve its goals.41 Compensating the erstwhile zamindars for abolition of their statuses and acquiring their lands, in terms of a just equivalent, was a cost that the Indian state was not prepared to bear; nor were the ceiling statutes a financially viable endeavour for the government. The compensation clause was perceived as a restriction the power of the government to conduct its desired alterations in land tenure. In fact, the ceiling statutes provided for a mechanism to redeem the cost of acquisition of lands from the people who were to receive the lands in redistribution.42 This restriction was both of conscious installation by the class of zamindars43 and a product of the slender terms with which the right to property was understood by the Indian polity.44 The compensation clause, within the inadequate contours of right to property under the Indian constitution, provided a convenient entry point to the zamindari and landowning class to tamper their way around with the agenda of land reforms. Within the traditional framework of the right to property, which identified it as a primary right of freedom, compensation clause was a component that provided space for intervention from the person losing property in the process. Its freedom component required that people deprived of the property are duly compensated for restriction of their freedom to hold property. Such understanding was neither concerned with the purpose of acquisition of property or existence of historical injustices in the distribution of that property. The Indian intermediaries and landowners were the losers of land within the system and they utilized every resource at their disposal to sabotage the endeavour. It has been seen in the first chapter that their contributions were vital to the failure of the process. The constitutional jurisprudence over land and property has had an eventful evolution – it took a total of seven constitutional amendments to arrive at the present position.45 The amendments and related case laws have been discussed in the first chapter where it was observed that compensation clauses in reform statutes were definitely worrying the judiciary. The fairness and reasonability that the judges were expecting from reform statutes for compensating the owners of land were rarely ever present. The judiciary had laid standards of compensation that were thoroughly technical and

196  Law of land acquisition therefore, extraneous to the Indian context. While keeping these expectations, what they completely neglected was the fairness and justice opportunities that they could have created for a mass of landless; had they considered the historical injustices conducted through alteration of land tenures by the permanent settlement and following events.46 For a country where the concept of ownership of land was inculcated to suit the revenue demands of the colonial government, fairly compensating those owners whose status was created by the then oppressive regime was a question that needed much more than just the right to freedom dimension. Its fairness could not merely be determined by flattened ideas of protecting the freedom of the owner. If the free holding of land has been factored by a historical regime of inequality and oppression, then the very foundations of the society become tainted. It creates a social space where freedom of holding land is in itself a principle of inequity; one that disintegrates society into landowners and landless while perpetuating the legally enforced miseries to the latter class. A disregardful judicial attitude towards these factors gave opportunity to the landowners to create a general disinclination towards the ideology of land reform. They were able to arch their freedom of holding land as the fundamental flaw in the reform measures and challenging the adequacy of compensation was their tool in doing so. The following series of First, Fourth, Twenty-fourth, Forty-second, and Forty-fourth Amendments produced a constitutional right to property that along with eliminating the freedom to hold property also obscured the opportunity of inculcating an equality component in the constitution of an Indian right to land. After its inception as Article 300A47 there was no freedom to hold land or to a right to receive one in redistribution. The only available provision read to protect an individual who already was in ownership of land against an act of state intervention in the usage of property – deprivation of property could only be done by an authority of law. The land reform statutes remained protected as per Articles 31A, B, and C. Eventually, the reform agenda failed and new definitions of development and public purpose were inaugurated in the country. With the liberalization of the economy, acquisition of land was not only for the government to undertake developmental projects – private companies were increasingly becoming the perpetrators of these developmental activities. The newly developed formation of the property rights in the constitution provided these developmental ideologies a suitable legal backdrop to cultivate themselves. Since there exited no fundamental right to acquire or hold property and the protection against intervention was limited to making of a law to the effect, the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 was able to desert all principles of justice and fairness. Its understanding of a law, public purpose and compensation were directed by whimsical political ideas.48 The constitutional consequences of land reform statutes, therefore, particularly its compensational clauses, did not fare well for the upcoming patterns of land acquisitions.

Matters of land reform and acquisitions 197 I do not mean to suggest here that the conversion of fundamental right to property to a constitutional right was problematic because a constitutional right was in any way less capable of defending interests of affected individual. The problem was in the formulation of Article 300A that merely became a right of protection in case of an acquisition. The erstwhile Article 19(1)(f) provided an active right to individuals to acquire and hold land, which could have inculcated a right to receive land in redistribution. If this was read along with a right of non-intervention in the usage of land, the power of government to acquire land from individuals could have been further circumscribed. It could have had the scope of according greater responsibility on the state to define legal concepts that were forming the basis of such acquisition. A singular right of not to be deprived of a property right without a secure affirmation of a positive right delinked it from an affiliation with elements of equality and livelihood.49 Land is a form of property that has immense life and livelihood associations. The first chapter has argued towards marking a firm distinction between land and property. If land is perceived as mere property, then its social and livelihood realities are completely ignored.50 If this distinction was recognized, then a right to land would have a scope to make immediate affiliations with the right to life and of equality; instead of a solitary existence of freedom to hold property. A statute providing for acquisition of land, within such a legal scheme, would be under much greater liability while conducting its process of deprivation. Furthermore, it could also pressurize the law to recognize the differences in the identities, classes, and castes of persons that are being deprived and dispossessed of their lands.

Purpose and adequacy of compensation: its reasonability, fairness, and justness in computation of amount As soon as the dynamics functioning in the interpretation a right to land or property are altered, the compensation clause immediately receives a complicated nature. It can no more be computed only on the principle of protecting ownership and freedom of property owners. The elements of fairness and justness cannot be singularly determined by limited concepts of economical loss to the owner and benefits to the general public. Traditionally, the clause of compensation has been an individualistic, material concept that has been utilized to balance the interests of individuals against community in terms of money.51 A just compensation has been attempting to do justice to the exowner of land by paying a value of land that could replace their loss. This attempt, however, has been devoid of a fundamental sense of other related social and legal occurrences, along with identities of the persons being compensated. It makes all public purposes alike despite of their essential distinctions in the alterations they are proposing to bring to land tenure; identifies all landowners as a singular group, regardless of their social and economic status in the society (which is also majorly determined by the amount of

198  Law of land acquisition land in their possession). A sense of equality that equates all landowners and public purposes is however, not the one that I am intending to argue here. The adjectives to the term compensation need a much more complicated scrutiny when the right to property is identified to have a distinctive element of land – a resource that has the ability to arrange fundamental structure of the society. If compensation majorly and only seeks to protect the owners of land, it is also simultaneously protecting their statuses and the societal divisions that make their existence possible. Its attempt at balancing the interests of individuals and public may then, actually be working towards reinstating the status quo of societal structure when attempts at reform have been intending to do otherwise. The simultaneous attempts at mindless land acquisitions have been only furthering the reinstatement of status quo and years of historical deprivations for a certain specific class of people.52 When the law compensates in matters of lands reform and redistribution, the concerning circumstances and principles are quite different from when the question arises in matters of land acquisition. Other than the basic process of state exercising its power of eminent domain and acquiring land in both the cases, all factors differ; since these differences are categorized by the nature of purpose of acquisition, even among the matters of land acquisition there is a significant possibility of differences occurring in every case of acquisition. I have placed the basis of distinction on the nature of public purpose because that is one concept that determines all other substantive factors of the law and its effects53 – it identifies the groups of people it is going to dispossess and others who would be benefitted (the public and other public), it can be making alterations in tenure of one form or another, it could have pure economic incentives or have substantial social reformations and the purpose could be aligned with the dominant ideology of the functioning of our polity. The overarching purpose of land reform was singular – to restructure the power balance in the society. The cultivators of land were to be awarded ownership and the previous owners were to be partially stripped off their rights over land.54 The idea was of pure sociological reform; one that intended to undo the historical injustices that had been inflicted on the vast majority of the cultivating, landless class.55 In a scenario such as this, a just compensation to the former owners of land could not be one that defeated the purpose of these acquisitions. The compensation clause could not have been used (but it was) to protect ownership rights of those who had become the face of widespread oppression in the country and whose ownership rights were a legal reality only in order to aid a system of revenue collection.56 Instead, the fairness and adequacy of the amount of compensation was judged in pure monetary terms – one that could duly repay the person for the loss suffered;57 even when the parties eligible for this just compensation were belonging to socially and economically sound background and were often the perpetrators of misery and hardship for the cultivators of land. Redistribution of land was meant to balance the distribution of resources in the society and so a fair compensation could not have giving them exactly what

Matters of land reform and acquisitions 199 they had lost, for that could not amount to a meaningful redistribution of wealth and resources. Unlike the reform statutes, the targeted public of land acquisition has been completely different:58 reform was taking land from the landed class to give to the landless, acquisition mostly functions towards an opposite paradigm – it often seen to take all the land that a person or group has and allot it to another group who has the capital to harness the resources of land.59 Moreover, every case of land acquisition can be for a different public purpose, one that has no conceptual connection with the other set of purposes. The role of a compensation clause in matters of land acquisitions, thereby, is liable to change. Land acquisition is known to render people displaced and landless, a phenomenal consequence that can be hard for the concept of compensation to iron out. As has been observed in the beginning of this chapter, displacement is a phenomenon that entails multiple and complex socio-cultural-economic dimensions; something that a monetary compensation can only hope to take charge of. Since the concept of a monetary compensation in events of land acquisitions is in itself an inadequate redemption for loss of land and livelihood, it is interesting to note the actual purpose of compensation in such cases. The purpose could only be limited to make the law seem less severe, especially until it entailed no provision for resettlement or rehabilitation. A clause that mandates payment of compensation in every event of land acquisition to every person whose land is being taken seeks to maintain a certain level of fairness of process and one of order. In absence of such a compulsory burden on the state to make payments in all cases of acquisitions, it would be difficult to claim existence of property rights in the country. As would be seen shortly, the purpose of compensation in popular cases of land acquisition has been to maintain a fallacy of property regime. Without its accompanying concept of public purpose, the compensation clause has hardly kept the state from acquiring land. It instead, has created an illusion of fairness in the process of acquisition, one that lets it repeat it every time land is needed for any purpose. More importantly, since the majority of affected parties in cases of acquisitions, are ones who lie at the lower strands of the society, the meaning of money and land are entirely different for them. This fallacy of property rights generally helps to maintain order in a democracy60 and seems to be, at least until 2013, the purpose of its existence; it spreads the message that the state is not just arbitrarily acquiring land, that it respects rights of property of all and therefore compensates every person for acquiring their land. A right to compensation has, in fact, formed one of the more substantial and the only negotiable contents of the Indian right to property in land. Both the other two fundamental concepts of land acquisition, eminent domain and public purpose, have been developed and established with intense conformity – the entire legal system holds eminent domain as an inherent necessity for governance61 and public purpose as a principle willing to be moulded as per the whims of such process

200  Law of land acquisition of governance.62 Since development is deemed to be the ultimate aspiration and land acquisition is the means to achieve it, the other two principles have been so firmly sealed, that any attempt to question the process on their basis is usually unsuccessful. The only point of possible interference within the law, which is available with a potential of negotiation is the quantum of compensation. It remains the only substantial point within the legal framework of land acquisition at which the people outside of the legal system stand a chance to be heard and accommodated. A reasonable amount of compensation should be, therefore, the only legitimate expectation of a displaced person, and this also has to be furiously fought for. In most events of land acquisition, farmers have had to put up a strong united protest against the government for receiving their compensational dues. Events of Sardar Sarovar Project where a protest for equitable compensation has been going on for the last 28 years,63 displaced of the POSCO project have been fighting for a status to obtain compensation, for most of their land was a grant to industries – a legally government wasteland that was merely granted to an industry for development,64 the famous case of Narmada Valley,65 the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor,66 the NTPC acquisition of coal land in Pakri–Barwadih district of Jharkhand where 8,000 acres of land covering 25 villages is under the process of being taken away.67 The list is eternal. The fundamental point of conflict between the government and these displaced persons is the determination of their compensation award. On a cursory analysis, it would not appear like the state has been refusing to compensate, it has, in fact, only been refusing to recognize the existence of a majority of the displaced;68 it is only when the state does admit to a claim of compensation, that the disputes over calculation of the amount, factors of consideration, sufficiency or insufficiency, arise (obviously). The concept of compensation has meant differently to the law and to the landowners: the law construes the displaced as a willing seller,69 and thereby perfunctorily attempts to go lengths to determine an adequate market value of the land;70 the displaced landowners, on the other hand, in absence of any other real choice, are seeking to use the compensation money to recreate their lives. The law necessarily approaches land as an economical entity, capable of being redeemed by an adequate amount of money, usually a fair market price for land, which is exactly how a capitalist market society required land to function. The new manner of legal determination of the amount has been to calculate a reasonable market rate of the landholding and multiply it by a prefixed factor.71 For the displaced, however, a landholding obtains neither an intensive nor an extensive resource for exploitation, but a sustainable resource that is attached to their lives and dignity. Scheduled tribes in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra, and Andhra Pradesh have been pursuing this elementary claim for decades now. Compensation is a price that the state deems fit to be paid to the ones who have sacrificed for the greater good of the society, to arrange a system that

Matters of land reform and acquisitions 201 does not only cause them irretrievable loss, pays them a certain sum and thereby, makes an attempt at reducing the injustice caused to them. Therefore, the prominent idea is to grant to the displaced landowners an amount of just compensation. While the morality of this endeavour may be well meaning, it may also be an inherent component of a right to property, the manner of its construction, within a legal framework that until recently did not even perceive of displacement as a reality, has been grossly frivolous. In absence of a felicitous purpose of the provision, its meaning remains limited to the value of the resource that the person lost to the process and does not extend to the value a person would require to actually reinstate oneself in the economy. This process is required to obtain a reasonable market value of land acquired. Neither does the amount of compensation take responsibility for providing for a replacement value of the rights or land lost, nor does it recognize the multiple layers of informal ties that various classes of people may have with the land. This is not to suggest that a monetary compensation should instead be an overly compact concept that begins to entail all elements of rehabilitation; a monetary sum is incapable of that function. Lives attached to land are too complex to be valued in strict economic terms. No amount of compensation, however large,72 can meaningfully recreate lives of millions of individuals and thousands of communities that enter into the vicious circle of impoverishment by displacement.73 My contention here is merely indicative of the dangers of a situation where compensation is granted disjunctive from the reality of displacement and the need for resettlement – it leads to a presumptuous scenario where the law believes that the displaced have an entire readily available social structure that is waiting to support them in their recreational endeavours and the money would easily be able to justify the displacement and the state could withhold to its high moral ground. Even a superficial reading of the available literature on land acquisition and a general knowledge of recent policy and law in the country is sufficient to counter any claim that states otherwise. Thus, it would be a matter of concern, that what does the law expect a monetary compensation to really do? Does it only purport to distribute an artificial amount to the displaced landowners, assuming them to be willing sellers with sufficient alternate means of livelihood? The Indian pattern of displacement has mostly been both classist and casteist,74 consequently leading to a scenario where the displaced are usually those classes of people whose right to livelihood is derived from their right to hold property75 in land. If people’s right to hold property is also their right to livelihood, then how does a mere market value of land qualify as just? Protection of private property rights, indemnification of loss, justice to the displaced and etc., could only be useful to create an apparent notion of equity and fairness. If a real right to property actually existed in the legal system, then the concept of compensation should have had an effect of sanction on the state, thereby limiting its power of acquisition and the trauma of displacement should

202  Law of land acquisition have been aiding in the process of negation by the amount. Contrary to what the law may pretend, none of this is a reality. Especially until 2013, compensation had only meant a formality to the law and administration, a process that had to be endured for its namesake.

Statutory principles determining computation of compensational amount: the acts of 1894 and 2013 The Land Acquisition Act of 1894 had, as one of its essential components, a bunch of provisions that determined computation of an amount of compensation. The Act neatly creates two sets of phases within which separately determine the principles and manner of determining the amount of compensation – first at the office of collector and second at the level of the court. The first time an amount of compensation is set to be determined is when the collector causes a public notice to be given that states that claims of compensation are made to their office; meaning thereby, that all interested persons are required to make their own claim of compensation. Section 9. Notice to persons interested. – (1) The Collector shall then cause public notice to be given at convenient places on or near the land to be taken, stating that the Government intends to take possession of the land, and that claims to compensations for all interests in such land may be made to him. After these representations are made, the collector is required to make inquiries into the measurement and value of land and into the respective interests of persons who have made the claim. Based on this enquiry, the collector makes an award for the compensation that in his opinion should be allowed for the land and its apportionment between persons known to be interested in land. Section 11(1)(ii) of the Act stated these provisions: Section 11. Enquiry and award by Collector. – [(1)] On the day so fixed, or on any other day to which the enquiry has been adjourned, the Collector shall proceed to enquire into the objection (if any) which any person interested has stated pursuant to a notice given under section 9 to the measurements made under section 8, and into the value of the land [at the date of the publication of the notification under section 4, sub-section (1)], and into the respective interests of the persons claiming the compensation and shall make an award under his hand of – (ii) the compensation which in his opinion should be allowed for the land Therefore, the amount of compensation fixed by the collector is at their complete discretion; it would depend on the claim made by the interested persons and on the enquiry made by the collector.

Matters of land reform and acquisitions 203 Express principles determining the computation of the amount of compensation occur only at the second stage, i.e. when the amount is to be assessed by the judiciary. Section 18 states that a person can require the collector to make a reference to the court when they do not find the amount of compensation to their satisfaction. The Act enlists a series of matters that have to be considered by the court while determining the amount. Section 23. Matters to be considered on determining compensation. – (1) In determining the amount of compensation to be awarded for land acquired under this Act, the Court shall take into consideration first, the market-value of the land at the date of the publication of the [notification under section 4, sub-section (1)]; secondly, the damage sustained by the person interested, by reason of the taking of any standing crops trees which may be on the land at the time of the Collector’s taking possession thereof; thirdly, the damage (if any) sustained by the person interested, at the time of the Collector’s taking possession of the land, by reason of serving such land from his other land; fourthly, the damage (if any) sustained by the person interested, at the time of the Collector’s taking possession of the land, by reason of the acquisition injuriously affecting his other property, movable or immovable, in any other manner, or his earnings; fifthly, in consequence of the acquisition of the land by the Collector, the person interested is compelled to change his residence or place of business, the reasonable expenses (if any) incidental to such change, and sixthly, the damage (if any) bona fide resulting from diminution of the profits of the land between the time of the publication of the declaration under section 6 and the time of the Collector’s taking possession of the land. In essence, section 23 of the Act mandates three factors of be considered by the court while calculation of the compensation amount – the market value of land, various damages sustained by persons, and expenses incidental to change of residence, if the person is compelled to do so. In addition to the above stated principles, the court is also required to award two other components to the compensation package – an amount calculated at the rate of 12 per cent per annum at the market rate as profit that may have accrued to land in the period of acquisition process and an amount of solatium that is calculated at the rate of 30 per cent in consideration for the compulsory nature of acquisition. Section 23. (1A) – In addition to the market value of the land, as above provided, the Court shall in every case award an amount calculated at the rate of twelve per centum per annum on such market value for the period commencing on and from the date of the publication of the

204  Law of land acquisition notification under section 4, sub-section (1), in respect of such land to the date of the award of the Collector or the date of taking possession of the land, whichever is earlier. (2) In addition to the market value of the land as above provided, the Court shall in every case award a sum of [thirty per centum] on such market value, in consideration of the compulsory nature of the acquisition. Although, these provisions have been observed to be grossly inadequate for people who lose their livelihood resource with their land,76 they are also a luxury that most find difficult to access. The law has created a procedure which introduces these provisions only at the second stage, when the matter is taken to the courts. The collector has been granted almost complete discretion on the matter and more often than not, the exercise of that discretion is largely inadequate. In a sense, the statute creates incentive for the affected persons to take their compensation disputes to courts; for, the office of the collector is not empowered to grant the proportions of profit or solatium. Compensation clause, therefore, becomes the most litigious provision in land acquisition law. A review of the Supreme Court cases reveals that 66.4 per cent of land acquisition cases are regarding computation of compensation.77 When the procedure and principle of acquiring land have been made so robust so as to make the acquisition an inevitable occurrence, the clause of compensation remains the only legal provision that can provide a certain level of relief to the affected families. The historical attitude of the court towards compensation clause, both in matters of reform and acquisition, has proved to be fortunate to the millions of affected families, if it can be called a fortune at all. Since the courts believed in similarly treating compensation claims in both reform and acquisition matters, and they incessantly emphasized on the need to enhance the amount in order to make it fair and reasonable, they have enhanced the amount in 86.5 per cent of the claims that went to them in land acquisition matters. The Act also makes it mandatory for them not to decide an amount that would be lower than the award made by the collector.78 Therefore, the exercise of going to the courts to claim compensation has been popularly known to be worthy of the effort. The same effort was prejudicial for reform matters; however, the courts have to be credited for making efficient efforts towards ensuring that all people are well compensated. Even so, the principles laid down in the Act have a mechanical character to them; something that an act of acquiring land cannot relate to. The provisions perceive land as an entity that can be measured in monetary terms and hence they mainly include market value and profit that might accrue. In most cases, the principle is used to calculate the value of revenue circle rates, which are nowhere close to the actual prices of land.79 The manner of determining market value, in itself, can be devaluing the concerned land. The land market works differently on paper and in practice; incentives of

Matters of land reform and acquisitions 205 saving tax on transactions devalue land on paper. Making that written value as the base of determination of compensation is therefore, cannot lead to a fair compensation. Although, this exercise of valuing land in terms of money is something that is an inherent limitation of the concept of compensation as such,80 it can be conducted in a somewhat more intensive and comprehensive manner. Section 24 of the Act, after its grossly inadequate inclusive provision, went ahead to expressly exclude some of the glaring realities of displacement. Section 24. Matters to be neglected in determining compensation. – But the Court shall not take into consideration – first, the degree of urgency which has led to the acquisition; secondly, any disinclination of the person interested to part with the land acquired; thirdly, any damage sustained by him which, if caused by a private person, would not render such person liable to a suit; fourthly, any damage which is likely to be caused to the land acquired, after the date of the publication of the declaration under section 6, by or in consequence of the use to which it will be put; fifthly, any increase to the value of the land acquired likely to accrue from the use to which it will be put when acquired; sixthly, any increase to the value of the other land of the person interested likely to accrue from the use to which the land acquired will be put; seventhly, any outlay or improvements on, or disposal of the land acquired, commenced, made or effected without the sanction of the Collector after the date of the publication of the[notification under section 4, sub-section (1); [or] [eighthly, any increase to the value of the land on account of its being put to any use, which is forbidden by law or opposed to public policy.] Eight points of exception have been laid down. The provision begins by excluding the level of urgency of acquisition and thereafter states that any unwillingness on the part of the person to part with their land would also not form a matter of concern for the court to determine the amount. Necessarily therefore, even while recognizing the compulsory character of acquisition and providing for a payment of 30 per cent of market value to the effect under section 23(2), the law keeps the willingness component out of the frame; making the person a willing seller in its understanding. Unwillingness of the affected families and compulsion of the law are, in fact, the two most glaring components of displacement. A willing seller of land, at the least, would have some alternate means of earning a livelihood or an alternate home or some idea of what one would do in their upcoming lifetime. Persons unwilling to part with their land, generally have no alternate support system that they could rely on and that is a factor which cannot be neglected while trying to compensation the person. It is its absence, coupled

206  Law of land acquisition with no legal resettlement or rehabilitation policy that is the major cause of widespread displacement and accompanying impoverishment, if the process of land acquisition is spared the blame here. One of the cardinal objectives of the 2013 Act was to provide just and fair compensation to the all the families that are affected in the process of acquisition.81 The adjectives just and fair to describe compensation have occurred for the first time in the legislative history of land acquisition law. These elements were surely taking rounds of the judicial decisions for years now, but the black letter of law acknowledged it for the first time in 2013. The Act was prepared to overwhelmingly take over the legislative field by addressing the fundamental problems of the 1894 Act. For starters, it overcame the lingering legal ideology that believed in a singular existence of legal owners on land; that only owners recognized by the rule books were the affected persons in events of acquisition. Section 3(c) of the Act gave an extended interpretation to the word affected families including those who exercised no ownership claims over the acquired land but derived their livelihood from that land. The 2013 Act began with dismissing this illusion that the law had lived for years and has gone ahead with compensating a large number of people who were non-existent for the law until then. Sections 26 to 30 of the 2013 Act have framed a range of principles that are to be applied while calculating the amount of compensation. Contrary to the two-staged process in the 1894 Act, these provisions mandate that the office of the collector, which is the first stage of making the claim, would itself be primarily responsible for applying settled principles in the award of compensation. The provisions speak in terms of a compensation package that is to contain four elements – market value of land as computed under section 26(1), a factor by which market value is to be multiplied with as per section 26(2) read with points 2 and 3 of the First Schedule, value of assets attached to land or building as per section 29, and an amount of solatium as specified in section 30.82 Together, these four elements form a compensation package which is to be combined with a resettlement and rehabilitation award to the displaced. Section 28 of the Act lays down the parameters which are to be carefully considered by the collector while making the award of compensation. A good number of these clauses are similar to those in section 23 of the 1894 Act; they both compensate for market value, damages, and profits accruing from land. There is, however, one significant change – the last clause of section 28 states that the collector is empowered to include any other ground in the computation which may be in the interest of equity and justice and be in the interest of the affected families. Section 28. Parameters to be considered by Collector in determination of award – In determining the amount of compensation to be awarded for land acquired under this Act, the Collector shall take into consideration – firstly, the market value as determined under section 26 and the award amount in accordance with the First and Second Schedules;

Matters of land reform and acquisitions 207 secondly, the damage sustained by the person interested, by reason of the taking of any standing crops and trees which may be on the land at the time of the Collector’s taking possession thereof; thirdly, the damage (if any) sustained by the person interested, at the time of the Collector’s taking possession of the land, by reason of severing such land from his other land: fourthly, the damage (if any) sustained by the person interested, at the time of the Collector’s taking possession of the land, by reason of the acquisition injuriously affecting his other property, movable or immovable, in any other manner, or his earnings; fifthly, in consequence of the acquisition of the land by the Collector, the person interested is compelled to change his residence or place of business, the reasonable expenses (if any) incidental to such change; sixthly the damage (if any) bona fide resulting from diminution of the profits of the land between the time of the publication of the declaration under section 19 and the time of the Collector’s taking possession of the land: and seventhly, any other ground which may be in the interest of equity, justice and beneficial to the affected families. The seventh clause takes a huge leap in terms of guiding the administration through the working of this Act. It expresses to the administration that the provision is to be read and implemented in the spirit of equity and justice and it is only equitable that the displaced are fairly and handsomely compensated for losing their lands. Especially when, they lack any other means of livelihood and are incapable of gathering any significant sum of money to restart their lives; out sociopolitical system does not allow them to do so. Therefore, it is essential for the collector to exercise fair discretion in all matters of determining compensation and ensure that any ground which may benefit a family must not be neglected for lack of its appearance in the law. It recognizes the limitation of a legal provision and the power of discretion when exercised with equity and empathy. Section 3(c), 26–30 and the First Schedule together, however, make an odd combination for identifying people to whom this compensation package is to be awarded. Section 3(c) forwards an extensive description for the definition of affected families, identifying a wide range of people who derive their income out of land despite not possessing legal title to that land. Section 3 (c). “affected family” includes – i. a family whose land or other immovable property has been acquired; ii. a family which does not own any land but a member or members of such family may be agricultural labourers, tenants including any form of tenancy or holding of usufruct right, share-croppers or artisans or who may be working in the affected area for three

208  Law of land acquisition years prior to the acquisition of the land, whose primary source of livelihood stand affected by the acquisition of land; iii. the Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers who have lost any of their forest rights recognised under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 due to acquisition of land; iv. family whose primary source of livelihood for three years prior to the acquisition of the land is dependent on forests or water bodies and includes gatherers of forest produce, hunters, fisher folk and boatmen and such livelihood is affected due to acquisition of land; v. a member of the family who has been assigned land by the State Government or the Central Government under any of its schemes and such land is under acquisition; vi. a family residing on any land in the urban areas for preceding three years or more prior to the acquisition of the land or whose primary source of livelihood for three years prior to the acquisition of the land is affected by the acquisition of such land; The First Schedule, on the contrary is titled Compensation for Landowners and reads in its text: The following components shall constitute the minimum compensation package to be given to those whose land is acquired and to tenants referred to in clause (c) of section 3 in a proportion to be decided by the appropriate government The schedule is to be read with section 30(2), which simply states that the collector is required to issue individual awards detailing the particulars of compensation payable. Effectively, a combined reading of these provisions would mean that all this excitement created by the law was merely of rhetoric significance. The law made a great impression at its attempt to clarifying its vision of looking at the actors of land. It listed them well enough to create a first impression and thereafter did what it exactly would have done without its farce – these glorious provisions of calculating compensation at a fair market rate and then multiplying it by a factor, etc. etc., were applicable only for owners and tenants of land. Any other person did not have an express claim over the minimum compensation package of the First Schedule. I wonder what was the purpose of existence of clauses (iii) (iv) (v) and (vi) of section 3 in the Act. Be that as it may, the role of a compensation clause in law seems to be limited to saving the law any outright challenge for not compensating the displaced while acquiring their lands and abide by the property jurisprudence. By recognizing only owners and tenants of the acquired land as being eligible for receiving compensation, the 2013 Act has yet again grossly neglected a mass of people who stand displaced. It is a wonder that a statute that declares itself to be humane in the preamble, chooses to blind its vision

Matters of land reform and acquisitions 209 to the presence of millions of labourers, sharecroppers and other classes of people who derive livelihood from land without having any legal title to it. Any improvements in the calculation of amount would then be only of limited relevance. This section has travelled through some of the most significant aspects of the concept of compensation – it has observed its dominant interpretation and historical operation in the field of property rights, its inherent inadequacy in matters of displacement and statutory principles determining its calculation. Despite its conceptual limitation, the clause has a pragmatic relevance, when it promises to give money to the displaced. However, even this pragmatic relevance can be negated if a sound resettlement and rehabilitation is not well placed in law. Both provisions combined may be able to offer some hope to the displaced.

Resettlement and rehabilitation of the displaced The provisions of resettlement and rehabilitation undertake the most difficult task of coping with an almost irreversible trauma of displacement. The task is difficult not because there around 20 million people in the country who are affected by development-induced displacement, but mostly because the law possesses a far too narrow a spectrum to accurately understand the meaning of displacing people from their settled habitats. A law or policy that thinks in simplistic terms of the amount of cash that would be required to build another home, grossly underestimates its own consequences. Displacement does not have singular or similar effects on all, its blows people in varying varieties of ways and at different levels of their lives. Its effects are both individualistic and community based and are also factored by distinctions of gender, caste and class. The effects also differ in accordance to the relationship a person or family or community has with its land and the manner in which the land is being used for sustenance. Furthermore, the scenario completely differs when a self-sustaining community is asked to destroy its indigenous economy and build ties with the external civil world that works in ways which are generally beyond the understanding of the tribe. For the longest time, the law conveniently refused to acknowledge its own consequences. Numerous policies were created for resettling and rehabilitating the displaced,83 but none had any legal force which is generally expected to alter the course of state action. These policies originated at various sources, some were framed by state agents like NTPC84 and some others were created at a national level,85 but none was consistent with another. Neither was their provisions circumstantiated to actually weaken the blow of displacement.86 Even if landholdings were granted, they were distributed in the most illogical and uncaring manner possible and therefore, most displaced chose not to take the lands being offered to them.87 The 2013 Act is, again, the first land acquisition statute to have incorporated provisions for resettlement and rehabilitation. Never before had any law on acquisition presented itself with a preamble that offered to make adequate provisions for the effected persons and actually include them in

210  Law of land acquisition the proves of development, by ensuring that their post-acquisition social and economic status is substantially improved: make adequate provisions for such affected persons for their rehabilitation and resettlement and for ensuring that the cumulative outcome of compulsory acquisition should be that affected persons become partners in development leading to an improvement in their post acquisition social and economic status and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. Chapters V and VI read with the Second Schedule and Third Schedule lay down the principles and procedures of framing a resettlement and rehabilitation award. The Act redeems itself from its limitedly applicable compensation clause by extending the application of the resettlement and rehabilitation award to all affected families, as per the opening line of Second Schedule.88 Sections 31 and 32 of the Act enlist numerous particulars that have to be included in the rehabilitation and resettlement award by the collector. Section 31. Rehabilitation and Resettlement Award for affected families by Collector – (1) The Collector shall pass Rehabilitation and Resettlement Awards for each affected family in terms of the entitlements provided in the Second Schedule. (2) The Rehabilitation and Resettlement Award shall include all of the following, namely: – (a) rehabilitation and resettlement amount payable to the family; (b) bank account number of the person to which the rehabilitation and resettlement award amount is to be transferred; (c) particulars of house site and house to be allotted, in case of displaced families; (d) particulars of land allotted to the displaced families; (e) particulars of one-time subsistence allowance and transportation allowance in case of displaced families; (f) particulars of payment for cattle shed and petty shops; (g) particulars of one-time amount to artisans and small traders; (h) details of mandatory employment to be provided to the members of the affected families; (i) particulars of any fishing rights that may be involved; (j) particulars of annuity and other entitlements to be provided; (k) particulars of special provisions for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes to be provided: Provided that in case any of the matters specified under clauses (a) to (k) are not applicable to any affected family the same shall be indicated as “not applicable”:

Matters of land reform and acquisitions 211 Provided further that the appropriate Government may, by notification increase the rate of rehabilitation and resettlement amount payable to the affected families, taking into account the rise in the price index. Section 32. Provision of Infrastructural Amenities in resettlement Area – In every resettlement area defined under this Act the Collector shall ensure provision of all infrastructural facilities and basic minimum amenities as specified in the Third Schedule. Both of these sections are to be read with the Second and Third Schedules which describe the elements that need to be included in the award and the entitlements of the persons. Although the list appears long, the schedule contains certain sleek provisions that can have the effect of cutting through the central objective of the Act. Since the predecessor of the 2013 Act is the 1894 statue which did not acknowledge displacement or the need to resettle people, the 2013 Act makes a grand appearance in the legal system of land law. However, some of its provisions might not be as rehabilitative as they might seem in the first instance. One of the most popular principles of rehabilitation adopted by the Act is the land for land provision. Section 31(1)(d) states that the award shall declare particulars of the land allotted to the affected family. This has to be read with Entry 2 of the Schedule, which declares that the entitlement to land would be restricted by three factors – one, it would only be available in cases of irrigation projects, the exchange of land would be only as far as it is possible for the government to do so and it would be granted in lieu of the compensation. In addition to these three factors, the entry has based allocation of land on the basis of records of rights for the concerned area, which, as has been argued in the chapter on law of revenue and records, are the most ill-equipped documents to determine the distribution of land rights in any region. In the case of irrigation project, as far as possible and in lieu of compensation to be paid for land acquired, each affected family owning agricultural land in the affected area and whose land has been acquired or lost, or who has, as a consequence of the acquisition or loss of land, been reduced to the status of a marginal farmer or landless, shall be allotted, in the name of each person included in the records of rights with regard to the affected family, a minimum of one acre of land in the command area of the project for which land is acquired. The offer for receiving developed land is available only for land-owning affected families for a price that is equal to the cost of acquisition and of development. In case the land is acquired for urbanisation purposes, twenty percent of the developed land will be reserved and offered to land owning project

212  Law of land acquisition affected families, in proportion to the area of their land acquired and at a price equal to the cost of acquisition and the cost of development. One another seemingly useful provision is of providing mandatory employment to the members of affected families. Clause (h) of section 3(1) states that the particulars of the mandatory employment are to be written in the award. Entry 4 of the Second Schedule provides that the affected families are to be provided with a choice of taking annuity or employment from the process of acquisition. The option of providing employment is conditioned by two factors – one, if jobs are created through the project, and two, after providing suitable training and skill development in the required filed. A provision for employment can only be made after these two conditions are fulfilled. The training programme could require certain minimum level of literacy, which could automatically exclude people from being eligible for the jobs, if they are so created. Moreover, the minimum salary requirements for these jobs is kept at the rate of applicable minimum wage – the rates of which are lower than any reasonable compensation that the displaced may expect in exchanges for their lands. Even when clause (h) expressly stated that the allotment of jobs was a mandatory requirement, its grant could be denied on the basis of such little details. Where jobs are created through the project, after providing suitable training and skill development in the required field, make provision for employment at a rate not lower than the minimum wages provided for in any other law for the time being in force, to at least one number per affected family in the project or arrange for a job in such other project as may be required; The 2013 Act, therefore, marks a rhetoric appearance. Its objectives and framework of provisions create an absolutely new looking legal scenario that promises fairness, transparency and humanity of procedure. Especially coming at a time in which the events of land acquisitions were rapidly increasing and the law remained grossly unfair and inequitable. However, since the Act is extremely recent and has been substantially suspended for two years after its enactment, its actual implementation is yet to be determined. The presence of certain provisions having the potential to undercut the objectives of the Act would require careful administration and implementation, if unjust application is to be avoided. One aspect that must be considered in matters of displacement and rehabilitation is the fact that law alone cannot make any significant alterations in the lives of the displaced. The administration has a massive role to play in executing the law and no matter how well the law may be drafted it has its inherent limitations of application. It is absolutely necessary that the administration functions with requisite empathy and reasonability while rehabilitating its people – they need to realize that they, under the hands of

Matters of land reform and acquisitions 213 law, are destroying someone’s home and life and that henceforth, it becomes their responsibility to see to it that the process is conducted with minimum pain to the displaced.

Notes 1 Although, the terms dispossession and displacement are often used interchangeably in most writings on the subject, they connote two different meanings in the present chapter – dispossession is used in a general sense where persons may lose their possession of land either completely or partially, and displacement is actually unsettling people from their existing habitats, where all the land that they possess is taken away and the law requires them to leave that place and move to another location. Neither of the terms assumes the need for ownership titles for the people in issue and includes all who may be deriving any income or resource from land. 2 See the first section of Chapter 7. 3 Ibid. The purposes and processes of the law that work towards attacking the concept of the right to property have been the central concern of the last chapter. 4 Ibid. 5 The concept of development or national development is a popular notion that generally induces acquisition of land and conceives of land as a commodity. It usually refers to industrial or economic development that is seen to be the basis of all recent land acquisitions. The scholarly work on the subject usually uses the term development with displacement. However, development can only be the cause of displacement through the use of land acquisition law when the term is considered a part of the legal concept of public purpose. For the conceptual analysis of the relation between public purpose and developmental rights see William A. Gregory, “The Public Purpose Doctrine As It Relates to Development Rights,” Tulsa Law Journal 10 (1974): 45. 6 See Chapter 7 where cases describing the meaning of legal public purpose have been discussed. 7 Ibid. 8 The terms liberalization, privatization, and globalization have been the most glorifying terms that have been attached to a notion of development for India. They speak in a fancy language that seeks to achieve great economic and industrial development by involving private companies as the facilitators of growth. See Mohit Bhattacharya, “Globalisation, Governance and Development,” The Indian Journal of Political Science (2001): 349–357; Graham Harrison, “Introduction: Globalisation, Governance and Development,” New Political Economy 9, no. 2 (2004): 155–162. 9 It will be seen in the second section of this chapter that compensation clause has acquired the reputation of being the most practical aspect of the right to property. 10 Although the terms development and displacement may appear contradictory to certain readers, development is known to cause the largest amount of displacement. The figures on displacement induced by development are rather distorted; the claims lie between 20 to 60 million – the largest number of displaced people in the world. A report realized by the Working Group on Human Rights in India and the UN in 2012 claims that 40 per cent of these displaced are tribal groups and another 40 per cent are dalits and other rural poor. “Human Rights in India: Status Report 2012” (New Delhi: Working group on Human Rights in India and the UN, December 2012), accessed January 29, 2019, www.indianet.nl/pdf/ HumanRightsInIndia_StatusReport2012.pdf; A Reference Note prepared for

214  Law of land acquisition the Members of Parliament states that “In India around 50 million people have been displaced due to development projects in over 50 years. Around 21.3 million development-induced IDPs include those displaced by dams (16.4 million), mines (2.55 million), industrial development (1.25 million) and wild life sanctuaries and national parks (0.6 million)1,” accessed October 12, 2017, http://164.100.47.134/intranet/DisplacementandRehabilitation.pdf. 11 Ibid. 12 See generally De Wet, Development-Induced Displacement; Fernandes, “Sixty Years of Development-Induced Displacement in India” at 89–102; Sreya Maitra, “Development Induced Displacement: Issues of Compensation and Resettlement – Experiences from the Narmada Valley and Sardar Sarovar Project,” Japanese Journal of Political Science 10, no. 2 (2009): 191–211. 13 See Sarah Cook and Naila Kabeer, Social Protection as Development Policy: Asian Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2011), accessed January 29, 2019, https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=wmqsAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd& pg=PR3&dq=social+protection+as+development+policy+asian+perspective&ot s=64d-C-FjUT&sig=pSGtLR_wRUaNCs8vcYY8mRC3P3Y. 14 The terms preferred and other public have been used in the last chapter to connote two groups of people who stand at the two opposing end of a development/ land acquisition event – one that is benefitted from the said acquisition and another that bears the brunt of the process. 15 Displacement is often regarded as an essential but inevitable cause of development. 16 Our previous discussions on land reform and land acquisition law have been making this claim on a repeated basis. 17 Tribals and other subaltern groups have been engaging with the modern Indian society in multifarious ways and have represented some unique and ecofriendly ways of sustenance. Assa Doron, “Caste Away? Subaltern Engagement with the Modern Indian State,” Modern Asian Studies 44, no. 4 (2010): 753–783, hereinafter, Doron, “Caste Away? Subaltern Engagement with the Modern Indian State”; K. Suresh Singh, “Transformation of Tribal Society: Integration vs Assimilation,” Economic and Political Weekly (1982): 1376–1384; Muzaffar Assadi, “The State and Tribal Rights: Confrontation over Land Question,” Economic and Political Weekly (1998); 2210–2212. 18 Doron, “Caste Away? Subaltern Engagement with the Modern Indian State.” 19 Smitu Kothari, “Whose Nation? The Displaced as Victims of Development,” Economic and Political Weekly (1996): 1476–1485. 20 Ibid. 21 The next section on compensation makes a claim that a monetary compensation has only limited significance in events of displacement. 22 Fernandes and Thukral, Development, Displacement, and Rehabilitation. 23 Mohammed Asif, “Why Displaced Persons Reject Project Resettlement Colonies,” Economic and Political Weekly (2000): 2005–2008. 24 Ibid. 25 Michael M. Cernea, “Understanding and Preventing Impoverishment from Displacement: Reflections on the State of Knowledge,” Journal of Refugee Studies 8 (1995): 245; Michael M. Cernea, “Involuntary Resettlement: Social Research, Policy and Planning,” Putting People First: Sociological Variables in Rural Development 2 (1991): 188–215. 26 Stephen Kershnar, “Private Property Rights and Autonomy,” Public Affairs Quarterly (2002): 231–258. 27 Jack L. Knetsch and Thomas E. Borcherding, “Expropriation of Private Property and the Basis for Compensation,” University of Toronto Law Journal 29 (1979): 237.

Matters of land reform and acquisitions 215 28 Chapter 1 has made a detailed analysis of all those cases; L. Srikantiah, “Property Rights under the Constitution,” Social Scientist (1975): 65–71. 29 Article 300A “Persons not to be deprived of property save by authority of law – No person shall be deprived of his property save by authority.” 30 James Geoffrey Durham, “Efficient Just Compensation as a Limit on Eminent Domain,” Minnesota Law Review 69 (1984): 1277. 31 Ibid. 32 Refer to Chapter 1. 33 Merillat, “25_Compensation for the Taking of Property.” 34 The State of Bihar v. Maharajadhiraja Sir Kameshwar, 1952 1 SCR 889. 35 The State of West Bengal v. Subodh Gopal Bose and Others, 1954 AIR 92, 1954 SCR 587. 36 The State of West Bengal v. Mrs. Bela Banerjee and Others, 1954 AIR 170, 1954 SCR 558. 37 Kesavananda BharatiSripadagalvaru and Ors. v. State of Kerala and Anr. (1973) 4 SCC 225. 38 Refer to Chapter 1. 39 Ibid. 40 A technical understanding of the law allows such interpretations. 41 Refer to Chapter 2. 42 Refer to Chapters 1 and 3. 43 Refer to Chapter 3. 44 Refer to Chapter 1. 45 Constitution (First Amendment) Act of 1951, Constitution (Fourth Amendment) Act of 1955, Constitution (Seventeenth Amendment) Act of 1964, Constitution (Twenty-Fifth Amendment) Act of 1971, Constitution (Forty-Second Amendment) Act of 1976, Constitution (Forty-Fourth Amendment) Act of 1978. 46 Refer to Chapter 3. 47 Constitution (Forty-Fourth Amendment) Act, 1978. 48 Refer to Chapter 7. 49 Refer to Chapter 1. 50 Ibid. 51 Shankar Venkateswaran, “Industrial Displacement,” Economic and Political Weekly 44, no. 46 (2007): 2050–2051. 52 Refer to Chapter 7. 53 Discussion on the clause Public Purpose has been conducted in the previous chapter. 54 Refer to Part II. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. 57 The cases on compensation were aiming to provide the owner a just equivalent of what they were deprived of. This was the notion of fairness followed in all the cases on compensation on cases of land reform. 58 Refer to Chapter 7. 59 Ibid. 60 There are a substantial number of instances in the past where violent protests have happened over the amount of compensation paid to the displaced. The previous section on public purpose has considered some of them. 61 Refer to Chapter 1 that discusses the doctrine of eminent domain. 62 Refer the previous section that describes the meaning and operation of the phrase public purpose. 63 See Maitra, “Development Induced Displacement”; Pooja Mehta, “Internally Displaced Persons and the Sardar Sarovar Project: A Case for Rehabilitative

216  Law of land acquisition Reform in Rural India,” American University International Law Review 20 (2004): 613. 64 See Tanmaya Swain, “Development and Displacement in Odisha: A Study of Anti-POSCO Movement in Jagatsinghpur District,” Economic and Political Weekly 38, no. 9 (2003): 907. 65 See Maitra, “Development Induced Displacement.” 66 V. Ranganathan, “Eminent Domain or Eminent Thievery? Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor,” Economic and Political Weekly (2006): 2697–2700. 67 Prashant Pandey, “Land Acquisition and Protests, Power and Politics in Jharkhand’s Coal Belt,” October 6, 2016, accessed July 15, 2019, http://indian express.com/article/explained/jharkhand-hazaribagh-deaths-in-police-firingmining-site-violence-land-acquisition-3067366/. 68 Until the 2013 Act, the law had a limited definition for people who were entitled to compensation. Section 3(b): “the expression ‘person interested’ includes all persons claiming an interest in compensation to be made on account of the acquisition of land under this Act; and a person shall be deemed to be interested in land if he is interested in an easement affecting the land.” 69 See Swagato Sarkar, “The Impossibility of Just Land Acquisition,” Economic and Political Weekly (2011): 35–38. Also see Ramanathan, “Displacement and the Law” at 1486–1491. 70 Land Acquisition Act, 1894, section 23(1): “Matters to be considered on determining compensation: In determining the amount of compensation to be awarded for land acquired under this Act, the Court shall take into consideration first, the market-value of the land at the date of the publication of the [notification under section 4, sub-section (1)]”;   The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 Section 28: “In determining the amount of compensation to be awarded for land acquired under this Act, the Collector shall take into consideration –   Firstly, the market value as determined under section 26 and the amount in accordance with the First and Second schedules.” 71 Section 26(2) of the 2013 Act: “The market value calculated as per sub-section(1) shall be multiplied by a factor to be specified in the First Schedule.” 72 Kothari, “Whose Nation?” 73 Ramanathan, “Displacement and the Law.” 74 Refer previous section for a detailed explanation of this claim. Also see De Wet, Development-Induced Displacement. 75 This property, however, in an Indian setting may not only refer to an ownership claim. Plenty of people not occupying positions of a legal owner derive their livelihood from a single plot of land. 76 Dev Nathan, “Social Security, Compensation and Reconstruction of Liveli hoods,” Economic and Political Weekly (2009): 22–26. 77 Namita Wahi et al., Land Acquisition in India: A Review of Supreme Court Cases 1950–2016 (New Delhi: Centre for Policy Research, 2017). 78 Land Acquisition Act, 1894 Section 25: Amount of compensation awarded by Court not to be lower than the amount awarded by the Collector. – The amount of compensation awarded by the Court shall not be less than the amount awarded by the Collector under section 11. 79 Wahi et al., “Land Acquisition in India.” 80 Venkateswaran, “Industrial Displacement.” 81 Preamble to the 2013 Act reads as follows: “An Act to ensure, in consultation with institutions of local self-government and Gram Sabhas established under the Constitution, a humane, participative, informed and transparent process for land acquisition for industrialisation, development of essential infrastructural

Matters of land reform and acquisitions 217 facilities and urbanisation with the least disturbance to the owners of the land and other affected families and provide just and fair compensation to the affected families whose land has been acquired or proposed to be acquired or are affected by such acquisition and make adequate provisions for such affected persons for their rehabilitation and resettlement and for ensuring that the cumulative outcome of compulsory acquisition should be that affected persons become partners in development leading to an improvement in their post acquisition social and economic status and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.” 82 Section 30(1) Award of Solatium: “The Collector having determined the total compensation to be paid, shall, to arrive at the final award, impose a ‘Solatium’ amount equivalent to one hundred per cent. of the compensation amount.” 83 A number of resettlement policies have existed at the central and state levels that provided guidelines for government and corporations to use while acquiring land – National Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy of 2002, 2007. 84 The National Thermal Power Corporation has had numerous policies over the years to replace and rehabilitate the people it displaces while conducting its functions. The latest came out in 2010 and is available at www.ntpc.co.in/download/ ntpc-rr-policy-2010, accessed January 9, 2019. 85 A series of National Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policies. 86 Fernandes and Thukral, Development, Displacement, and Rehabilitation. 87 Asif, “Why Displaced Persons Reject Project Resettlement Colonies.” 88 “Elements of rehabilitation and resettlement entitlements for all the affected families (both landowners and the families whose livelihood is primarily depended on land acquired) in addition to those provided in the First Schedule.”

9 Concluding remarks Land relationships, landlessness, and the law

We have spent the last eight chapters surveying land legislations across states and understanding the interaction of land with law. In doing so, we encountered a plethora of land legislations that sought to regulate land in a variety of ways, but they mostly did so in the favour of certain particular classes of people.1 The laws of reform, regulation, and acquisition have interacted with land and land relationships differently, and have generated the social structures built around land that we see today. In a very fundamental sense, these laws of land have regulated the allocation of resources in the Indian society. They have determined the distribution of power between the state and individuals and between various classes of individuals and have also ordained the dominating usages of land resources. The laws of land regulation and administration have constructed state agencies to regulate the use and transfer of land and the laws of reform and acquisition have secured the right of the state to acquire land for some purposes. This short, concluding chapter would attempt to bring it all together; it would seek to understand the relationship between the nature of Indian land law2 and the effect it has had on the land, one that is popularly known as landlessness;3 a phenomenon that has infiltrated the land structures in India for a very long time now. I would use this space to close this work for the present with the argument that landlessness is an imperative consequence of the law that has been designed to regulate land. All our discussions in the previous chapters would act as the evidentiary grounds of this concluding argument. I would enlist few of the glaring characteristics of land law that have emerged from the preceding discussions and use each one of them to show how landlessness is peculiarly generated by land law and that, restructuring of the legal framework with redistribution as the basic idea is a necessary endeavour for the future law to undertake. The first and a rather strange characteristic of Indian land law is its idea of disassociating land from the people.4 In each of the chapters discussed earlier, the law is seen to dominantly make attempts to regulate land in all possible manners (in whatever limited ways its existing jurisprudence allows); it is acquiring land, determining use, conversion and transfer; but all of it is done while disregarding the relationships that people have built

Concluding remarks 219 around land. This is not to say that land relationships are not affected by the law, for they cannot remain unaffected, but decentralizing them from the concerns of land law has generated problems of its own kind. Alienating the people who build land relationships from the law necessarily means alienating all of its sociopolitical aspects. Since the law abolishing tenures did not embrace the power dynamics that played in intermediary-landlord-tenant relationships, mass evictions happened in the first course of land reform. The substantive provisions of the law of land redistribution did not account for the people who should have been recipients of the redistributed land. The ceiling statutes listed some of these people, but the law never gave them any right to receive land out of the redistribution process. The law of land regulation has treated land only as property, and thus, has automatically left the people behind. Land is regulated and transferred in piles of papers and is primarily treated only as an economic entity. Even when relatively progressive statutes like the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 attempt to deal with the traditional associations of people with land, the law of land acquisition reserves the power to acquire that land for purposes that are seemingly more public than the traditional use of forest land. And although the law of land acquisition has grown to be more democratic and transparent in its approach, new legal processes like land assignment and pooling have simultaneously arisen to detach people from their land. This land–people disassociation is basically an extension of the contention I made in the beginning of this work, where I said that land law needs to be framed, read and understood within its wider socio-political-economic space.5 Here, that idea is furthered by stating that legislating on land without understanding it in its wider contexts has pulled out the essential humanness from the law and has become one of its glaring characteristics. This disassociation occurs at several levels. The first, and possibly the most fundamental, is in theorizing land without its relationships, which is again, centred in the land–property distinction. The frameworks of any of the laws discussed in the previous chapters, whether of reform, regulation or acquisition, did not reflect the sociology of land and its relationships and therefore created distinct legal realities. The second, which is a necessary corollary of the first, is the meagre recognition of land rights in the law. The older legislations did not even make a pretence at such recognition. The more recent ones, however, have made some concentrated efforts at recognizing rights of people on land; but they have either gotten derailed on their own account, or the weight of other legislations is still running heavy on them. The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, for example, provides statutory recognition to the rights of compensation and rehabilitation when people are displaced from their land, but does not recognize any rights of those people to occupy that land in the first place. The Andhra Pradesh Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 1971, for another example, creates a whole legal procedure

220  Law of land acquisition for recording rights of people who occupy land but does not actually create any right to land for the cultivators or any other person associated with land or provides any conclusive evidentiary value to the legal document of patta.6 The notion of ownerships and occupation of land are so fragile in law that the people receive very little bargaining power in the matter of acquisitions by the state. The third, which is an obvious consequence of the first two and is the essence of this argument, is the complete absence of the right holder or the people in the law. The people occur neither in the processes of deciding on the regulation of land, nor in the scheme of law. The legal definition of the public in the public purpose concept is a classic example of this. When the law is designed to regulate only land (and land as property) and not land relationships, it would necessarily create a scenario where the mass of the people is kept away from land. The only people who could then have kept secure their associations with land were those who commanded a certain political power in the society. Landlessness is therefore a commonly occurring scenario where the mass of people does not occupy any land or occupy very small holdings, and is the one of the most primary consequences of the nature of Indian land law. Fifteen million people in India do not own any land and 45 million own very small uneconomic holdings that are insufficient to provide a means of livelihood.7 Alongside, the Indian landlessness is a class-based phenomenon. The dalits in India have had the highest rate of landlessness, at 57.3 per cent; Muslims are at 52 per cent, and 56.8 per cent of households headed by women are landless.8 Also, 40 per cent of the people who are continuously displaced for developmental activities are the adivasis.9 Landlessness and land law, therefore, share a direct connection: the former is the product of the latter. All our discussions in the previous chapters, from where we began assessing the constitutional right to property to the analysis of the legal concepts of development, public purpose and rehabilitation, have consistently shown that land law creates legal realities that are often blatantly distinct from the realities of land relationships. Dissociation with people is the first characteristic of Indian land law and is also primarily responsible for landlessness in the country. If land law in India was conceptualized around the people who derive rights out of land and build their lives around it, then equity and fairness in distribution would have been a necessary component of the law which was otherwise found to be alienated from the legal framework. The law of land needed to be for the people and not land or property alone. Since land has been perceived as such within the law, it has allowed the politically empowered forces to infiltrate in the frameworks of law and actively generate class biases in the distribution of land. The second and a comparatively more obvious characteristic of Indian land law is that it is an obfuscated regime which especially originates in its conceptions of ownership and occupation. This particular nature of the law contributes gravely to the phenomenon of landlessness in the country

Concluding remarks 221 because the mass of people who derive their livelihood from land and who are mostly kept landless by the law have no means of knowing how the law is actually regulating their land! Multiple laws act on their land in no coherent manner, often doing the opposite of what the other is seeking to do. For example, in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the Andhra Pradesh Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 1971 created a huge fuss about obtaining a legal title document called patta to the owner of occupier of land but did not accord any conclusive evidentiary value to the document. So, the document holds good only until no other person makes a contrary claim to the land, for the law allows any other person to do so as long she can produce any other document in the court that states otherwise. The laws of family, Transfer of Property and Registration allow alternate transactions to happen alongside the making of these records. This status of land records holds true for almost all states in the country. Courts are often faced up with different legal documents staking claim to the same parcel of land and the law of evidence does not arrange them in any list of priority. The state of Bihar is another classic example of an obfuscated land regime, because until the late 1950s, land was regulated in the state only through ordinances.10 Neither the cultivator nor a legal expert had a clear idea of how many laws were acting on land and in what way were they interacting with one another. The later legislations that were passed to undertake reforms in the state were only superimposed on the pre-existing regime, without clearing out the legal mess and therefore, furthering obfuscation. The Board Standing Orders in the state of Andhra Pradesh is another example of such obfuscation and they continue to regulate land in the state along with all other statutes and regulation. The revenue law in the state is, therefore, actually a web of hundreds of legislations and other rules and orders. Obfuscation of land law in the state is to an extent that the draft Andhra Pradesh Land Code (that sought to compile and simplify land law of the state) declared in its preamble that there were 200 land legislations in the state that needed to be codified; but, only about 130 of these legislations are actually available for research. There seems to be no trail of the 70 odd legislations that the draft code aims to simplify. The third and a rather recently occurring feature of Indian land law is the incorporation of the ideas of modernity and development in the framework of law. These ideas neither have linkages nor do they acknowledge the traditional and fair means of land usages and transactions. This characteristic, in fact, has had the ability to directly generate landlessness in the society. The law of land acquisition, in particular, has utilized the older concept of public purpose to incorporate new notions of development and modernization in land law. Chapter 7 has noted the number of ways in which the concept of public purpose has been repeatedly defined in the law, often to make way for corporations to make use of land. The procedures of land pooling and creating special economic zones in the country are new entrants to the field of land law and have reiterated modernization by corporations in land law.

222  Law of land acquisition One other trace of modernization that is being popularly observed in legal spheres of land is the idea of digitization of land records. Many states in India, including Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh have initiated processes of digitizing their land records with the declared purpose of clearing title to land.11 This idea begins with the presumption that land conflict is the dominating problem of land law and if titles to land are cleared, the world would be a merrier place. For the proponents of digitization, land conflicts are all about title and if a procedure can be created by way of which all land can be demarcated, divided into parcels and people would have single clear titles to land, the land problem is solved. However, this modern approach suffers from some huge and deeply rooted difficulties. Firstly, the approach is primarily perceived on the theory of private property rights, which I have consistently argued to be problematic when applied to land. The moment claims around land are sought to be singled by eliminating alternate and possibly co-existing land claims, the understanding of land relationships is horribly flattened. Secondly, even if we are to assume that solving land conflict is the way to go, the manner in which the digitization process has been framed will not lead to any solution to the conflicts because the digitized outputs of land records carry no evidentiary value in courts.12 Thirdly, land conflicts, although blatantly large in numbers, are not the beginning and end of problems associated with land law. The problem is deeper than the understanding of computers in land records management. The patwari who used to the official land records holder in ancient India was actually an expert in the anthropological, sociological and demographic details of the concerned villages; because that was the only constructive manner in which land records could actually be maintained. The law of land, before anything else, needs to understand the true nature of land and formalization of private property rights through digital means is hardly the appropriate approach. Indian land law is already suffering from an obfuscated understanding of the concept of title of land and digitization would only modernize the problem. It is not addressing the problem in any real way; it is instead, premised on the same problematic conceptions of property. Digitization cannot therefore, approach the problem of landlessness in any constructive way; it only creates a contemporary pretence of reforming land and its relationships. Landlessness, thereby, is a necessary consequence of land law. Each one of three characteristics of land just listed has individually and collectively produced landlessness and created casteist and classist divides in land relationships. The need for restructuring land law around the central idea of redistribution is therefore, imperative. Although, such an approach would need to imaginatively perceive the ideas of land and property and discern ways of redistributing land outside of the limitations of private property rights; but a central idea of redistribution would ensure that land laws are made for the people to have security of livelihood. It is not necessary that land is redistributed in the same way as it was before, or under the

Concluding remarks 223 same principles that were previously applicable. The concept of redistribution could be inclusive of the ideas of multiple, co-existing land claims and the dynamic, fluid nature of land relationships. If the idea of redistribution is itself centred on the idea of equity in land relationships, then the concept could be recreated in law to achieve real access of land to the people. I understand that this suggestion seems extremely vague at present, but there is definitely a need to rethink the ways in which we perceive land and construct the law around it. And if new notions have to be conceived of, redistribution presents a strong case for the law to consider. It would certainly require immense amount of further research and would create difficulties of its own kind, but that does not preclude us from thinking about it. Until the basic concepts of land law are reconsidered, any further expansion of the law would run into the same kinds of difficulties and produce the same kinds of consequences as have all other legislations.

Notes 1 This argument has been specifically dealt in Chapter 7, where the concept of public purpose is discussed. Here, I seek to extent this argument to be true for land law in general. 2 I proposed to call the subject “Indian land law” in the initial part of Chapter 1 where I was laying down the various objectives of this book. 3 According to the most recent report of the Rural Development Institute, more than 15 million rural households in India do not own any land. Another 45 million rural families were found to have less than 0.10 acre of land each. This scenario is usually referred to as landlessness by most land activists. “Landlessness True Index of Poverty,” The Hindu, December 9, 2007, sec. NATIONAL, accessed July 15, 2019, www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/ldquo Landlessness-true-index-of-povertyrdquo/article14891155.ece; “Rural Development Report: Fostering Inclusive Rural Transformation” (International Fund for Agricultural Development, September 2016), accessed July 15, 2019, www. ifad.org/documents/30600024/e8e9e986-2fd9-4ec4-8fe3-77e99af934c4. Also see Mahmood Hasan Khan, M. Ghaffar Chaudhry, and Sarfraz Khan Qureshi, “Landlessness and Rural Poverty in Underdeveloped Countries [with Comments],” The Pakistan Development Review 25, no. 3 (1986): 371–402; Mead Cain, “Landlessness in India and Bangladesh: A Critical Review of National Data Sources,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 32, no. 1 (1983): 149–167. 4 This view was expressed by Justice V. Ramasubramanian of the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh HC while chairing the concurrent session on the Right to Land in the Conversations on Contemporary Struggles Towards Realization of SocioEconomic Rights at NALSAR University of Law on 05.11.2017. During the course of discussions on the law of land in India, he pointedly stated that there was a need to conceive of land law in terms of the people who build their relationships around land and not determine the lives of people according to the regulated use of land. The moment there is a shift of emphasis from land to the people, the fundamental understanding of land law would alter in the favour of the most marginalized. I use his idea here to represent the dichotomy between land and the people who occupy land. 5 Refer to Chapter 1; land as distinguished from property and as a socio-economic entity.

224  Law of land acquisition 6 There is one provision in the Andhra Pradesh Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 1971 in Section 4 where rights in land that are acquired by other means are to be intimated to the concerned authorities. Some of the methods of acquiring any such rights are listed in the provision, but it basically just says that rights can be obtained by any means and are only to be recognized under the 1971 Act.   Section 4(1): Any person acquiring by succession, survivorship, inheritance, the partition, Government patta, decree of a court or otherwise any right as owner pattadar, mortgagee, occupant or tenant of a land and any person acquiring any right as occupant of a land by any other method shall intimate in writing his acquisition of such right, to the Mandal Revenue Officer within ninety days from the date of such acquisition, and the said Mandal Revenue Officer shall give or send a written acknowledgement of the receipt of such intimation to the person making it:   Provided that where the person acquiring the right is a minor or otherwise disqualified, his guardian or other persons having charge of his property shall intimate the fact of such acquisition to the Mandal Revenue Officer. 7 Ibid. 8 “Indian Exclusion Report” (New Delhi: Centre for Equity Studies, 2016), accessed July 15, 2019, http://defindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IndiaExclusion-Report-2016_Low-Res.pdf. 9 Ibid. 10 D. C. Wadhwa, “Transferability of Raiyati Holdings in Bihar: A Long Journey, 1793–1950,” Economic and Political Weekly 16, no. 38 (1981): 1532–1544. 11 Digitization of land records is mostly an extension of the Western idea of private property rights which has officially infiltrated in the Indian setting with the Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme launched by the government of India in August 2008. The dedicated website of the department of land resources explains the digitization process as follows: “The Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme (DILRMP) is launched by Government of India in August 2008, aimed to modernize management of land records, minimize scope of land/property disputes, enhance transparency in the land records maintenance system, and facilitate moving eventually towards guaranteed conclusive titles to immovable properties in the country. The major components of the programme are computerization of all land records including mutations, digitization of maps and integration of textual and spatial data, survey/re-survey and updation of all survey and settlement records including creation of original cadastral records wherever necessary, computerization of registration and its integration with the land records maintenance system, development of core Geospatial Information System (GIS) and capacity building.” “Digital India LR Modernisation Program,” accessed November 11, 2017, http://nlrmp.nic. in/. The state of Andhra Pradesh claimed in July 2017 that its process of digitization has been 98 per cent completed. Staff Reporter, “Digitisation of Land Records Almost Complete,” The Hindu, July 12, 2017, sec. Andhra Pradesh, accessed July 15, 2019, www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/dig itisation-of-land-records-almost-complete/article19260335.ece,. For literature on the subject, see A. James Casner, “Computerization of Land Title Records – Introduction Symposium: Computerization of Land Title Records,” University of Cincinnati Law Review 43 (1974): 465–468; Robert N. Cook, “Land Law Reform: A Modern Computerized System of Land Records,” University of Cincinnati Law Review 38 (1969): 385–448; Naresh C. Saxena, “Updating Land Records: Is Computerisation Sufficient?,” Economic and Political Weekly 40, no. 4 (2005): 313–321; “1965 Report of the Committee on Improvement of

Concluding remarks 225 Land Records Articles and Reports,” Modern Uses of Logic in Law 6 (1965): 141–166. 2 This fact was brought forth by lawyer–activist Mr. Reshmi Katyayan, who prac1 tices in the Madhya Pradesh High Court and has years of experience in land records and administration cases. Mr. Katyayan presented a paper at a seminar held by Ekta Parishad and the Food and Agriculture Organization at NALSAR in 2016 where he presented hard copies of the digitized land records at the seminar which clearly stated that the records were not to be used as evidence of title in courts of law.

Annexures

A1: List of abbreviations used in annexures   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

CG – Central Government SG – State Government PO – Prescribed Officer AO – Authorized Officer R/C I – Religious, Charitable Institutions Govt Comp – Government Company Corp – Corporation T/Co Rubber Plantation – Tea, Coffee Rubber Plantations Co-op FS – Cooperative Farming Societies BYY – Bhoodan Yagna Yojna I/P Projects – Irrigation, Power Projects Orch – Orchard LB – Land Bank LA – Local Authorities Edu Inst – Educational Institution BL – Bank Land T/C P – Tea Coffee Plantation Indus – Industry LM Banks – Land Mortgage Banks COW – Court of Wards CE – Cashew Estate KFC – Kerala Financial Corporation RI – Religious Institution BYB – Bhoodan Yagna Board C – Collector RO – Revenue Officer CA – Competent Authority

Source: Author

Annexures 227

A2: Countrywide list of land legislations I  Central legislations   1 Acquired Territories (Merger) Act, 1960   2 Acquisition of Certain Areas at Ayodhya Act, 1993   3 Airports Authority of India Act, 1994   4 Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958   5 Ancient Monuments Remains Act, 1958   6 Atomic Energy Act, 1962   7 Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1969   8 Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970   9 Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition and Development) Act, 1957 10 Coastal Aquaculture Authority Act, 2005 11 Control of National Highways (Land and Traffic) Act, 2002 12 Cotton Textile Companies (Management of Undertakings and Liquidation or Reconstruction) Act, 1967 13 Indian Copper Corporation (Acquisition of Undertaking) Act, 1972 14 Indian Institutes of Information Technology Act, 2014 15 Land Ports Authority of India Act, 2010 16 Metal Corporation of India (Acquisition of Undertaking) Act, 1965 17 National Airports Authority Act, 1985 18 National Capital Region Planning Board Act, 1985 19 National Highways Act, 1956 20 National Highways Authority of India Act, 1988 21 Northern India Canal and Drainage Act, 1873 22 Petroleum and Minerals Pipelines (Acquisition of Right of User in Land) Act, 1962 23 Requisitioned Land (Apportionment of Compensation) Act, 1949 24 Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act, 1952 25 Resettlement of Displaced Persons (Land Acquisition) Act, 1948 26 Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 27 State Acquisition of Lands for Union Purposes (Validation) Act, 1954 28 Tea Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Sick Tea Units) Act, 1985 29 Cantonments (Extension of Rent Control Laws) Act, 1957 30 Cantonments (House-Accommodation) Act, 1923 31 Cantonments Act, 1924 32 Cantonments Act, 2006 33 Shillong Rifle Range and Umlong Cantonments Assimilation of Laws Act, 1954 34 Coal India (Regulation of Transfers and Validation) Act, 2000 35 Coal Mines (Conservation and Development) Amendment Act, 1985

228  Annexures 36 Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Act, 1973 37 Coal Mines (Special Provisions) Act, 2015 38 Coal Mines Conservation and Development Act 1974 39 Land Acquisition (Mines) Act, 1885 40 Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 41 Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Act, 2006 42 Delhi Municipal Corporation (Validation of Electricity Tax) Act and Other Laws (Repeal) Act, 2002 43 National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Act, 2007 44 National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Act, 2011 45 National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second Act, 2009 46 National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second Act, 2011 47 New Delhi Municipal Council Act, 1994 48 Displaced Persons (Claims) Act, 1950 [Repealed] 49 Displaced Persons (Claims) Supplementary Act, 1954 [Repealed] 50 Displaced Persons Claims and Other Laws Repeal Act, 2005 51 Displaced Persons Compensation and Rehabilitation Act, 1954 [Repealed] 52 Arunachal Pradesh Forest Reserve (Constitution and Maintenance) Act, 1975 53 Cattle Trespass Act, 1871 54 Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 55 Indian Forest Act, 1927 56 Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 57 Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 58 Gift-Tax Act, 1958 [Cease to have effect on or after 01.10.1998] 59 Government Management of Private Estates Act, 1892 60 Gudalur Janmam Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1969 61 Wealth-Tax Act, 1957 62 Hindu Disposition of Property Act, 1916 63 Hindu Gains of Learning Act, 1930 64 Hindu Inheritance (Removal of Disabilities) Act, 1928 65 Hindu Succession Act, 1956 66 Indian Succession Act, 1925 67 Land Improvement Loans Act, 1883 68 Slum Areas (Improvement and Clearance) Act, 1956 69 Special Economic Zones Act, 2005 70 Waste Lands (Claims) Act, 1863 71 Absorbed Areas Laws Act, 1954 72 Administration of Evacuee Property Act, 1950 [Repealed] 73 Assam Alienation of Land (Regulation) Act, 1980

Annexures 229   74 Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988   75 British Statutes (Application to India) Repeal Act, 1960   76 Government Grants Act, 1895   77 Insurance Act, 1938   78 Limitation Act, 1963   79 Manoeuvres Field Firing and Artillery Practice Act, 1938   80 Married Women’s Property (Extension) Act, 1959   81 Oudh Laws Act, 1876   82 Partition Act, 1893   83 Provincial Insolvency Act, 1920   84 Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996   85 Registration Act, 1908   86 Scheduled Areas Assimilation of Laws Act, 1951   87 Scheduled Areas, (Assimilation of Laws) Act, 1953   88 Works of Defence Act, 1903   89 Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act, 1984   90 Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1958   91 Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971  92 Calcutta Metro Railway (Operation and Maintenance) Temporary Provisions Act, 1985   93 Indian Railways Act, 1890   94 Metro Railway (Operation and Maintenance) Act, 2002   95 Metro Railways (Construction of Works) Act, 1978   96 Railway Property (Unlawful Possession) Act, 1966   97 Railways Act, 1989   98 Central Boards of Revenue Act 1963   99 Opium and Revenue Laws (Extension of Application) Act, 1950 100 Revenue Recovery Act, 1890 101 Cardamom Act, 1965 102 Coffee Act, 1942 103 Estate Duty (Distribution) Act, 1962 [Repealed] 104 Estate Duty Act, 1953 [Repealed] 105 Mahendra Partab Singh Estates (Repeal) Act, 1960 106 Murshidabad Estate Administration Act, 1933 107 Plantations Labour Act, 1951 108 Rubber Act, 1947 109 Tea (Alteration in Duties of Customs and Excise) Act, 1958 110 Tea Act, 1953 111 Tobacco Board Act, 1975 112 Ajmer Tenancy and Land Records Act, 1950 113 Delhi and Ajmer Rent Control Act, 1952 [Repealed] 114 Delhi and Ajmer Rent Control (Nasirabadcantonment Repeal) Act, 1968 115 Delhi Rent Act, 1995

230  Annexures 116 Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958 117 Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 1976 [Repealed] 118 Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Repeal Act, 1999 119 Payment of Taxes (Transfer of Property) Act, 1949 120 Transfer of Property Act, 1882 121 Public Wakfs Extension of Limitation Act, 1959 II  Andhra Pradesh/Telangana 122 Agency Tracts Interest and Land Transfer Act, 1917 123 Andhra Land Revenue (Surcharge) Act, 1956 124 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Co-Operative Land Mortgage Banks Act, 1934 125 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Estates Communal, Forest and Private Lands (Prohibition of Alienation) Act, 1947 126 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Estates Land Act, 1908 127 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Land Improvement Scheme (Contour Bunding and Contour Trenching) Act, 1949 128 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Land Revenue Assessment Act, 1876 129 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Land Revenue Assessments (Standardization) Act, 1956 130 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Ijra and Kowli Land Cancellation of Irregular Pattas and Abolition of Concessional Assessment Act, 1961 131 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Land (Special Assessment) Act, 1952 132 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Land Improvement Act, 1953 133 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Land Revenue Act, 1317f. Hyderabad Amendment 1952, 1956 134 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950 135 Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Land (Conversion for Non-Agricultural Purposes) Act, 2006 136 Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Lands (Prohibition of Alienation) Act, 1972 137 Andhra Pradesh Assigned Lands (Prohibition of Transfers) Act, 1977 138 Andhra Pradesh Co-Operative Central Land Mortgage Bank Formation Act, 1941 139 Andhra Pradesh Lands and Buildings (Termination of Leases) Act, 1986 140 Andhra Pradesh Housing Schemes (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1961 141 Andhra Pradesh Indebted Agriculturists, Landless Labourers and Artisans (Temporary Relief) Act, 1976 142 Andhra Pradesh Land Encroachment Act, 1905 143 Andhra Pradesh Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 1982 144 Andhra Pradesh Land Licensed Cultivators Act, 2011

Annexures 231 145 Andhra Pradesh Land Reforms (Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings) Act, 1973 146 Andhra Pradesh Land Revenue (Additional Assessment) and Cess Revision Act, 1962 147 Andhra Pradesh Land Revenue (Additional Wet Assessment) Act, 1975 148 Andhra Pradesh Land Revenue (Enhancement) Act, 1967 149 Andhra Pradesh Land Revenue Code, 1999 150 Andhra Pradesh Non-Agricultural Lands Assessment Act, 1963 151 Andhra Pradesh Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Boot Leggers, Dacoits, Drug Offenders, Goon Das, Immoral Traffic and Land Grabbers Act, 1986 152 Andhra Pradesh Records of Rights in Land Act, 1971 153 Andhra Pradesh Rights in Land and Pattadar Pass Books Act, 1971 154 Andhra Pradesh Slum Improvement (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1956 155 Andhra Pradesh Sugarcane Crop Land Revenue Assessment Act, 1965 156 Andhra Pradesh Water, Land and Trees Act, 2002 157 Andhra Pradesh Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1960. Amended 1997, 1985, 2005 158 Andhra Pradesh Rent and Revenue Sales Act, 1839 159 Hyderabad Houses (Rent, Eviction and Lease) Control Act, 1954 160 Madras Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1949 161 Andhra Pradesh Regularisation of the Unauthorised Constructions in Municipal Corporations, Municipalities and Urban Development Authorities Act, 2013 162 Andhra Pradesh Urban Areas (Development) Act, 1975. Amended 1976, 1983, 1984, 1994, 1996 (2), 1997, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2007 163 Andhra Pradesh Urban Areas (Surcharge on Property Tax) Act, 1958. Amended 1965 164 Andhra Pradesh Urban Areas (Surcharge on Property Tax) Repeal Act, 1978 165 Andhra Pradesh Vacant Lands in Urban Areas (Prohibition of Alienation) Act, 1972. Amended 1974 166 Andhra Pradesh Rural Development Act, 1996. Amended 2006 167 Andhra Pradesh Vacant Lands in Urban Areas (Prohibition of Alienation) Repeal Act, 1978 168 Andhra Pradesh District Planning Committees Act, 2005 169 Andhra Pradesh Metropolitan Planning Committee Act, 2007 170 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Town Planning Act, 1920 171 Andhra Pradesh Stamp (Increase of Duties) Act, 1967 172 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Jagirdars Debt Settlement Act, 1952 173 Andhra Pradesh Board of Revenue (Replacement By Commissioners) Act, 1977 174 Andhra Pradesh Revenue Enquiries Act, 1893 175 Andhra Pradesh Revenue Recovery Act, 1864

232  Annexures 176 Andhra Pradesh Revenue Summonses Act, 1869 177 Andhra Pradesh Sugarcane Crop Land Revenue Assessment Act, 1965 178 Central Provinces Land Revenue Act, 1881 179 Revenue Minister’s Orders (Validation) Act, 1960 180 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Board of Revenue Act, 1894 181 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Tenancy Act, 1956. Amended 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1974 182 Central Provinces Tenancy Act, 1898 183 Central Provinces Land Revenue Act, 1881 184 Hyderabad Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950 185 Andhra Pradesh Inams (Abolition of Conversion to Ryotwari) Act, 1956 186 Andhra Inams Assessment Act, 1955 187 Agriculturists Loans Act, 1884 188 Andhra Absorbed Enclaves (Hyderabad Jagirdars Commutation Sum and Allowance) Act, 1955 189 AP Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1968 190 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Aided Institutions (Prohibition of Transfers of Property) Act, 1948 191 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Canals and Public Ferries Act, 1890 192 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Electricity Supply Undertakings (Acquisition) Act, 1954 193 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Hindu Transfers and Bequests Act, 1914 194 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Impartible Estates Act, 1904 195 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Inams Act, 1869 196 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Preservation of Private Forests Act, 1954 197 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Tenants and Ryots Protection Act, 1949 198 Andhra Pradesh (Prevention of Speculation in Immovable Property) Act, 1954 199 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Abolition of Inams Act, 1955 200 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Forest Act, 1355 F 201 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Mining Settlements Act, 1956 202 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Unclaimed Property Act, 1333-F 203 Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Land (Conversion for Non-Agricultural Purposes) Act, 2006 204 Andhra Pradesh Ancient and Historical Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1960 205 Andhra Pradesh Bhoodan and Gramdan Act, 1965 206 Andhra Pradesh Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1961 207 Andhra Pradesh Commercial Crops (Assessment) Act, 1957 208 Andhra Pradesh Commercial Crops (Special Assessment) Repeal Act, 1977

Annexures 233 209 Andhra Pradesh Government Property (Preservation, Protection and Resumption) Act, 2007 210 Andhra Pradesh Housing Board Act, 1956 211 Andhra Pradesh Infrastructure Development Corporation Act, 1998 212 Andhra Pradesh Irrigation (Construction and Maintenance of Water Courses) Act, 1965 213 Andhra Pradesh Irrigation Projects (Special Land Tax) (Repeal) Act, 1989 214 Andhra Pradesh Irrigation Projects (Special Land Tax) Act, 1976 215 Andhra Pradesh Irrigation Utilisation and Command Area Development Act, 1984 216 Andhra Pradesh Land Revenue (Surcharge) Act, 1957 217 Andhra Pradesh Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1961 218 Andhra Pradesh Road Development Corporation Act, 1998 219 Andhra Pradesh Splitting Up of Joint Pattas Act, 1965 220 Andhra Pradesh Sugarcane Crop Land Revenue Assessment (Repeal) Act, 1971 221 Azamabad Industrial Area (Termination and Regulation of Leases) Act, 1992 222 Central Provinces Tenancy Act, 1898 223 Government Premises (Eviction) Act, 1955 224 Hyderabad Hindu Women’s Rights to Property (Extension to Agricultural Land) Act, 1954 225 Hyderabad Land Improvement Loans Act, 1950 226 Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority Act, 2008 227 Nagarjunasagar Project (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1956 III Bihar/Jharkhand 228 Bengal Alluvial Land Settlement Act, 1858 229 Bengal Ghatwali Lands Act, 1859 230 Bengal Land Records Maintenance Act, 1895 231 Bengal Land-Holders’ Attendance Act, 1848 232 Bihar Land Agricultural Land (Conversion for Non-Agricultural Purposes) Act, 2010 233 Bihar Displaced Persons Rehabilitation (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1950 234 Bihar Disputes Resolution Act, 2009 235 Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1950. Amended 1970 236 Bihar Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling Area and Acquisition of Surplus Land) Act, 1961. Amended 1972, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978, 1997, 2002, 2006, 2009 237 Bihar Land Tribunals Act, 2009 238 Bihar Public Land Encroachment Act, 1956

234  Annexures 239 Bihar Restoration and Improvement of Degraded Forest Land Taxation Act, 1992 240 Bihar Soil and Water Conservation and Land Development Act, 1970 241 Digha Acquired Land Settlement Act, 2010 242 Land Acquisition (Bihar Validation) Act, 1975 243 Land Registration Act, 1876 244 Ranchi District Raiyat’s Agricultural Land Restoration Act, 1947 245 Ranchi District Tana Bhagar Raiyats’ Agricultural Lands Restoration Act, 1947 246 Bihar and Orissa Board of Revenue Act, 1913 247 Bihar Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1947 248 Bihar Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1977 249 Bihar Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1982 250 Bihar Consolidation of Holdings and Prevention of Fragmentation Act, 1956. Amended 1981 251 Bihar Government Premises (Rent Recovery and Eviction) Act, 1956 252 Absorbed Areas (Laws) Act, 1954 253 Bengal Irrigation Act, 1876 254 Bengal Land-Revenue Sales Act, 1841 255 Bengal Settled Estates Act, 1904 256 Bihar Abolition of Zamindar Is Repealing Act, 1950 257 Bihar Agricultural and Rural Area Development Agency Act, 1978 258 Bihar Agricultural Credit Operations and Miscellaneous Provisions (Banks) Act, 1977 259 Bihar Agricultural Produce Markets Act, 1960 260 Bihar and Orissa Aerial Ropeways Act, 1924 261 Bihar and Orissa Co-Operative Societies Act, 1935 262 Bihar and Orissa Highways Act, 1926 263 Bihar Bakasht Disputes Settlement Act, 1947 264 Bihar and Orissa Primary Education Act, 1919 265 Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (Alteration of Boundaries) Act, 1968 266 Bihar and Orissa State Aid to Industries Act, 1923 267 Bihar Coal Mining Area Development Authority Act, 1986 268 The Bihar Cooperative Societies Act, 1935 269 Bihar Bhoodan Yagna Act, 1954 270 Bihar Disqualified Owners’ (Management of Property) Act, 1952 271 Bihar Electricity Supply Undertakings (Acquisition) Act, 1979 272 Bihar Emergency Cultivation and Irrigation Act, 1955 273 Bihar Gramdan Act, 1965 274 Bihar Hindu Women’s Rights to Property (Extension to Agricultural Land) Act, 1948 275 Bihar Industrial Areas Development Authority Act, 1974 276 Bihar Irrigation and Flood Protection (Betterment Contribution) Act, 1959 277 Bihar Khadi and Village Industries Act, 1956

Annexures 235 278 Bihar Land Disputes Resolution Act, 2009 279 Bihar Land Mutation Act, 2011 280 Bihar Premises and Vehicles (Requisitions) Act, 1978 281 Bihar Privileged Persons Homestead Tenancy Act, 1947 282 Bihar Provincialisation of Roads and Hospitals Act, 1947 283 Bihar Public Irrigation and Drainage Works Act, 1947 284 Bihar Restoration and Improvement of Degraded Forest Land Taxation Act, 1992 285 Bihar Soil and Water Conservation and Land Development Act, 1970 286 Bihar State Aid to Industries Act, 1956 287 Bihar State Housing Board Act, 1982 288 Bihar State Infrastructure Development Enabling Act, 2006 289 Bihar Sugar Undertakings (Acquisition) Act, 1976 (Hindi) 290 Bihar Tenancy Act, 1885 291 Bihar Urban Land Tax Act, 1965 292 Bihar Waste Lands (Reclamation, Cultivation and Improvement) Act, 1946 293 Champaran Agrarian Act, 1918 294 Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act, 1908 295 Chota Nagpur Tenure Holders’ Rent Account Act, 1929 296 Chota Nagpur Tenures Act, 1869 297 Darbhanga Improvement Act, 1934 298 Embankment Act, 1882 299 Estates Partition Act, 1897 300 Kosi Area (Restoration of Lands to Raiyats) Act, 1951 301 Kosi Diara (Reduction of Settled Rents) Act, 1939 302 Porahat Estate Act, 1893 303 Prevention of Defacement of Property Act, 1987 304 Santal Parganas Rent Regulation (Amendment) Act, 1962 305 Santhal Parganas Tenancy (Supplementary Provisions) (Amendment) Act, 1975 306 Jharkhand Apartment (Property Regulation and Ownership) Act, 2005 307 Jharkhand Apartment (Flat) Ownership Act, 2011 308 Jharkhand Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 2000 309 Jharkhand Government Premises (Allotment, Rent, Recovery and Eviction) Act, 2002 310 Jharkhand Highways Act, 2005 311 Jharkhand Regional Development Authority (Amendment) Act, 2006 312 Jharkhand Rural Infrastructure and Socio-Economic Development Act, 2005 IV Delhi 313 Delhi Land Holding (Ceiling) Act, 1960 314 Delhi Land Reforms Act, 1954

236  Annexures 315 Delhi Land Revenue Act, 1954 316 Delhi Lands (Restrictions on Transfer) Act, 1972 317 Delhi Restrictions of Uses of Land Act, 1941 318 East Punjab Reclamation of Land Act, 1949 319 Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 320 Uttar Pradesh Land Revenue Act, 1901 321 Uttar Pradesh Land Utilisation Act, 1947 322 Delhi Stay of Proceedings (Revenue Courts) Act, 1953 323 Delhi (Urban Areas) Tenants Relief Act, 1961 324 Delhi Bhoodan Yagna Act, 1955 325 Delhi Co-Operatives Societies Act, 2003 326 Delhi Premises (Requisition and Eviction) Amendment Act, 1951 327 Delhi Development Act, 1957 328 Delhi Rent Act, 1995 329 Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958 330 Delhi Restriction of Uses of Land Act, 1941 331 Delhi Tenants (Temporary Protection) Act, 1956 332 Metro Railways (Construction of Works) Act, 1978 333 Metro Railways (Construction of Works) Act, 1978 334 Metro Railways (Construction of Works) Act, 1978 V Gujarat 335 Bombay Land Improvement Schemes (Gujarat Amendment) Act, 1963 and 1981 336 Bombay Land Requisition (Gujarat Amendment) Act, 1974, 1980, 1985, 1987, 1990 and 1991 337 Bombay Land Requisition (Gujarat Extension of Duration) Act, 1963, 1966, 1970, 1972, 1976 and 1977 338 Bombay Land Revenue (Gujarat Amendment and Validation) Act, 1981 (Originally Bombay Land Revenue Code, 1879) 339 Bombay Land Revenue (Gujarat Amendment) Act, 1977, 1980 (2), 1981, 1987, 1989, 1993, 1995, 1997, 2003, 2008, 2010 340 Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands (Gujarat Amendment) Act, 1960, 1965, 1969, 1970, 1972, 1974 (2), 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1984, 1986 (2), 1987, 1995, 2001, 2009 341 Gujarat Land Ceiling Act, 1961. Amended 1968, 1972 and 1976 342 Gujarat Land Acquisition Officers Proceedings Validation Act, 1949 343 Gujarat Land Improvement Schemes Act, 1942. Amended 1963, 1981 344 Gujarat Land Requisition Act, 1948 345 Gujarat Land Revenue Code, 1879 346 Gujarat Land Tenures Abolition (Extension of Period of Claiming Compensation) Act, 1961 347 Gujarat Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948. Amended 1997, 2011, 2014

Annexures 237 348 Gujarat Vacant Land in Urban Areas (Prohibition of Alienation) Act, 1972. Amended 1973, 1974 349 Gujarat Water and Gas Pipelines (Acquisition of Right of User in Land) Act, 2000 350 Saurashtra Gharkhed, Tenancy Settlement and Agricultural Lands Ordinance, 1949. Amended 1972, 1974, 1976 351 Gujarat Revenue Jurisdiction Act, 1876 352 Gujarat Revenue Tribunal Act, 1957 353 Gujarat Prohibition of Transfer of Immovable Property and Provision for Protection of Tenants From Eviction From Premises in Disturbed Areas Act, 1986 354 Bombay Aerial Ropeways (Gujarat Amendment) Act, 2004 355 Bombay Inams (Kutch Area) Abolition (Amendment) Act, 1966 356 Bombay Irrigation (Gujarat Extension and Amendment) Act, 1961 357 Bombay Irrigation (Gujarat Extension and Amendment) Act, 1961 358 Bombay Merged Territories and Areas (Jagirs Abolition) (Amendment) Act, 1960. Further Amended 1962, 1964 359 Bombay Personal Inams (Gujarat Amendment) Act, 1961 360 Bombay Prevention of Fragmentation and Consolidated of Holdings (Gujarat Amendment) Act, 1978 361 Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control (Gujarat Amendment) Act, 1965 362 Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands (Gujarat Amendment) Act, 1960 363 Bombay Taluqdari Tenure Abolition (Amendment) Act, 1966 364 Gandhidham (Development and Control on Erection of Buildings) (Amendment) Act, 1961. Amended 1966 365 Gujarat Agricultural Lands Ceiling Act, 1960 366 Gujarat Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1965 367 Gujarat Co-Operative Societies Act, 1961 368 Gujarat Electricity Supply Undertakings (Acquisition) Act, 1969 369 Gujarat Highways Act, 1955 370 Gujarat Housing Board Act, 1961 371 Gujarat Industrial Development Act, 1962 372 Gujarat Khar Lands Act, 1963 373 Gujarat Land Acquisition (Industrial Areas) Act, 1961 374 Gujarat Ownership Flats Act, 1973 375 Gujarat Prevention of Fragmentation and Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1947 376 Gujarat Private Forests (Acquisition) Act, 1972 377 Gujarat Regularisation of Unauthorised Development Act, 2001 378 Gujarat Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, 1947 379 Gujarat Rural Housing Board Act, 1972 380 Gujarat Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment) Act, 1973

238  Annexures 381 Gujarat Surviving Alienations Abolition Act, 1963 382 Gujarat Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948 383 Gujarat Tenancy Laws (Amendment) Act, 1976 384 Gujarat Town Planning and Urban Development Act, 1976 385 Gujarat Tribal Development Corporation Act, 1972 386 Gujarat Tribal Development Corporation Act, 1972 387 Gujarat Water and Gas Pipelines (Acquisition of Right of User in Land) Act, 2000 388 Land Acquisition (Gujarat Unification and Amendment) Act, 1963 389 Saurashtra Estates Acquisition (Gujarat Amendments) Act, 1961 390 Saurashtra Rent Control (Gujarat Amendment) Act, 1962 VI Karnataka 391 Karnataka Land (Restriction on Transfer) Act, 1991 392 Karnataka Land Records of Rights Act, 1958 393 Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961. Amended 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 (2), 2010, 2011, 2014 394 Karnataka Land Revenue Act, 1964. Amended 2002, 2005 (2), 2006, 2007 (2), 2009 (2), 2010, 2011, 2012 395 Karnataka Scheduled Casts and Scheduled Tribes (Prohibition of Transfer of Certain Lands) Act, 1987 396 Land Acquisition (Karnataka Amendment And Validation) Act, 1967. Amended 1961, 1988 397 Bombay Merged Territories and Areas (Jagirs Abolition) (Karnataka Amendment) Act, 1963 398 Certain Inams Abolition Act, 1977 399 Co-Operative Textile Mills (Acquisition and Transfer) Act, 1986 400 Command Areas Development Act, 1980 401 Electricity Supply Undertakings (Acquisition) Act, 1974 402 Hyderabad Abolition of Inams [Karnataka] Amendment) Act, 1964 403 Hyderabad Jagirs (Commutation) Regulation [Karnataka] Amendment Act, 1969 404 Industrial Areas Development Act, 1966 405 Karnataka Acquisition of Lands for Grant of House Sites Act, 1972 406 Karnataka (Belgaum and Gulbarga Areas) Religious and Charitable Inams Abolition Act, 1973 407 Karnataka (Sandur Area) Inams Abolition Act, 1976 408 Karnataka Co-Operative Societies Act, 1959 409 Karnataka Co-Operative Textile Mills (Acquisition and Transfer) (Amendment) Act, 2004 410 Karnataka Highways Act, 1964 411 Karnataka Inams Abolition Laws (Amendment) Act, 1987 412 Karnataka Housing Board Act, 1962 413 Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Act, 1966

Annexures 239 414 Karnataka Krishna Basin Development Authority Act, 1992 415 Karnataka Land (Restriction on Transfer) Act, 1991 416 Karnataka Land Grabbing Prohibition Act, 2011 417 Karnataka Land Record of Rights Act, 1958 418 Karnataka Parks, Play-Fields and Open Spaces (Preservation and Regulation) Act, 1985 419 Karnataka Prevention of Destruction and Loss of Property Act, 1981 420 Karnataka Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1974 421 Karnataka Rent Act, 1999 422 Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, 1961 423 Karnataka Urban Development Authorities Act, 1987 424 Kitturu Development Authority Act, 2011 425 Malnad Area Development Board Act, 1991 426 Mysore (Religious and Charitable) Inams Abolition (Karnataka Amendment) Act, 1984. Amended 2005 and 2011 427 Mysore Palace (Acquisition and Transfer) Act, 1998 428 Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1974 429 Roerich and Devikarani Roerich Estate (Acquisition and Transfer) Act, 1996 430 Sri Malai Mahadeswaraswamy Kshethra Development Authority Act, 2013 431 Tunga Bhadra Sugars (Devi Sugars) Limited (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertaking) (Repeal) Act, 2001 VII Kerala 432 Kannan Devan Hills (Resumption of Lands) Act, 1971 433 Kerala Co-Operative Land Mortgage Banks Act, 1960. Amended 1983 434 Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wet Land Act, 2008 435 Kerala Government Land Assignment, 1960 436 Kerala Land Acquisition Act, 1961. Amended 1968, 1980 437 Kerala Land Conservancy Act, 1957 438 Kerala Land Development Act, 1964 439 Kerala Land Development Corporation Ltd (Special Powers) Act, 1974. Amended 1977 440 Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963. Amended 1973, 1978, 1979, 1981, 1999, 2005 441 Kerala Land Relinquishment Act, 1958 442 Kerala Land Tax Act, 1961 443 Kerala Restriction on Transfer by Transfer by and Restoration of Lands to Scheduled Tribes Act, 1999 444 Kerala Scheduled Tribes (Restriction on Transfer of Lands and Restoration of Alienation) Lands, 1975 445 Kerala Service Inam Lands (Vesting and Enfranchisement) Act, 1981

240  Annexures 446 Land Development Act, 1950 447 Madras Estates Communal, Forest and Private Lands (Prohibition of Alienation) Act, 1947 448 Madras Estates Land (Reduction of Rent) Act, 1947 449 Madras Estates Land Act, 1908 450 Madras Land Improvement Schemes (Contour Bunding and Contour Trenching) Act, 1949 451 Madras Land-Revenue Assessment Act, 1876 452 Madras Lignite (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1953 453 Malabar Land Registration Act, 1895 454 Pattazhi Devaswom Lands (Vesting and Enfranchisement) Act, 1961. Amended 1966 455 Kerala Board of Revenue Abolition Act, 1996 456 Kerala Building Tax Act, 1975 457 Kerala Buildings (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1968 458 Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1965 459 Kerala Provisional Collection of Revenues Act, 1985 460 Kerala Revenue Card Act, 1999 461 Kerala Revenue Recovery Act, 1968 462 Kerala Survey and Boundaries Act, 1961 463 Kerala Requisitioning and Acquisition of Property Act, 1981 464 Arthapalisa, Jenmibhogam and Karathilchilavu (Abolition) Act, 2007 465 Engineering Technicians’ Co-Operative Societies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1977 466 Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 467 Kanam Tenancy Abolition Act, 1976 468 Kanam Tenancy Act, 1955 469 Kerala Cashew Factories (Acquisition) Act, 1974 470 Kerala Cashew Factories (Requisitioning) Act, 1979 471 Kerala Co-Operative Societies Act, 1969 472 Kerala Command Areas Development Act, 1986 473 Kerala Command Areas Development Act, 1986 474 The Kerala Compensation for Tenants Improvements Act, 1959 475 Kerala Cultivators and Tenants (Temporary Protection) Act, 1970 476 Kerala Forest (Vesting and Management of Ecologically Fragile Lands) Act, 2003 477 Kerala Forest Act, 1961 478 Kerala Grants and Leases (Modification of Rights) Act, 1980 479 Kerala Preservation of Private Forests Act, 1972 480 Kerala Prevention of Eviction Act, 1966 481 Kerala Private Forests (Vesting and Assignment) Act, 1971 482 Kerala Public Buildings (Evictions of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1968 483 Kerala Record of Rights Act, 1968 484 Kerala Ryotwari Tenants and Kudikidappukars Protection Act, 1962

Annexures 241 485 Kerala Spinners, Alappuzha (Acquisition and Transfer f Undertaking) Act, 2010 486 Kerala State Aid to Industries Act, 1963 487 Kerala State Housing Board Act, 1971 488 The Kerala State Co-Operative Agricultural and Rural Development Banks Act, 1984 489 The Kerala Tenants and Kudikidappukars Protection Act, 1963 490 Kerala Survey and Boundaries Act, 1961 491 Kottayam Electric Supply Agency (Undertaking) Acquisition Act, 1980 492 Kovalam Palace (Taking Over by Resumption) Act, 2005 493 The Madras Inams Act, 1869 494 Madras Land-Revenue Assessment Act, 1876 495 Madras Preservation of Private Forests Act, 1949 496 The Malabar Tenancy (Amendment) Act, 1960 497 Sree Pandaravaka Lands (Vesting and Enfranchisement) Act, 1971 498 Sreepadam Lands Enfranchisement Act, 1969 VIII  Madhya Pradesh 499 Abolition of Jagirs and Land Reforms Act 1952 (Vindhya Pradesh) 500 Abolition of Jagirs and Land Reforms Act, 1953 (Bhopal) 501 Central Provinces Reclamation of Lands (Eradication of Kans) Act, 1948 502 Madhya Pradesh Abolition of Proprietary Rights (Estates, Mahals, Alienated Lands) Act, 1950 503 Madhya Pradesh Jagir Land Records Management (Validation) Act, 1961 504 Madhya Pradesh Land Revenue Code, 1959. Amended 2011 and 2013 505 Madhya Pradesh Land Survey Act, 1947 506 Madhya Pradesh Regulation of Uses of Land Act, 1948 507 Madhya Pradesh Resettlement And Rehabilitation Of Displaced Persons (Land Acquisition) Act, 1949 508 Madhya Pradesh Resettlement of Displaced Landholders (Land Acquisition) Act, 1954 509 Madhya Pradesh Ceiling on Agricultural Holding Act, 1960. Validation 1982 510 Cantonments (Extension of Rent Control Laws) Act, 1957 511 Madhya Bharat Abolition of Jagirs Act, Samvat 2008 512 Madhya Bharat Land Revenue and Tenancy (Third Amendment) Act, 1953 513 Madhya Bharat State Aid to Industries Act, 1952 514 Madhya Bharat Zamindari Abolition Act, Samvat, 2003 515 Madhya Pradesh Accommodation (Requisition) Act, 1948 516 Madhya Pradesh Bhumi Sena Adhiniyam, 1981 517 Madhya Pradesh Bhumi Sudhar Yojana Adhiniyam, 1967

242  Annexures 518 Madhya Pradesh Bhudan Yagna Act, 1953 519 Madhya Pradesh Bhumigat Pipeline, Cable Evam Duct (Bhumi Ki Upyokta Ke Adhikaron Ka Arjan) Adhiniyam, 2012 520 Madhya Pradesh Co-Operative Societies Act, 1960 521 Madhya Pradesh Highway Act, 1936 522 Madhya Pradesh Gramin Vikas Kar Adhiniyam, 1974 523 Madhya Pradesh Land Improvement Schemes Act, 1957 524 Madhya Pradesh Land Utilization Laws Repealing Act, 1961 525 Madhya Pradesh State Aid to Industries Act, 1958 526 Madhya Pradesh Padat Bhumi Ka Krishikaran Adhiniyam, 1996 527 Madhya Pradesh Tendu Patta (Vyapar Viniyaman) Adhiniyam, 1964 528 Madhya Pradesh Tendu Patton Ke Nirvartan Hetu Nyuntam Dar Nishchayan Adhiniyam,1972 IX Chhattisgarh 529 Chhattisgarh Land Holding (Validation) Act, 2013 530 Chhattisgarh Land Revenue Code, 1959. Amended 2003, 2005, 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013 531 Chhattisgarh Underground Pipelines (Acquisition of Right of User in Land) Act, 2004 532 Chhattisgarh (Adhosanrachna Vikas Evam Paryavaran) Upkar Adhiniyam, 2005 X Maharashtra 533 Bombay City Land Revenue Act, 1876 534 Bombay Forfeited Lands Restoration Act, 1938 535 Bombay Hindu Women’s Right to Property (Extension to Agricultural Land) Act, 1947 536 Bombay Khar Lands Act, 1948. Amended 1963, 1966 537 Bombay Land Acquisition Officers Proceedings Validation Act, 1949 538 Bombay Land Improvement Schemes Act, 1942 539 Bombay Revenue Jurisdiction Act, 1876 540 Bombay Revenue Tribunal Act, 1939 541 Maharashtra Land Revenue Code, 1966 542 Exemption From Land Revenue (No. 1) Act, 1863 543 Exemption of Land Revenue (No. 2) Act, 1863 544 Maharashtra Increase of Land Revenue and Special Assessment Act, 1974 545 Maharashtra Land Revenue (Revival of Certain Rules Relating to Non-AgriculturalAssessment) Act, 1972 546 Maharashtra Land Revenue Code (Amalgamation of Bombay and Konkan Divisions) Act, 1983 547 Maharashtra Revenue Patels (Abolition of Offices) Act, 1962

Annexures 243 548 Salsette Estates (Land Revenues Exemption Abolition) Act, 1951 549 Bombay (Okhamandal Salami Tenure Abolition) Act, 1953 550 Bombay Aerial Ropeways Act, 1955 551 Bombay and Madhya Pradesh Housing Boards (Amendment) Act, 1969 552 The Bombay Bandhijama, Udhad and Ugadia Tenures Abolition Act, 1959 553 Bombay Bhagdari and Narwadari Tenures Abolition Act, 1949 554 Bombay Bhil Naik Inams Abolition Act, 1955 555 The Bombay City (Inami and Special Tenures) Abolition and Maharashtra Land Revenue Code (Amendment) Act, 1969 556 Bombay Co-Operative Societies Act, 1925 557 Bombay Displaced Persons Premises Control and Regulation Act, 1952 558 Bombay Government Premises (Eviction) Act, 1955 559 The Bombay Highways Act, 1955 560 Bombay Housing Board Act, 1948 561 Bombay Land Tenures Abolition (Recovery of Records) Act, 1953 562 Bombay Merged Territories (Janjira and Bhor) Khoti Tenure Abolition Act, 1953 563 Bombay Merged Territories Miscellaneous Alienations Abolition Act, 1955 564 Bombay Paragana and Kulkarni Watans (Abolition), The Bombay Service Inams (Usefulto Community) Abolition, The Bombay Merged Territories Miscellaneous Alienations Abolition, The Bombay Inferior Village Watans Abolition and The Maharashtra Revenue Patels (Abolition of Office) (Amendment) Act, 2000 (Maharashtra) 565 Bombay Personal Inams Abolition Act, 1952 566 Bombay Prevention of Fragmentation and Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1947 567 Bombay Rent-Free Estates Act, 1852 568 The Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control (Extension of Duration and Amendment) Act, 1964 569 Bombay Service Inams (Useful to Community) Abolition Act, 1953 570 Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands (Amendment) Act, 2005 571 Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands (Validation of Appointment As Mamlatdar andProceedings) Act, 1967 572 Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands (Vidarbha Region) Act, 1958 573 Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948 574 Bombay Vidarbha Region Agricultural Tenants (Protection From Eviction and Amendment of Tenancy Laws) Act, 1957 575 Central Provinces and Berar Accommodation (Requisition) Act, 1948 576 Central Provinces and Berar Highway Act, 1936 577 Broach and Kaira Incumbered Estates Act, 1877, (Maharashtra) 578 Land Acquisition (Maharashtra Amendment and Validation of Certain Proceedings for Acquisition of Lands) Act, 1965

244  Annexures 579 Land Improvement Loans and Agriculturists’ Loans (Extension and Amendment) Act, 1957 580 Maharashtra Acquisition of Lands for Lower Panzra Medium Irrigation Project (Validation) Act, 1994 581 Dekkhan Agriculturists’ Relief (Suits and Applications) Validation Act, 1954 (Maharashtra) 582 Maharashtra Abolition of Subsisting Proprietary Rights to Mines and Minerals in Certain Lands Act, 1985 583 Maharashtra Agricultural Lands (Ceiling on Holdings) Act, 1961 584 Maharashtra Co-Operative Societies Act, 1960 585 Maharashtra Devdasi System (Abolition) Act, 2005 586 Maharashtra Godawari Marathwada Irrigation Development Corporation Act, 1998 587 Maharashtra Gramdan Act, 1964 588 Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Act, 1976 589 Maharashtra Khar Lands Development Act, 1979 590 Maharashtra Krishna Valley Development Corporation Act, 1996 591 Maharashtra Metropolitan Planning Committees (Constitution and Functions) Act, 1999 592 Maharashtra Private Forests (Acquisition) Act, 1975 593 Maharashtra Project Affected Persons Rehabilitation Act, 1986 594 Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966 595 Maharashtra Rent Control Act, 1999 596 Maharashtra Resettlement of Project Displaced Persons Act, 1976 597 Maharashtra Restoration of Lands to Scheduled Tribes Act, 1974 598 Maharashtra State Aid to Industries Act, 1960 599 Maharashtra Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Laws (Amendment) Act, 2004 600 Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Laws (Amendment) Act, 1969 601 Tuljapur Development Authority Act, 2008 602 Waste Lands (Claims) (Bombay Repeal) Act, 1947 XI  Goa, Daman, and Diu 603 Goa, Daman and Diu Land Revenue Code, 1968 604 Goa Reconstruction of Registers and Records Act, 2005 605 Goa, Daman and Diu (Abolition of Proprietorship of Lands in Diu) Act, 1971 606 Land Acquisition (Goa, Daman and Diu Amendment) Act, 1980 607 Goa (Regulation of Land Development and Building Construction) Act, 2008 608 Goa Land (Prohibition on Construction) Act, 1995 609 Goa Command Area Development Act, 1997 610 Goa Industrial Development Act, 1965 611 Goa Land Revenue (Modification and Regularisation of Grants Under Decree No 3602 dated 24-11-1917) Act, 2007

Annexures 245 612 Goa Land Use (Regulation) Act, 1991 613 Goa Municipalities Act, 1968 614 Goa Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1988 615 Goa, Daman and Diu Administration of Evacuee Property Act, 1964 616 Goa, Daman and Diu Agricultural Tenancy Act, 1964 617 Goa, Daman and Diu Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1978 618 Goa, Daman and Diu Highways Act, 1974 619 Goa, Daman and Diu Irrigation Act, 1973 620 Goa, Daman and Diu Protection of Rights of Tenants (Cashewnut and Arecanut Gardens) Act, 1971 621 Goa, Daman and Diu Town and Country Planning Act, 1974 622 Goa, Daman and Diu Wild Animals and Wild Birds Protection Act, 1965 XII Orissa 623 Land Acquisition (Orissa Amendment and Validation) Act, 1959. Amended 1948 624 Odisha Consolidation of Holdings and Prevention of Fragmentation of Land Act, 1972. Amended 1976, 2012 625 Odisha Land Settlement Act, 1962. Amended 2013 626 Orissa Agricultural Land (Utilisation) Act, 1969 627 Orissa Co-Operative Land Mortgage Bank Act, 1938 628 Orissa Communal Forest and Private Lands (Prohibition of Alienation) Act, 1948 629 Orissa Government Land Settlement Act, 1962. Amended 1973, 1974, 1976, 1989 630 Orissa Government Lands Bar to Acquisition of the Right to Occupancy Act, 1950 631 Orissa Land Reforms Act, 1960. Amended 1974, 1975, 1976, 1989 632 Orissa Land Revenue (Abolition) Act, 1978 633 Orissa Prevention of Land Encroachment Act, 1972. Amended 1959, 1962, 1976, 1979,1987 634 Orissa Private Lands of Rulers (Assessment of Rent) Act, 1958 635 Orissa Prohibition of Alienation of Lands Act, 1972 636 Orissa Board of Revenue Act, 1951 637 Bihar and Orissa Board of Revenue Act, 1917 638 Central Provinces Land Revenue Act, 1881 639 Central Provinces Land Revenue Act, 1951 640 Orissa Survey and Settlement Act, 1958 641 Ganjam-Koraput Survey, Record of Rights and Settlement Operations Validation Act, 1956 642 Odisha Special Survey and Settlement Act, 2012 643 Bihar and Orissa Municipal Survey Act, 1920 644 Madras Survey and Boundaries Act, 1923

246  Annexures 645 Agency Tracts Interest and Land Transfer Act, 1917 646 Alluvion and Diluvion Act, 1847 647 Bhaskar Textile Mills (Acquisition and Transfer) Act, 1986 648 Bihar and Orissa Highways Act, 1926 649 Bihar and Orissa State Aid to Industries (Orissa Amendment) Act, 1959 650 Bihar and Orissa Aerial Ropeways Act, 1924 (Orissa) 651 Central Provinces Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1928 652 Bihar and Orissa Mining Settlements Act, 1920 653 Central Provinces Settlement Act, 1929 654 Central Provinces Tenancy (Orissa Amendment of C.P. Act I of 1920) Act, 1958 655 Central Provinces Tenancy (Orissa Amendment of C.P. Act Xi of 1898) Act, 1958 656 Embankment Act, 1882 657 Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 658 Central Provinces Tenancy Act, 1920 (Orissa) 659 Madras Co-Operative Societies Act, 1932 660 Jharia Water-Supply Act, 1914 661 Madras Stamp (Amendment) Act, 1922 662 Madras Survey and Boundaries Act, 1923 (Validation) Act, 1924 663 Madras Town-Planning Act, 1920 664 Northern India Canal and Drainage Act, 1873 665 Mappilla Succession Act, 1918 666 Odisha Consolidation of Holdings and Prevention of Fragmentation of Land (Amendment) Act, 2012 667 Odisha Government Land Settlement (Amendment) Act, 2013 668 Odisha Survey and Settlement (Amendment) Act, 2013 669 Orissa Aerial Ropeways Act, 1957 670 Orissa Bhoodan and Gramdan Act, 1970 671 Orissa Bhoodan Yagna (Amendment) Act, 1961 672 Orissa Agricultural Credit Operations and Miscellaneous Provisions (Banks) Act, 1975 673 Orissa Co-Operative Societies Act, 1962 674 Orissa Consolidation of Holdings and Prevention of Fragmentation of Land Act, 1972 675 Orissa Estates Abolition Act, 1951 676 Orissa Development Authorities Act, 1982 677 Orissa Housing Board Act, 1968 678 Orissa Forest Act, 1972 679 Orissa Land Revenue (Reimposition) Act, 1975 680 Orissa Preservation of Private Forests Act, 1947 681 Orissa Merged Territories (Village Offices Abolition) Act, 1963 682 Orissa Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1972

Annexures 247 683 Orissa Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act, 1962 684 Orissa Stamp (Imposition of Surcharge) Act, 1974 685 Orissa Rural Infrastructure and Socio-Economic Development Act, 2004 686 Orissa State Aid to Industries Act, 1978 687 Orissa Tenancy Act, 1913 688 Orissa Vesting of Properties (in Grama Sasans) Act, 1964 689 Talcher Thermal Power Station (Acquisition and Transfer) Act, 1994 XIII Punjab 690 East Punjab Displaced Persons (Land Re-Settlement) Act, 1949 (Also in Haryana) 691 East Punjab Land Alienation (Saving of Shamilat) Act, 1948 692 East Punjab Reclamation of Land Act, 1949 693 East Punjab Refugees Rehabilitation (Registration of Lands Claims) Act, 1948 (Also inHaryana) 694 Amendments to The Land Acquisition Act, 1894–1948 (Also Applicable in Haryana), 1953, 1956 (2) (Also Applicable in Haryana), 1962, 1969 695 Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955. Amended 1957, 1959, 2011 (2) (Also Applicable in Haryana) 696 Punjab Backward Classes Land Development and Finance Corporation Act, 1976.Amended 1981, 1983, 2011 697 Punjab Co-Operative Land Mortgage Banks Act, 1957. Amended 1977, 1986 698 Punjab Consolidation of Land Proceedings (Validation) Act, 1957 699 Punjab Gram Panchayat (Common Purposes Land) Eviction and Rent Recovery Act, 1976 700 Punjab Land Improvement Scheme Act, 1963 701 Punjab Land Preservation Act, 1900 (Also Applicable in Haryana) 702 Punjab Land Reforms Act, 1972. Amended 1958, 1960, 1976, 2011 (2) 703 Punjab Land Revenue (Abolition) Act, 1997 704 Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1967 705 Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 (Repealed) 706 Punjab Land Revenue (Surcharge) Act, 1954 707 Punjab Land Revenue (Special Assessments) Act, 1955 708 Punjab Land Revenue Special Assessment (Exemption) Act, 1962 709 Punjab Land Revenue (Special Charges) Act, 1958 710 Punjab Public Premises and Land (Eviction and Rent Recovery) Act, 1973. Amendment 2000 711 Punjab Reclamation of Land Act, 1959 712 Punjab Religious Premises and Land (Eviction and Rent Recovery) Act, 1997

248  Annexures 713 Punjab Restitution of Mortgaged Lands Act, 1938 714 Punjab Scheduled Castes Land Development and Finance Corporation Act, 1970.Amended 1979, 1983, 2001 715 Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953. Amended 1959, 1997, 2011716 Punjab Thur and Sem Lands (Reclamation) Act, 1963 716 Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1953. Amended 1964, 1965, 1976, 1993 and 1995 (Also Applicable to Haryana. Amended 1973 (2), 1976, 1983) 717 Punjab Revenue Appeals and Proceedings (Disposal and Restoration) Act, 1956 718 East Punjab Holdings (Consolidation and Prevention of Fragmentation) Act, 2007 719 East Punjab Utilization of Lands Act, 1949 720 Pepsu Townships Development Board Act, 1954 721 Punjab Aerial Ropeways Act, 1926 722 Punjab Bhudan Yagna Act, 1955 723 Punjab Co-Operative Societies Act, 1961 724 Punjab District Planning Committees Act, 2005 725 Punjab Jagirs Act, 1941 726 Punjab Occupancy Tenants (Vesting of Proprietary Rights) Act, 1953 727 Punjab Occupancy Tenants (Vesting of Proprietary Rights) (Amendment) Act, 1958 728 Punjab Prevention of Defacement of Property Act, 1997 729 Punjab Regional and Town Planning and Development Act, 1995 730 Punjab Regional and Town Planning and Development (Amendment) Act, 2003 731 Punjab Regional and Town Planning and Development (Amendment) Act, 2006 732 Punjab Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act, 1953 733 Punjab Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property (Amendment) Act, 1958 734 Punjab Resumption of Jagirs Act, 1957 735 Punjab Resumption of Jagirs (Amendment) Act, 1958 736 Punjab Resumption of Jagirs (Amendment) Act, 1959 737 Punjab Roads and Bridges Development Board (Amendment) Act, 2005 738 Punjab Roads and Bridges Development Board Act, 1998 739 Punjab Rural Development Act, 1987 740 Punjab Scheduled Roads and Controlled Areas Restriction of Unregulated Development Act, 1963 741 Punjab State Aid to Industries Act, 1935 742 Punjab Tenancy Act, 1887 743 Punjab Urban Immovable Property Tax (Validation of Lists) Act, 1943 744 Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1953

Annexures 249 XIV Haryana 745 Haryana Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1972. Amended 1973, 1976 (3) and 1983 746 Haryana Common Purposes Land Eviction and Rent Recovery Act, 1985 747 Haryana Land Holdings Tax (Repeal) Act, 1986 748 Haryana Land Revenue (Additional Surcharge) Act, 1969 749 Haryana Municipal Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1974. Amended 1974 750 Haryana Public Premises and Land (Eviction and Rent Recovery) Act, 1972 751 Land Improvement Loans Act, 1883 752 Punjab Co-Operative Land Mortgage Banks (Haryana Amendment) Act, 1973 753 Punjab Colonisation of Government Lands (Punjab) Act, 1912 754 Punjab Land Revenue–Haryana Amendment Acts, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1982 755 Colonization of Government Lands (Punjab) Act, 1912 756 Faridabad Complex (Regulation and Development) Act, 1971 757 Haryana Canal and Drainage Act, 1974 758 Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act, 1975 759 Haryana Forest Development (Repeal) Act, 1986 760 Haryana Forest Development Act, 1983 761 Haryana Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act, 1973 762 Haryana Urban (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1973 763 Haryana Urban Development Authority Act, 1977 XV  Himachal Pradesh 764 Colonisation of Government Lands (Punjab) (Himachal Pradesh Repealing) Act, 1984 765 Himachal Pradesh Abolition of Land Revenue on Un-Economic Holdings Act, 1977 766 Himachal Pradesh Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1972. Amended 1973, 1987, 1999 767 Himachal Pradesh Land Development Act, 1973 768 Himachal Pradesh Land Holdings Tax Act, 1974 769 Himachal Pradesh Land Preservation Act, 1978 770 Himachal Pradesh Land Revenue Act, 1953. Amended 1965, 1976, 1996, 2000 (2), 2011 771 Himachal Pradesh Land Revenue (Surcharge) Act, 1974 772 Himachal Pradesh Public Premises and Land (Eviction and Rent Recovery) Act, 1971

250  Annexures 773 Himachal Pradesh Restitution of Mortgaged Lands Act, 1976 774 Himachal Pradesh Roadside Land Control Act, 1968 775 Himachal Pradesh Tenancy and Land Reforms Act, 1976 776 Himachal Pradesh Utilisation of Lands Act, 1973 777 Himachal Pradesh Village Common Lands Vesting and Utilisation Act, 1974. Amended 2001 778 Land Acquisition (Himachal Pradesh Amendment) Act, 1979 779 Punjab Land Revenue (Himachal Pradesh Amendment) Acts, 1968 and 1971 780 Himachal Pradesh Urban Rent Control Act, 1987. Amended 1973, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978 (2) 781 Himachal Pradesh Urban Estates (Development and Regulation) Act, 1968 782 Himachal Pradesh Urban Immovable Property Tax Act, 1968. Amended 1971 783 Himachal Pradesh Urban Immovable Property Tax (Repealing) Act, 1991 784 Himachal Pradesh Housing and Urban Land Development Authority Act, 2004 785 Himachal Pradesh Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act, 1972. Amended 1978 786 Himachal Pradesh Infrastructure Development Act, 2001 787 Himachal Pradesh Town and Country Planning Act, 1977. Amended 2001 788 Himachal Pradesh (Restrictions to Contest Alienation or Adoption Under Custom) Act, 1976 789 Himachal Pradesh (Transferred Territory) Tenants (Protection of Rights) Act, 1968 790 Himachal Pradesh Ancient and Historical Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1976 791 Himachal Pradesh Bhoodan Yagna Act, 1977 792 Himachal Pradesh Infrastructure Development Act, 2001 793 Himachal Pradesh Kutlehar Forest (Acquisition of Management) Act, 1992 794 Himachal Pradesh Minor Canals Act, 1976 794 Himachal Pradesh Municipal Act, 1994 796 Himachal Pradesh New Towns (Periphery) Control Act, 1976 797 Himachal Pradesh Private Forests Act, 1954 798 Himachal Pradesh Requisition of Immovable Property Act, 1987 799 Himachal Pradesh Slum Area’s (Improvement and Clearance) Act, 1979 800 Himachal Pradesh Transfer of Land (Regulation) Act, 1968 XVI  Jammu and Kashmir 801 Jammu and Kashmir Alienation of Lands Act, 1995. Validation Act, 1962

Annexures 251 802 Jammu and Kashmir Big Landed Estates Abolition Act, 2007 803 Jammu and Kashmir Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1956 804 Jammu and Kashmir Government Aid to Agriculturists and Land Improvement Act, 1993 805 Jammu and Kashmir Land Grants Act, 1960 806 Jammu and Kashmir Land Improvement Schemes Act, 1972 807 Jammu and Kashmir Land Revenue Act, 1996. Amended 2005 808 Jammu and Kashmir State Lands (Vesting of Ownership to Occupants) Act, 2001. Validation Act, 1988 809 Jammu and Kashmir Prohibition on Conversion of Land and Alienation of Orchards Act, 1975 810 Jammu and Kashmir Utilisation of Lands Act, 2010 811 Transfer of Lands Validation Act, 2003 812 Transfer of Land (Validating) Act, 2011 813 Jammu and Kashmir National Defence Fund Donations Of Immovable Property(Exemption From Stamp Duty and Registration) Act, 1963 814 Jammu and Kashmir (Registration of Deeds) Validation Acts, 1956, 1968, 1976, 1985 and 2008 815 Camping and Mooring Sites Act, Svt. 2004 816 Control of National Highways (Land and Traffic) Act, 2002 817 Easements Act, 1977 818 Hindu Disposition of Property Act, 1997 819 Hindu Inheritance (Removal of Disabilities) Act, 1997 820 Hindu Widow’s Remarriage and Property Act, 1989 821 Immovable Properties Requisitioning Orders (Validation) Act, 2009 822 Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976 823 Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms (Validation) Act, 1997 824 Jammu and Kashmir Alienation of Land (Validation) Act, 1962 825 Jammu and Kashmir Apartment Ownership Act, 1989 826 The Jammu and Kashmir Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 2010 827 Jammu and Kashmir Bhudan Yagna Act, 1960 828 Jammu and Kashmir Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1962 829 Jammu and Kashmir Control of Building Operations Act, 1988 830 Jammu and Kashmir Development Act, 1970 831 Jammu and Kashmir Displaced Persons (Permanent Settlement) Act, 1971 832 Jammu and Kashmir Forest (Conservation) Act, 1997 833 Jammu and Kashmir Forest Act, 1987 834 Jammu and Kashmir Government Aid to Agriculturists and Land Improvement Act, 1993 835 Jammu and Kashmir Hindu Succession Act, 1956 836 Jammu and Kashmir Houses and Shops Rent Control Act, 1966 837 Jammu and Kashmir Land Revenue (Validation of Orders, Proceedings and Acts) Act,1988 838 Jammu and Kashmir Lands (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) (Amendment) Act, 2007

252  Annexures 839 Jammu and Kashmir Municipal Act, 2000 840 Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Specified Wakafs and Specified Wakaf Properties (Management and Regulation) Act, 2004 841 Jammu and Kashmir Natural Calamities Destroyed Areas Improvement Act, 2011 842 Jammu and Kashmir Natural Calamities Destroyed Areas Improvement Act, 1955 843 Jammu and Kashmir Prevention of Fragmentation of Agricultural Holdings Act, 1960 844 Jammu and Kashmir Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1988 845 Jammu and Kashmir Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1959 846 Jammu and Kashmir Public Property (Prevention of Damage) Act, 1985 847 Jammu and Kashmir Registration (Amendment and Validation of Transfers of Property)Act, 1955 848 Jammu and Kashmir Restitution of Mortgaged Properties Act, 1976 849 Jammu and Kashmir State Buildings Act, 1976 850 Jammu and Kashmir State Lands (Vesting of Ownership to the Occupants) Act, 2001 851 Jammu and Kashmir State Town Planning Act, 1963 852 Jammu and Kashmir Tenancy (Stay of Ejectment Proceedings) Act, 1966 853 Jammu and Kashmir Tenancy Act, 1980 854 Jammu and Kashmir Wakafs Act, 2001 855 State Land Acquisition Act, 1990 856 Succession (Property Protection) Act, 1977 857 Succession Certificate Act, 1977 858 Water Mills (Jandar and Gharat) Act, Svt. 1989 859 Jammu and Kashmir Houses and Shops Rent Control Act, 1966 860 Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board Act, 1976 861 Jammu and Kashmir Urban Property (Ceiling) Act, 1971 862 Jammu and Kashmir Urban Immovable Property Tax (Repeal and Saving) Act, 2002 863 Jammu and Kashmir Destruction of Records Act, 1977 864 Jammu and Kashmir Urban Immovable Property Tax (Repeal and Saving) Act, 2002 XVII Rajasthan 865 Petroleum and Minerals Pipelines (Acquisition of Right of User in Land) Act, 1962. Amended 2011 866 Rajasthan Co-Operative Land Mortgage Banks Act, 1956 867 Rajasthan Housing Schemes (Land Acquisition) Act, 1960

Annexures 253 868 Rajasthan Land Reforms And Resumption Of Jagirs Act, 1952. Validation Act, 1957. Amended 2011 869 Rajasthan Land Development Corporation Act, 1975 870 Rajasthan Land Reforms and Acquisition of Land-Owners’ Estates Act, 1963 871 Rajasthan Land Revenue Act, 1956. Amended 1966, 1991, 1992, 2011 872 Rajasthan Land Revenue (Surcharge) Act, 1960 873 Rajasthan Land Tax Act, 1985 874 Rajasthan Lands (Restrictions on Transfer) Act, 1976 875 Rajasthan Lands Special Irrigation Charges Act, 1953 876 Rajasthan Lands Summary Settlement Act, 1953 877 Rajasthan Urban Improvement Act, 1959. Amended 1973, 1991, 2000 878 Rajasthan Stamp Act, 1998. Amended 1966, 1992 879 Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 1955. Amended 1999, 2000, 2011 880 Registration (Rajasthan Amendment) Acts 1976, 1982 881 Abu Area Laws Act, 1975 882 Ajmer Development Authority Act, 2013 883 City of Kotah Improvement (Amending and Validating) Act, 1956 884 Jaipur Development Authority Act, 1982 885 Jodhpur Development Authority Act, 2009 886 The Marwar Jagirdars Encumbered Estates (Repeal) Act, 1957 (Repealing Act of 1922) 887 Petroleum and Minerals Pipelines (Acquisition of Right of User in Land) Amendment Act, 2011 888 Public Wakfs (Extension of Limitation) (Rajasthan Amendment) Act, 1978, 1983 889 Rajasthan Bhoodhan Yajna (Amendment and Validating Act), 1984 890 Rajasthan Bhoodhan Yajna (Amendment) Act, 1987 891 The Rajasthan Co-Operative Land Mortgage Banks Act, 1956 892 Rajasthan Colonisation Act, 1954 and Amendment Acts of 1984, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991 893 Rajasthan Forest Act, 1953 and Amendments Act of 2012, 2014 894 Rajasthan Flood Plain Zoning Act, 1990 895 Rajashtan Holdings (Consolidation and Prevention of Fragmentation) Act, 1963 and The Amending and Validating Act, 1969 896 Rajasthan Holdings Consolidation Operation Validating Act, 1960 897 Rajasthan Housing Board Act, 1969, 1970 898 Rajasthan Housing Board (Amending and Validating) Act, 1984 899 Rajasthan Imposition of Ceiling on Agricultural Holding Act, 1973 and Amending Acts of 1979, 1985, 1992, 1998, 2012 900 Rajasthan Jagir Lands Resumption (Validating) Act, 1957 901 Rajasthan Land Laws (Amendment) Act, 2014 902 Rajasthan Land Reforms and Resumption of Jagirs Act, 1952 903 Rajasthan Land Revenue (Amendment and Validation) Act, 1966

254  Annexures 904 Rajasthan Land Revenue (Second Amendment) Act, 1970, 1987, 1991 905 Rajasthan Lands and Buildings Tax (Amendment) Act, 1986, 1987, 1989 906 Rajasthan Lands Summary Settlement Act, 1953 907 Rajasthan Mining Settlement Act, 1956 908 Rajasthan Premises (Control of Rent and Eviction) Amendment Act, 1987,1971 and Extending Act of 1957 909 Rajasthan Religious Buildings and Places (Amendment) Act, 1988 910 Rajasthan Rent Control (Amendment) Act, 2011 911 Rajasthan Revenue Laws (Extension) Act, 1957 912 Rajasthan Settlement Rents Retrospective Application (Validation) Act, 1959 913 Rajasthan Soil and Water Conservation Act, 1964 914 Rajasthan Tenancy Act 1955 and Amending Acts of 1968, 1970, 1971, 1984, 1987, 1989, 1999, 2010, 2011, 2013, Second Amendment Act, 1970, Third Amendment Act 1970 915 Rajasthan Zamindari and Biswedari Abolition Act, 1959 916 Rajasthan Urban Improvement (Amendment and Validation) Act, 1973 917 Rajasthan Urban Improvement (Amendment) Act, 1970, 1972, 1987, 1991, 2000, 2010 918 Rajasthan Urban Land Tax (Second Amendment) Act, 1968 XVIII  Tamil Nadu/ Puducherry 919 Kevarapalli Reservoir Scheme (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1987 920 Madras City Land-Revenue Act, 1851. Amended 1867 and 1967 921 Madras Co-Operative Land Mortgage Banks Act, 1934 922 Madras Estates Communal, Forest and Private Lands (Prohibition of Alienation) Act,1947 923 Madras Estates Land (Reduction of Rent) Act, 1947. Amended 1934, 1951, 1956 (2) 924 Madras Estates Land Act, 1908. Amended 1934, 1936 925 Madras Land Encroachment Act, 1905. Amended 1965 926 Madras Land Improvement Schemes (Contour Bunding and Contour Trenching) Act, 1949. Amended 1965 927 Madras Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling on Land) Act, 1961. Amended 1965, 1967 928 Madras Land-Revenue Assessment Act, 1876 929 Madras Land Revenue (Surcharge) Act, 1954 930 Madras Land Revenue (Additional Surcharge) Act, 1955 931 Madras Land Revenue and Water-Cess (Surcharge) Act, 1965 932 Madras Land Revenue and Water-Cess (Surcharge) (Repeal) Act, 1967 933 Madras Lignite (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1953

Annexures 255 934 Madras Public Trusts (Regulation of Administration of Agricultural Lands) Act, 1961. Amended 1968 935 Madras Revenue Recovery and City Land-Revenue (Amendment) Act, 1937 936 Madras Slum Improvement (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1954 937 Malabar Land Registration Act, 1895 938 Tamil Nadu Acquisition of Land for Harijan Welfare Schemes Act, 1978 939 Tamil Nadu Acquisition of Land for Industrial Purposes Act, 1997. Amended 2005 940 Tamil Nadu Agricultural Lands Record of Tenancy Rights Act, 1960. Amended 1981 941 Tamil Nadu Co-Operative Land Development Banks Act, 1934. Amended 1979 942 Tamil Nadu Land Improvement Schemes Act, 1959. Amended 2011 943 Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling on Land) Act, 1961. Amended 1971, 1972, 1974, 1978, 1979 (2), 1980, 1981, 1983 (2), 1985, 1986, 1987 (2), 1989, 1994 (2), 2003, 2008 944 Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Reduction of Ceiling on Land) Act, 1970 945 Tamil Nadu Nuclear Installations (Regulation of Buildings and Use of Land) Act, 1978 946 Tamil Nadu Public Trusts (Regulation of Administration of Agricultural Lands) Act, 1961. Amended 1980 (2) 947 Tamil Nadu Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, 1978. Amended 1979, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1994 948 Tamil Nadu Urban Land Tax Act, 1966. Amended 1986, 1991 950 Madras Town-Planning Act, 1920 951 Tamil Nadu Metropolitan Planning Committee Act, 2009 952 Tamil Nadu Town and Country Planning Act, 1971. Amended 1981, 1991, 1992 (2), 2001, 2002 (2), 2003, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014 953 Madhurai City Municipal Corporation, 1971 954 Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation Act, 1971 955 Madras Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act, 1956. Amended1966 956 Tamil Nadu Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1960. Amended 1979 957 Tamil Nadu Cultivating Tenants Arrears of Rent (Relief) Act, 1990. Amended 1980, 1981, 1991 (2) 958 Tamil Nadu Cultivating Tenants (Special Provisions) Act, 1984. Amended 1985 959 Tamil Nadu Cultivating Tenants Protection Act, 1955 960 Tamil Nadu Cultivating Tenants (Payment of Fair Rent) Act, 1956 961 Tamil Nadu Cyclone and Flood Affected Areas Cultivating Tenants Arrears of Rent (Relief) Act, 1980

256  Annexures 962 Madras Buildings (Lease and Rent and Control) Act, 1949. Amended 1951 (2), 1965 963 Gudalur Compensation for Tenants Improvements Act, 1931 964 Bhavani Reservoir Irrigation Cess Act, 1933 965 Jaina Succession Act, 1928 966 Kanyakumari Sreepadam Lands (Abolition and Conversion Into Ryotwari) Act, 1972 967 Kelavarapalli Reservoir Scheme (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1987 968 Madras Additional Assessment and Additional Water-Cess (Amendment) Act, 1966 969 Madras Bhoodan Yagna Act, 1958 970 Madras City Tenants’ Protection Act, 1921 971 Madras (Transferred Territory) Jenmikaram Payment Abolition (Amendment) Act, 1967 972 Madras Co-Operative Societies Act, 1932 973 Madras Cultivating Tenants Protection Act, 1955 974 Madras Electricity Supply Undertakings (Acquisition) Act, 1954 975 Madras Enfranchised Inams Act, 1862 976 Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion Into Ryotwari) Act, 1948, (Tamil Nadu) 977 Madras Forest Act, 1882 978 Madras Inams (Assessment) Act, 1956 979 Madras Inams Act, 1869 (Tamil Nadu) 980 Madras Irrigation (Voluntary Cess) Act, 1942 981 Madras Preservation of Private Forests (Continuance) Act, 1965 982 Madras Proprietary Estates Village Service Act, 1894 983 Madras Revenue Enquiries Act, 1893 984 Madras Revenue Summonses Act, 1869 985 Madras Stamp (Increase of Duties) Act, 1943 986 Madras State Aid to Industries Act, 1922 987 Madras Survey and Boundaries Act, 1923 988 Madras Survey And Boundaries Act, 1923 (Validation) Act, 1924 989 Madras Tenants and Ryots Protection Act, 1949 990 Madras Town-Planning Act, 1920 991 Mettur Township Act, 1940 992 Pudukkottai (Settlement of Inams) Act, 1955 993 Tamil Nadu (Transferred Territory) Extension of Laws Act, 1960 994 Tamil Nadu Agricultural Lands Record of Tenancy Rights (Amendment) Act, 1981 995 Tamil Nadu Aided Institutions (Prohibition of Transfers of Property) Act, 1948 (TamilNadu) 996 Tamil Nadu Bhoodan Yagna (Amendment) Act, 1992 997 Tamil Nadu Co-Operative Societies Act, 1983 998 Tamil Nadu Enfranchised Inams Act, 1866 999 Tamil Nadu Forest (Validation) Act, 1882

Annexures 257 1000 Tamil Nadu Highways Act, 2001 1001 Tamil Nadu Gramdan Villages (Repayment of Debts) Act, 1959 1002 Tamil Nadu Inam Abolition Laws (Validation of Proceedings) Act, 1986 1003 Tamil Nadu Inam Estates, Lease-Holds and Minor Inams (Abolition and Conversion Into Ryotwari) Amendment Act, 1975 1004 Tamil Nadu Commercial Crops Assessment (Repeal) Act, 1980 (Tamil Nadu) 1005 Tamil Nadu Irrigation Cess Act, 1865 1006 Tamil Nadu Occupants of Kudiyiruppu (Protection From Eviction) Act, 1961 1007 Tamil Nadu Occupants of Kudiyiruppu (Conferment of Ownership) Amendment Act,1975 1008 Tamil Nadu Patta Pass Book Act, 1983 1009 Tamil Nadu Preservation of Private Forests Act, 1949 1010 Tamil Nadu Private Forests (Assumption of Management) Act, 1961 1011 Tamil Nadu Protection of Tanks and Eviction of Encroachment Act, 2007 1012 Tamil Nadu Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1975 1013 Tamil Nadu State Aid to Industries Act, 1922 1014 Velliyakundam Impartible Estate Act, 1933 1015 Tanjore Pannaiyal Protection Act, 1952 1016 Tamil Nadu Private Electricity Supply Undertakings (Acquisition) Act, 1973 (Tamil Nadu) 1017 Malabar Compensation for Tenants Improvements Act, 1899 (Tamil Nadu) 1018 Madras Impartible Estates Act, 1904 1019 Mahe Land Reforms Act, 1968 1020 Pondicherry Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1969 1021 Pondicherry Land Encroachment Act, 1970 1022 Pondicherry Occupants of Kudiyiruppu (Protection From Eviction) Act, 1970 1023 Pondicherry Survey and Boundaries Act, 1967 (Puducherry) 1024 Pondicherry Land Encroachment Act, 1970 1025 Puducherry Cultivating Tenants Protection Act, 1970 1026 Puducherry Cultivating Tenants (Payment of Fair Rent) Act, 1970 1027 Puducherry Housing Board Act, 1973 (Puducherry) 1028 Puducherry Occupants of Kudiyiruppu (Conferment of Ownership) Act, 1973 1029 Puducherry Occupants of Kudiyiruppu (Protection From Eviction) Act, 1970 1030 Puducherry State Aid to Industries Act, 1970 1031 Puducherry Sugarcane Development and Levy of Cess Act, 1965 1032 Puducherry Co-Operative Societies Act, 1972

258  Annexures 1033 Pondicherry Settlement Act, 1970 1034 Puducherry Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling on Land) Act, 1973 1035 Puducherry District Planning Committee Act, 1994 XIX  Uttar Pradesh 1036 Bundelkhand Alienation of Land Act, 1903. Amended 1934 1037 Kamaun Agricultural Lands (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1954 1038 United Provinces Hindu Women’s Rights to Property (Extension to Agricultural Land) Act, 1942 1039 Uttar Pradesh Land Revenue Act, 1901. Amended 1932, 1936, 1941 1040 United Provinces Restoration of Lands and Houses Act, 1947 1041 Uttar Pradesh Co-Operative Land Development Banks Act, 1964. Amended 1978 (2), 1989 1042 Uttar Pradesh Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1960. Amended 1978, 1986 1043 Uttar Pradesh Land Laws (Amendment) Acts, 1977, 1978, 1986, 1997 1044 Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act, 1950. Amended 1995, 1987,1997, 2006, 2007 (2), 2008, 2010 1045 Uttar Pradesh Land Reforms (Supplementary) Act, 1952 1046 Uttar Pradesh Land Tenures (Regulation of Transfers) Act, 1952 1047 Uttar Pradesh Roadside Land Control Act, 1945. Amended 1999 1048 Uttar Pradesh Rural Development (Requisitioning of Land) Act, 1948 1049 Uttar Pradesh Taxation and Land Revenue Laws Act, 1975. Amended 1999 1050 Oudh Rent Act, 1886. Amended 1934 1051 United Provinces Abatement of Rent Suits Act, 1934 1052 United Provinces Rent and Revenue (Relief) Act, 1938 1053 United Provinces Stayed Arrears of Rent (Remission) Act, 1939 1054 United Provinces Temporary Control of Rent And Eviction Act, 1947. Amended 1950(2), 1952 1055 Uttar Pradesh Cantonments (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1952 1056 Uttar Pradesh Cantonments (Control of Rent and Eviction) (Repeal) Act, 1991 1057 Uttar Pradesh Commutation of Rent (Regularisation of Proceedings) Act, 1952 1058 Uttar Pradesh Urban Buildings (Regulation of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972. Amended 1988, 1995 1059 United Provinces Stamp (Amendment) Acts, 1934, 1936, 1938, 1941, 1980, 1990 1060 Uttar Pradesh Stamp Act, 2008 1061 Agra Tenancy Act, 1926. Amended 1934, 1937 1062 United Provinces Tenancy Act, 1939. Amended 1940, 1942, 1946, 1947

Annexures 259 1063 Uttar Pradesh Rural Development (Requisitioning of Land) Act, 1948 1064 United Provinces (Temporary) Accommodation Requisition Act, 1947 1065 Uttar Pradesh Urban Planning and Development Act, 1973 1066 Uttar Pradesh Urban Buildings (Regulation of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972. Amended 1988 1067 Uttar Pradesh Area Development Act, 1976. Amended 1987, 2007 1068 Gorakhpur Goraits Act, 1919 1069 Cawnpore Urban Area Development Act, 1945 1070 Agra Province Zamindars’ Association Contribution Act, 1927 1071 Bundelkhand Encumbered Estates Act, 1903 1072 Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 1988 1073 Agra Pre-Emption Act, 1922, (Uttar Pradesh) 1074 Administration of Evacuee Property Act, 1950 1075 Kanpur Urban Area Development Board (Amendment of Constitution) (Validation of Proceedings) Act, 1950 1076 Kumaun Agricultural Lands (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1954 1077 Land Acquisition (Uttar Pradesh Amendment and Validation) Act, 1991 1078 Oudh Settled Estates Act, 1917 1079 Oudh Sub-Settlement Act, 1866 1080 Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971 1081 United Provinces Acquisition of Property (Flood Relief) Act, 1948 1082 United Provinces Acquisition of Property (Flood Relief) Temporary Powers Act, 1948 1083 United Provinces Agricultural Tenants (Acquisition of Privileges) Act, 1949 1084 United Provinces Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1939 (Uttar Pradesh) 1085 United Provinces Encumbered Estates Act, 1934 1086 United Provinces Land Revenue (Amendment) Act, 1936. Amended 1941 1087 United Provinces Stamp (Amendment) Act, 1934 1088 United Provinces Stamp (Amendment) Act, 1936 1089 United Provinces Stamp (Amendment) Act, 1938 1090 United Provinces Tenancy Laws (Amendment) Act, 1939. Amended 1940, 1942, 1946, 1947 1091 Uttar Pradesh (Temporary) Control of Rent and Eviction (Second Amendment) Act, 1950 1092 Uttar Pradesh (Temporary) Control of Rent and Eviction (Amendment) Act, 1952 1093 Uttar Pradesh (Temporary) Accommodation Requisition (Amendment) Act, 1963 1094 Uttar Pradesh Agricultural Tenants (Acquisition of Privileges) (Amendment) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1950

260  Annexures 1095 Uttar Pradesh Agricultural Tenants (Acquisition of Privileges) (Amendment) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1951 1096 Uttar Pradesh Area Development Act, 1976 1097 Uttar Pradesh Bhoodan Yagna Act, 1952 1098 Uttar Pradesh Co-Operative Societies Act 1965 1099 Uttar Pradesh Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1953 1100 Uttar Pradesh Development Council Act, 2006 1101 Uttar Pradesh District Planning Committee Act, 1999 1102 Uttar Pradesh Flood Emergency Powers (Evacuation and Requisition) (Amendment) Act, 1964 1103 Uttar Pradesh Flood Emergency Powers (Evacuation and Requisition) Act, 1951 1104 Uttar Pradesh Forests Corporation Act, 1974 1105 Uttar Pradesh Industrial Area Development Act, 1976 1106 Uttar Pradesh Industrial Housing Act, 1955 1107 Uttar Pradesh Jot Chakbandi (Sanshodhan) Adhiniyam, 1962 1108 Uttar Pradesh Land Development Tax Adhiniyam, 1972 1109 Uttar Pradesh Private Forests Act, 1948 1110 Uttar Pradesh Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1972.Amended 2007 and 2014 1111 Uttar Pradesh Revenue Code, 2006 1112 Uttar Pradesh Special Area Development Authorities Act, 1986 1113 Uttar Pradesh Special Economic Zone Development Authority Act, 2002 1114 Uttar Pradesh Stamp Act, 2008 1115 Uttar Pradesh Tendu Patta (Vyapar Viniyaman) (Sanshodhan) Adhiniyam, 1980 1116 The Uttar Pradesh Vrihat Jot-Kar (Nirsan) Adhiniyam, 1979 1117 Uttar Pradesh Tendu Patta (Vyapar Viniyaman) Adhiniyam, 1972, (Uttar Pradesh) 1118 Uttar Pradesh Rural Housing Board Act, 1982 (Uttar Pradesh) XX  Arunachal Pradesh 1119 Arunachal Pradesh (Land Settlement and Records) Act, 2000 1120 Arunachal Pradesh Anchal Forest Reserve (Constitution and Maintenance) Act, 1975 1121 Arunachal Pradesh Ancient Monuments, Archaeological Sites and Remains PreservationAct, 1987 1122 Arunachal Pradesh Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 2003 XXI  Assam & Manipur 1123 Assam (Temporarily Settled Areas) Tenancy Act, 1971

Annexures 261 1124 Assam Agricultural Farming Corporations Act, 1973 1125 Assam Alienation of Land (Regulation) Act, 1980 1126 Assam Ancient Monuments and Records Act, 1959 1127 Assam Embankment And Drainage Act, 1941 1128 Assam Farmers (Group Irrigation) Act, 1978 1129 Assam Highways Act, 1989 [Repealed] 1130 Assam Hill Land and Ecological Sites (Protection and Management) Act, 2006 1131 Assam Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation Act, 1990 1132 Assam Irrigation Act, 1983 1133 Assam Land Acquisition (Dibrugarh) Act, 1953 1134 Assam Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 2010 1135 Assam Land Revenue and Rent (Surcharge) Act, 1970 1136 Assam Land Revenue Re-Assessment Act, 1936 1137 Assam Land Revenue, Rent and Cess (Apportionment) Act, 1950 1138 Assam Non-Agricultural Urban Areas Tenancy Act, 1955 1139 Assam Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971 1140 Assam Public Works (Regulation of Road Development and Road Transport) Act, 2010 1141 Assam State Acquisition of Zamindaris (Extension to Autonomous District of Garo Hills) Act, 1953 1142 Assam Taxation (On Specified Lands) Act, 1990 1143 Assam Town and Country Planning Act, 1959 1144 Assam Urban Areas Rent Control Act, 1955 1145 Assam Urban Areas Rent Control Act, 1966 1146 Assam Urban Areas Rent Control Act, 1972 1147 Bijni Succession Act, 1931 1148 Sylhet Tenancy (Amendment) Act, 1970 1149 Manipur Hill Areas (House Tax) Act, 1966 1150 Manipur Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2014 XXII  West Bengal 1151 Kolkata Land Revenue Act, 2003 1152 West Bengal Land Development and Planning Act, 1948 1153 West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997 1154 West Bengal Land Reforms and Tenancy Tribunal Act, 1997 1155 West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955 1156 West Bengal Land and Land Reforms Manual, 1991 1157 West Bengal Estate Acquisition Act, 1953 1158 Rent Act, 1859 1159 Bengal Tenancy Act, 1885 1160 West Bengal Non Agricultural Tenancy Act, 1949 1161 The Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act, 1952

262  Annexures 1162 West Bengal Land (Requisition and Acquisition) Act, 1948 1163 West Bengal Acquisition and Settlement of Homesteads Lands Act, 1969 1164 West Bengal Requisitioned Land (Continuance of Power) Act, 1951 1165 Restoration of Alienated Land Act, 1873 1166 West Bengal Acquisition of HS Land for Agricultural Labourers, Artisans & Fishermen Act, 1975 1167 West Bengal Municipal Act, 1993 1168 West Bengal Highways Act, 1964 XXIII Meghalaya 1169 Meghalaya Land Survey and Records Preparation Act, 1980 Act, 1980 1170 Meghalaya Protection of Catchment Areas Act, 1990 1171 Meghalaya Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1980 1172 Meghalaya Removal of Restrictions on Use and Enjoyment of Land Act, 1980 1173 Meghalaya Transfer of Land (Regulation) Act, 1971 XXIV Mizoram 1174 Aizawl Development Authority Act, 2005 1175 Mizo District (Land and Revenue) Act, 1956 1176 Mizoram (Prevention of Government Land Encroachment) Act, 2001 1177 Mizoram (Taxes on Land, Buildings and Assessment of Revenue) Act, 2004 1178 Mizoram Road Side Land Control Act, 1976 1179 Mizoram Urban and Regional Development Act, 1990 1180 Mizoram Urban Areas Rent Control Act, 1974 XXV Nagaland 1181 Nagaland (Ownership and Transfer of Land and Its Resources) Act, 1990 1182 Nagaland Highways Act, 1967 1183 Nagaland Jhumland Act, 1970 1184 Nagaland Land (Requisition and Acquisition) Act, 1965 1185 Nagaland Town and Country Planning Act, 1966 XXVI Sikkim 1186 Sikkim Agricultural Land Ceiling and Reforms Act, 1977 1187 Sikkim Land (Requisition and Acquisition) Act, 1977

Annexures 263 1188 Sikkim Municipalities Act, 1995 1189 Sikkim Municipalities Act, 2007 1190 Sikkim Regulation of Transfer and Use of Lands Act, 1975 1191 Sikkim Regulation of Transfer Arid Use of Lands (Repeal) Act, 1982 1192 Sikkim Regulation of Transfer of Land Act, 2005 1193 Sikkim Urban and Regional Planning and Development Act, 1998 Source: Author

Orch, farm with heavy investment/ permanent structure, specialized farm for cattle breeding, co-op, discretion of chief commissioner for public utility

Individual or Source of Family Irrigation, Number of Crops cultivated in a year

Delhi Land Holdings (Ceiling) Act, 1960

7.5 hectares (18.53 acres) for land irrigated from private source which can extend up to 21.8 hectares (53.86 acres)

Wet and Dry; CG/SG, R/C I, Number Govt Comp/Corp of crops established by cultivated a statute, T/Co/ in a year Rubber Plantation, Co-op FS, Bank, BYY/ Gram Sabha, Lands required for acquisition for I/P Projects, Indus

Family

One standard Number of Andhra holding – the members in Pradesh computation the family; Land may vary from type of Reforms 10 to 54 acres land; (Ceiling on source of Agricultural irrigation Holding) Act, 1973

Source of irrigation

Identification Basis of Exceptions on Ceiling Unit Classification Limits – Lands of Land Belonging to

List of Ceiling Determination of Ceiling Legislations Basis of Extent of Ceiling Division Limit

A3: Ceiling legislations across India: collection of surplus land Restrictions on Future Acquisition and Transfer of Land

Future acquisitions of land beyond the ceiling limit are required to be declared; exemption granted where land is acquired/ taken for nonagricultural purposes No land can be land would be acquired beyond deemed to be the ceiling limit held by transferor applicable to that (excepting cases unit; any land so of bonafide acquired shall be transfer) and if treated as excess excess land is selected out of the transferred land, the transfer shall be void

Transfer of land prohibited unless the tribunal declares surplus land for a unit

Computation of Previous Transfers Made (in Determining Ceiling Area Applicable)

Family

18 acres–54 acres Individual/ Maharashtra Class of Land Family Agricultural against the Lands district/ (Ceiling on taluka Holdings) Act, 1961

18 acres for land Gujarat Class of irrigated from Agricultural land as private source Lands against the for class “I” Ceiling Act, respective 1960 class of local area

Irrigation/ Number of crops cultivated in a year, Local Areas

Perennially/ Seasonally irrigated Land, Dry Land

(Continued)

Any transfer made Land acquired Govt or taken on (otherwise than within a specified lease by govt, Khar/ by succession time would Tidal, LA, Edu Inst, or partition) be deemed to reserved lands for in excess of have been made non-agricultural/ ceiling would be to defeat the industrial purpose, forfeited to SG; provisions of this public trust for in other cases Act unless proved hospital, Panjarapole/ of succession/ otherwise Gaushala, Indus, BL, partition/ land LB, BYY, Collector’s ceasing to be discretion exempted landwould be deemed surplus held by the person Transfer restricted Govt, LA, Edu Inst, Transfer of land Regimental Farms, prohibited unless BL, Co-op, ceiling limit is determined for the unit and if such transfer is made, the land transferred shall also be considered in determining ceiling limit for that unit; partition to be considered as malafide

25 acres–50 acres Individual/ Family

Manipur Land Revenue and Reforms Act, 1960

Class of Land

10 acres–54 acres Family

Availability of irrigation facilities

Source of Irrigation, Number of Crops cultivated in a year

T/C P, rubber, cardamom, cocoa, co-op banks, ag uni, edu inst, sugarcane farm (up to 40 hectares), C/R I

LA, state Edu Inst, Industrial Development Corp, property of public trust/ wakf for religious purpose, BYY, LB, Co-op (after approval from SG), any other land acquired by SG for public purpose

Identification Basis of Exceptions on Ceiling Unit Classification Limits – Lands Belonging to of Land

Number of Madhya members Pradesh in a family Ceiling on and Agricultural sources of Holding, irrigation 1960

List of Ceiling Determination of Ceiling Legislations Basis of Extent of Ceiling Division Limit

(Continued) Restrictions on Future Acquisition and Transfer of Land

If the extent of Land cannot be land held exceeds transferred or the ceiling for sub-divided until any reasons, the a final order of person would be determination of liable to submit ceiling is passed; returns the C can refuse to permit any such transfer if it is to defeat the provisions of the present Act None At the time of selection of land for surplus, the land shall be selected out of the land held by the person, but if that falls short of the excess land, it would be obtained from the lands transferred.

Computation of Previous Transfers Made (in Determining Ceiling Area Applicable)

10 standard Person, acres–18 and if a standard acres family, the number of members in the family

17.29 acres (7 hectares)– 53.86 acres (21.8 hectares)

18 acres–175 acres (varied by type of land this limit is for a person not being a family or a family of less than 5 members)

Irrigation, Crops per year

Orissa Land Reforms Act, 1960

Punjab Land Reforms Act, 1972

Irrigation, Rajasthan Crops per Imposition year; Type of Ceiling of land on Agricultural Holding Act, 1973 Family/ Individual

Person

Person

(Continued)

The provisions of lands held by privileged Within 6 years the Act mutatis raiyat, industrial/ of finalizing mutandis apply commercial statement, if it to all future undertakings is found that acquisitions of any land was land left during the proceeding, the RO is required to consider the escaped lands and make a declaration accordingly No person is C/R I, govt, LA, BYY, Any land that Irrigation/ allowed to Co-op, Edu Inst, Edu is transferred Number acquire or T- Public nature, before the date of of crops possess land commencement cultivated by any kind of (and before in a year; transfer which appointment barani would exceed date) shall land, the ceiling limit be computed banjar land imposed on the while deciding person. permissible land It is not lawful Fertile, semi- CG, Co-op Ag, BL, LB, Except a bonafide for any person fertile, C/R I, Edu Ins, transfer to acquire land hilly, semimade (before more than the desert, January 1, 1973) ceiling limit any transfer made desert land applicable; no shall be deemed document shall to have been be registered made to defeat accordingly the provisions of this Act None

Computation of Previous Transfers Made (in Determining Ceiling Area Applicable) The person would be required to furnish a statement specifying the land he/she intends to retain

Restrictions on Future Acquisition and Transfer of Land

If the extent of The AO has the Not specified R I or Trust, Public land held exceeds Trusts, Industries to power to declare the ceiling by apply to govt to hold any transfer/ any transfer, as excess land partition (on/ a penalty the after the land in excess of commencement ceiling limit shall date but before be deemed to be notified date) transferred to as void if found the govt; if the to defeat the land is acquired provisions of by inheritance the Act; certain or receives by transfers are sale in execution deemed to be of a decree the valid- partition person is required by registered to furnish a document, gift of statement to the C natural love etc.

Division as Monastery/ R I (60 or Transfer of land is not permissible type of 25 acres allowed – unless statement crop grown depending upon of declaration is listing in Group A or published and B), T/ C P, govt, any such transfer Co-op, BL, Indus if made shall be void

Identification Basis of Exceptions on Ceiling Unit Classification Limits – Lands Belonging to of Land

Individual/ 12.5 standard Family acres (person or family of 5 members)–20.5 standard acres; a monastery/ religious institution can hold 25–60 standard acres Family Identification 15 standard Tamil Nadu unit, type acres; Land of land, separately Reforms revenue specified for (Fixation of assessed institutions– Ceiling on may range from Land) Act, 25–60 standard 1961 acres

Class of Sikkim Land Agricultural Land Ceiling and Reforms Act, 1977

List of Ceiling Determination of Ceiling Legislations Basis of Extent of Ceiling Division Limit

(Continued)

Individual/ Family

18.03 acres (7.30 TenureHolder hectares) plus additional 14.82 acres (6 hectares) of land

Irrigation, 17.91 acres Number of (7.25 hectares) Crops per –53.83 acres year (21.8 hectares)

Uttar Pradesh Irrigated/ NonImposition irrigated of Ceiling land; on Land person Holdings holding Act, 1960 land

Haryana Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1972

Irrigated/ NonIrrigated land

Irrigation/ Number of crops cultivated in a year

No transfer in Govt, Co-op (for excess of the the purpose of ceiling limit co-operative would affect the farming), Primary right of the SG Co-op Ag, BL, Land on that land; Mortgage Bank, the land so Edu Inst- Haryana transferred will Agricultural be calculated University, while computing Kurukshetra the ceiling limit University or others as declared, BYY, C/R I Govt, University, Post- Any transfer made after January 24, grad college, banking 1971, which company, LB, BYY, could have Indus, Residential amounted to house, T/ C P (or surplus shall not rubber), stud farm, be taken into C/R I, Goshala, land account let out to a govt lessee for cultivation of specialized crops

(Continued)

Not provided

None

Irrigated/ NonIrrigated land

LA, hilly portions in district of Darjeeling

Raiyat

West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955

Raiyats – 2.50 standard number of hectares–7 members in standard acres family

Identification Basis of Exceptions on Ceiling Unit Classification Limits – Lands Belonging to of Land

List of Ceiling Determination of Ceiling Legislations Basis of Extent of Ceiling Division Limit

(Continued) Restrictions on Future Acquisition and Transfer of Land

Not provided Land transferred between a specified time period (August 7, 1969, publication of amendment Act of 1971) would be deemed not to have been made; exceptions made for bonafide transfers but transfers made to certain persons (wife, husband, child, etc.) are deemed not to be bonafide

Computation of Previous Transfers Made (in Determining Ceiling Area Applicable)

Individual, 10 units – the limit can be up Family, Institutions to 50 units for a factory

Number of 5 standard members in acres–20 a family standard acres

Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961

Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963 Family

Individual

None

Facilities of irrigation provided by the SG

(Continued)

Not provided Any excess land The Act exempts acquired shall certain lands from the be deemed to purview of the entire be surplus and Act and not just for all provisions imposition of ceilingsrelating to land belonging to determination govt, LA, given as of ceiling shall a gallantry award, be applicable; Edu Inst, stud farms, any alienation of lands used for the land requires a cultivation of linaloe, declaration to be coffee board, held by filed a corporation owned/ controlled by SG/CG, BYB (not if the land is in occupation of a tenant) If excess land is All voluntary Govt, LA in public acquired after transfers effected interest, COW, the notified date, after the date of mills, factories, such land shall publication of land workshops, private be surrendered to reforms bill of forest, plantations, the SG. 1963 are deemed CE, KFC, Indus, to be invalid with Commercial the exception undertaking, sites of of partition and temples, churches, transfer in favour commercial, BYY, of a tenant. Edu Inst, C/R I, Certain additional defence, any other transfers to the considered bona fide sons/daughters by SG are conditionally exempted

Identification Basis of Exceptions on Ceiling Unit Classification Limits – Lands of Land Belonging to Computation of Previous Transfers Made (in Determining Ceiling Area Applicable)

Restrictions on Future Acquisition and Transfer of Land

Bihar Land Not provided Not provided Not provided Not specified None Not provided Not provided Reforms Act, 1950 No person is SG/CG, Registered No transfer in Type of land 10 acres–30 acres Individual/ Sources of Himachal allowed to C-operative Farming excess of the Family irrigation Pradesh acquire land Society, LM Banks, ceiling limit and Ceiling on more than the LA, Tea estate, Indus, would affect the number of Agricultural limit. If the right of the SG on crops in a Holdings person acquires that land; year Act, 1972 land more than the ceiling limit, a return is to be filed to the collector.

List of Ceiling Determination of Ceiling Legislations Basis of Extent of Ceiling Division Limit

(Continued)

Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976

Not provided 12.5 standard acres (110 kanals to 171 kanals)

Any transfer of Not provided Not specified Evacuees land, SG/ ownership CG, Indus/Comm rights would be Undertaking/ considered null Acquired by govt for and void under industrial purpose, the Act. Edu/ Pub Institutions as notified by govt, State Uni, land outside the district of Ladakh, other requisitioned land or lying in areas which are insecure for cultivation, residential buildings, land reserved for grazing, cemeteries or burial grounds, land vested in the state, co-op farming

None

(Continued)

Source: Author

Not provided Govt, LA

Identification Basis of Exceptions on Ceiling Unit Classification Limits – Lands Belonging to of Land

25 standard acres Individual/ Tripura Land Person, Family (also applicable Revenue and if a for a company/ and Land family, the association Reforms number of or body of Act, 1960 members in individuals)–50 the family standard acres

List of Ceiling Determination of Ceiling Legislations Basis of Extent of Ceiling Division Limit

(Continued) Restrictions on Future Acquisition and Transfer of Land

Not provided Any land transferred between August 10, 1957, and the commencement of this Act would be deemed to be held by the transferrer; if the land was transferred for valuable consideration and by a registered sale deed, then selection of land would be first made out of land under possession.

Computation of Previous Transfers Made (in Determining Ceiling Area Applicable)

Delhi Land Holdings (Ceiling) Act, 1960

Competent authority

Tribunal Andhra Pradesh Land Reforms (Ceiling on Agricultural Holding) Act, 1973

Tribunal Imprisonment can refuse (up to 2 years)/ to accept Fine (two surrender thousand of land in rupees) in cases where cases of default it has been of filing converted declaration into nonof the surplus agricultural land- previous or is sanction of DC disputed required for court to take cognizance Competent In cases where authority a person fails determines to furnish after giving returns, the persons the CA affected an shall collect opportunity necessary of being information heard through another agency established 20 times the net income from land

Land Revenue

Cash/Lumpsum/ Instalments/ Bonds

Cash/Bonds

List of Ceiling Procedure of Collecting the Surplus Compensation Legislations Basis of Mode of Power of Authority Power of Calculation Payment Authority to Responsible Authority Make a Choice to Ensure in Selecting Compliance Surplus Land

A4: Procedure for collection of surplus, compensation, and vesting

No

Yes

Max/Min Limits Specified

Yes

No

Revenue Divisional Officer

Authority Responsible

(Continued)

Surrendered Deputy Commissioner land to be may take in actual possession possession in of owner

Taking Possession

Process Additional Amount for Improvements

Vesting of the Surplus

Penalty in cases Yes Tribunal, Gujarat of failure Mamlatdars Agricultural to furnish to receive Lands statements (Rs applications Ceiling Act, 100-500) 1960 Penalty in cases of No; Person is Maharashtra Collectors entitled to failure to furnish Agricultural select lands statements Lands (Rs 100–500); If (Ceiling on the person fails Holdings) to comply even Act, 1961 after receiving a SCN from the C, surplus land would be forfeited by the SG; in cases of failure, imprisonment up to 2 years can be awarded, court can take cognizance after sanction from the C

Max/Min Limits Specified

No

Rs 2000 Cash/ per acre Transferable Bonds

Transferable Type of land, bonds at a value of 3% interest trees, land rate revenue, coast of cultivation of standing crop on such land

Local area and Land Assessment

List of Ceiling Procedure of Collecting the Surplus Compensation Legislations Basis of Mode of Power of Authority Power of Calculation Payment Authority to Responsible Authority Make a Choice to Ensure in Selecting Compliance Surplus Land

(Continued)

Yes

No

Authority Responsible

Order of the Tribunal Tribunal declaring surplus land Collector Declaration of Surplus land and consequent physical possession

Process Additional Amount for Improvements

Vesting of the Surplus

Competent Madhya Authority Pradesh Ceiling on Agricultural Holding, 1960

Min. Rs 50 On the basis of Cash for Holder has The CA may per acre the first land revenue to furnish require Rs. 1,000 per acre of returns the person and rest such land where he to furnish installments. describes necessary Interim the land details and on payment he wishes failure to do within to retain; so/furnishing 6 months Competent of incorrect authority information, decides after obtain an enquiry information from other sources; in cases of further failure, the person is punishable with imprisonment for maximum 2 years and a maximum fine of Rs 5000; cognizance can be taken on a written complaint by an empowered officer

Yes

(Continued)

Tahsildar Preparation of statement of land held in excess of the ceiling area followed by physical possession

Competent Authority

Revenue Officer

Manipur Land Revenue and Reforms Act, 1960

Orissa Land Reforms Act, 1960

Discretion of The CA may Competent collect Authority necessary information from other agency if the person fails to furnish returns/ furnishes incorrect information; penalty of Rs 1000 can be levied No The RO may obtain necessary information through another agency

As may be prescribed

No

Max/Min Limits Specified

No In prescribed 15 times the mode; fair and interest on equitable for the unpaid landlords, balance of market value the amount of structures, at the rate of rate fixed by 2.5% p.a. the Act

Land Revenue

List of Ceiling Procedure of Collecting the Surplus Compensation Legislations Basis of Mode of Power of Authority Power of Calculation Payment Authority to Responsible Authority Make a Choice to Ensure in Selecting Compliance Surplus Land

(Continued)

No

Yes

Authority Responsible

Revenue Officer When the final statement of ceiling and surplus lands is confirmed; duty of the person to deliver possession

Deputy Publication Commissioner of list of excess land followed by physical possession

Process Additional Amount for Improvements

Vesting of the Surplus

Collector

Authorized Rajasthan Officer Imposition of Ceiling on Agricultural Holding Act, 1973

Punjab Land Reforms Act, 1972

No The AO would furnish a notice if a person fails/ provides incorrect information; in case of further failure, the AO would obtain information from another agency; further provisions of imposing fines based on the fault; cognizance can be taken on a written complaint by AO

The C is required No; Person has a to obtain guideline requisite while information in selecting his the prescribed land manner.

Lump-sum or half yearly installments (max 15)

Cash/Bonds For every 7.5 acres of land, the amount is decided as per the class to which land belongs

Fair rent

No

No

No

No

(Continued)

Collector to When the direct persons final to deliver statement possession of ceiling and surplus lands is confirmed; duty of the person to deliver possession Prescribed When the Officer final statement of ceiling and surplus lands is confirmed; duty of the person to deliver possession

10 equal installments within 10 months

Cash/Bonds Monetary AO decides The C would value and questions issue notice classification of titles and to a person of land thus decides who has failed the surplus to furnish land statement/ incorrect information and on further failure would acquire information from another agency

Land Revenue

Authorized Tamil Nadu Officer Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling on Land) Act, 1961

CA can pass orders as it deems fit

Not provided

Competent Sikkim Authority; Agricultural appeal to Land Tribunal Ceiling and Reforms Act, 1977

List of Ceiling Procedure of Collecting the Surplus Compensation Legislations Basis of Mode of Power of Authority Power of Calculation Payment Authority to Responsible Authority Make a Choice to Ensure in Selecting Compliance Surplus Land

(Continued)

No

No

Max/Min Limits Specified

Yes

No

Authority Responsible

Competent When the Authority final statement of ceiling and surplus lands is confirmed; duty of the person to deliver possession Govt; AO When the to issue final proclamation statement to the effect of ceiling and surplus lands is confirmed; duty of the person to deliver possession

Process Additional Amount for Improvements

Vesting of the Surplus

Prescribed Authority

Uttar Pradesh Prescribed Authority Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1960

Haryana Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1972

No Cash, in No; PA selects For every 10 Penalty in case 10 equal hectares in case of of failure/ installments of land an failure of incorrect with 5% amount is person to informationannual specified do so fine of up interest to Rs 2000 and/or imprisonment of up to 2 years; PA to make written complaint to the court for cognizance No Person holding lump-sum Punishment is up No; PA shall and 5 equal landaccept the to 2 years of annual calculated choice of imprisonment installments distinctly for person as far or fine or both at 3.5% TH, Asami/ as possible for failure interest rate, Subtenant (guidelines to furnish remaining (as per LR), stated) return/ false amount to W/T (as information/ be paid in per profits non4 years earned) compliance; previous sanction of SG/ AO required No

Yes

(Continued)

Collector When the final statement of ceiling and surplus lands is confirmed; duty of the person to deliver possession

Prescribed When the Authority final statement of ceiling and surplus lands is confirmed; duty of the person to deliver possession

Prescribed Authority

Tribunal

West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955

Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961

LR, where no assessment has taken place at the rate of Rs. 135 per 0.4047 hectares

Decision of the Net annual The Tehsildar income tribunal is would first issue derivable arrived after a notice to show from land assessing cause the reason deemed to the records of failure or be amount submitted furnishing false payable as by the declaration and annual rent Tehsildar the may impose penalty after hearing. If time is granted to the person to furnish returns and the person further fails, the excess land would be deemed to be forfeited to the SG

Punishment is up No to 2 years of imprisonment or fine or both for failure to furnish return/false information Nonnegotiable, nontransferable bonds, interest rate 5.5.% p.a., guaranteed face value maturing within 20 years

In the prescribed manner

List of Ceiling Procedure of Collecting the Surplus Compensation Legislations Basis of Mode of Power of Authority Power of Calculation Payment Authority to Responsible Authority Make a Choice to Ensure in Selecting Compliance Surplus Land

(Continued)

No

No

Max/Min Limits Specified

Yes

No

Authority Responsible

When the final Revenue officer to take statement possession of ceiling after such and surplus vesting lands is confirmed; duty of the person to deliver possession SG When the final statement of ceiling and surplus lands is confirmed; duty of the person to deliver possession

Process Additional Amount for Improvements

Vesting of the Surplus

SG

Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1950

Collector Himachal Pradesh Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1972

Taluk Land Board

Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963

Imprisonment which may extent to 6 months and/ or fine of one thousand rupees

Not provided

The Board is to determine the extent if surrendered land when person fails to furnish returns.

Person selects the land he desires to retain and collector decides claims, if any.

Discretion of SG

Land Revenue

Net Income

Profits Discretion derivable of Taluk from land Land Board; may accept or reject the land surrendered based on specified reasons

Max- Rs. 2 lakhs

Lump-sum or 95 times to 45 times six monthly the land instalments revenue not exceeding 10

Cash or bonds. Max. 20 times The bonds and min. are payable 3 times in 40 equal of net instalments. income

Cash for individuals, Cash/ Treasury Certificate for Trust/ Body Corporate

No

No

No

(Continued)

Any officer When the authorized by final Taluk Land statement Board of ceiling and surplus lands is confirmed; duty of the person to deliver possession SG When the final statement of ceiling and surplus lands is confirmed; duty of the person to deliver possession Collector When the final statement of ceiling and surplus lands is confirmed; duty of the person to deliver possession

Competent Authority

Tripura Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act, 1960

Source: Author

SG

Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976

Discretion of SG

CA selects The CA may the land on collect the basis necessary of stated information guidelines from another (regarding agency; fine up selection to Rs. 1,000 from transferred lands)

RO can impose fine up to 5,000 rupees

20 times the Net Annual Income

Market value

Max/Min Limits Specified

Cash/Lumpsum/ Instalments/ Bonds

Not provided

Yes

Govt When the final statement of ceiling and surplus lands is confirmed; duty of the person to deliver possession Collector has the When the power to take final possession statement of ceiling and surplus lands is confirmed; duty of the person to deliver possession

Authority Responsible

Vesting of the Surplus Process Additional Amount for Improvements

Full and in one Twenty-five Yes instalment thousand rupees (may exceed on directions of Revenue Minister)

List of Ceiling Procedure of Collecting the Surplus Compensation Legislations Basis of Mode of Power of Authority Power of Calculation Payment Authority to Responsible Authority Make a Choice to Ensure in Selecting Compliance Surplus Land

(Continued)

3

4

5

Agricultural Labourers, Village Artisans, Other poor

2

6

Agricultural Labourers, Landless persons

Small holders

No list made, but preference is to be given to landless agricultural labourers particularly belonging to scheduled caste or tribe

Gujarat Co-operative Agricultural Farming Lands Society (first Ceiling Act, belonging to 1960 SC/ST)

Delhi Land Holdings (Ceiling) Act, 1960

Andhra Members of SC/ Pradesh ST (to receive Land one half of Reforms the land (Ceiling on distributed) Agricultural Holding) Act, 1973

1

List of Ceiling Disposal of Land after Vesting-Redistribution Strategy Legislations List of Priority Persons –Top Six Persons That Are Eligible for Receiving Land at the Time of Redistribution

A5: Disposal of land after vesting: redistribution strategy

Process

Authority Responsible

(Continued)

Allotted as Payment to govt RDO responsible House sites for resumption for poor and weaker sections, or for agricultural purposes; One-half distributed to SC/ST Chief Not specified Chief Commissioner Commissioner may allot land or any officer on appropriate authorized by conditions him and may also reserve land for public utility Purpose not Payment of SG mentioned, occupancy only list price of priority persons provided

Prescribed Use of Land

2

3

4

5

6

Prescribed Use of Land

Process

Authority Responsible

Maharashtra Tenant rendered Landlord that Agricultural 50% to be A person from A person who Collector can Payment of Collector Agricultural landless under has not labourer, reserved whom land had leased out grant land occupancy Lands tenancy law exercised technical for landless was resumed land to any for public price (Ceiling on right of other staff persons of SC/ by the owner undertaking; purposes, Holdings) resumption rendered ST community on account serving SG can grant Act, 1961 (in case of unemployed of personal members of land to state a compact (compact cultivation the armed corporations; holding) holding) under the forces; landless for deciding relevant persons among the tenancy law listed persons =, decision would be taken by draw of lots Madhya Agricultural Joint farming Better farming Freedom fighters Displaced Holders holding Surplus land to Payment of Not specified Pradesh Labourers society society tenants contiguous be distributed a premium Ceiling on (including formed by land and allotted in equivalent Agricultural SC/STs) agricultural Bhumiswami to the Holding, labourers rights compensation 1960 or landless payable persons Manipur Land Landless Agricultural Workers, Priority to persons belonging to SC/ST residing within 8 kms of surplus Not Specified SG Notification SG land Revenue and Reforms Act, 1960

1

List of Ceiling Disposal of Land after Vesting-Redistribution Strategy Legislations List of Priority Persons – Top Six Persons That Are Eligible for Receiving Land at the Time of Redistribution

(Continued)

Raiyats personally cultivating max one standard acre of contiguous land

any other persons

Sikkim Persons forming Persons who reside near the locality where land is situated and who intend to bring Agricultural a co-operative land under personal cultivation who own no land or land less than 3 standard Land farming society cares Ceiling and Reforms Act, 1977

Landless labourers, particularly to members of SC/STs

Tenants, Members of SC/STs, Agricultural Labourer

Punjab Land Reforms Act, 1972

Rajasthan Reserving of Imposition land towards of Ceiling promotion of on agricultural Agricultural welfare Holding Act, 1973

70% to be settled Co-operative landless Ex-servicemen with SC/ST farming agricultural members in societies labourersproportion to formed by land the respective agricultural available in population in labourers neighbouring the village village

Orissa Land Reforms Act, 1960 Cultivation; Collector may set apart any of the said surplus lands for being utilized for any public purpose Conferring rights of ownership on tenants, a max of 2 hectares of first quality land to tenants, SC/ST, agricultural labourer Promotion of agricultural welfare of agricultural population and economic development of the area If a vested land is cultivated by a cultivator, he shall be allowed to keep his rights up to 3 acres

Not specified

SG

Not specified

(Continued)

vested lands are SG, lands vested required to be in the state managed by are to be the C managed by the collector

As may be prescribed

SG to frame a scheme

As may be prescribed

2

3

4

5

6

Prescribed Use of Land

Uttar Pradesh Gram sabha Imposition (where village of Ceiling has no or less on Land than 15 acres Holdings of land for Act, 1960 community purposes)

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided

The State Government may use for any purpose for which such land could have been acquired under the Land Acquisition Act

Tamil Nadu Any person who is completely dispossessed of his holding, or whose extent of holding is reduced below Cultivation Land three acres of dry land or one and a half acres of wet land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling on Land) Act, 1961 Haryana Members of SC/ST, Landless persons, Agricultural Labourers, Tenants, Ex-servicemen, Tenants Liable Personal Ceiling to ejectment, persons holding land less than 2 hectares of land or of equivalent value cultivation, on Land dwelling Holdings houses Act, 1972

1

List of Ceiling Disposal of Land after Vesting-Redistribution Strategy Legislations List of Priority Persons – Top Six Persons That Are Eligible for Receiving Land at the Time of Redistribution

(Continued)

SG

SG to frame a scheme as per certain guidelines (specific reference to tenants) SG to decide

Collector on behalf of SG

Not specified

Authority Responsible

Not specified

Process

Co-operative Not provided farming societies formed by agricultural labourers 75–77% Dispossessed Displaced reservation for persons not tenants SC/STs registered as having no occupants land

Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe

Landless agricultural labourers

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided

Personal Cultivation, Dwelling Houses

Other landless Released bonded SG may reserve persons labourers land for Public having net purpose income < Rs 20,000. Kerala Land Kudikidappukars Landless labourers (one half to SC/STs), small holders and other land holders who Redistribution Reforms are not entitled to resume land to landless for Act, 1963 cultivation Bihar Land Not provided Land could be Reforms acquired for Act, 1950 industrial undertaking, providing for civic amenities etc. Estates and tenures are managed according to the rules. Himachal Landless person Landless For allotment of a site to handicapped or houseless person For development Pradesh belonging to person (a of the state Ceiling on SC/ST victim of Agricultural natural Holdings calamity) or Act, 1972 any other eligible person

Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961

West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955

SG

Framing of a scheme by SG and its publication in official gazette

(Continued)

Not provided

Not provided

Allotment

Deputy Commissioner/ other officer specified by SG Land boards

Allotment

In such manner Revenue officer as may be prescribed

Source: Author

Not provided

4

Tripura Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act, 1960

3

Tillers having less Ex-owners Refugees of Landless than the basic having less 1947 having agricultural area of 2.5 than the less than the labourers standard acres basic area of basic area of 2.5 standard land and no acres other source of income

2

Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976

1

6

Prescribed Use of Land

Not provided

Refugees of 1947 having more Distribution on than 2.5 standard acres of land the basis of but less than 5 acres provided priority the entire family is into agriculture.

5

List of Ceiling Disposal of Land after Vesting-Redistribution Strategy Legislations List of Priority Persons – Top Six Persons That Are Eligible for Receiving Land at the Time of Redistribution

(Continued)

Authority Responsible

Even among the SG beneficiaries preference would be given firstly to defence personnel, secondly to gujjars and bakarwalas and then to others. Collector may Collector use land for necessary purpose

Process

No

No

Maharashtra Agricultural Lands (Ceiling on Holdings) Act, 1961

Madhya Pradesh Ceiling on Agricultural Holding, 1960

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

Andhra Pradesh Land Reforms (Ceiling on Agricultural Holding) Act, 1973 Delhi Land Holdings (Ceiling) Act, 1960

Gujarat Agricultural Lands Ceiling Act, 1960

Allotment on the Provision Basis of Quality for Allotting of Land a Minimum Amount of Land

List of Ceiling Legislations

A6: Provisions regulating allotment Limitations on Rights of Beneficiaries

Yes

Yes – Occupancy price payable shall be equal to the amount of compensation paid to the owner

Recovery of premium in case of transfer in the same manner as an arrear of land revenue.

Non-transferable, nondivisible for lands granted to joint farming societies

Non-alienable except in cases of mortgage to govt/bank; Orchard to be maintained so Yes – as a recovery of Conditions can be the compensation imposed by the Chief paid by the govt to a Commissioner bhumidar Yes Non-transferable, Nondivisible

Yes

Payment by Beneficiaries to the Government

(Continued)

Tribunals to proceed in enquiry for determination of claims of possession; Consolidation of Holding: for a Co-operative Farming Society, Orchards, Efficiently managed farm lands Special provision for land taken over from industrial undertaking to ensure efficient cultivation, continued supply of raw materialthe SG has the power to grant land to the corporations The Act makes it permissible for the C to transfer surplus land on temporary leases to an agriculturist who has less land than the ceiling limit under personal cultivation where allotment and distribution of land is taking time and the land must be cultivated in the interim.

Where land is deemed to be surrendered by usufructuary mortgage or tenant, it shall revert to the owner Not provided_

Unique Provisions

 

No

No

No

No

No

No

No

Rajasthan Imposition No of Ceiling on Agricultural Holding Act, 1973 Sikkim Agricultural No Land Ceiling and Reforms Act, 1977

No

No

No

Orissa Land Reforms Act, 1960 Punjab Land Reforms Act, 1972

In the terms of prevention of fragmentation

No

Manipur Land Revenue and Reforms Act, 1960

Payment by Beneficiaries to the Government

Allotment on the Provision Basis of Quality for Allotting of Land a Minimum Amount of Land

List of Ceiling Legislations

(Continued)

Restrictions are imposed on alienation of lands held by scheduled tribes

None

None

Allotted land is nonalienable for a period of 10 years from the date of allotment None

Limitations on Rights of Beneficiaries

SG to order preparation of a Record of Rights; if the land vested in govt is being cultivated by a cultivator, then his/her right to cultivate shall be limited to 3 standard acres – such cultivators are termed bastiwala; land revenue is levied on all persons who are allowed to retain land under the ceiling limit

A tenant who was entitled to purchase land form the owner under the relevant tenancy law is also entitled to make such purchase under the Act. Specific rules for determination of ceiling area

Not provided

Not provided_

Unique Provisions

No

Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1950

No

No

Yes

Not provided

No

Yes

 

Yes Instead of a minimum limit, the Act states that assignment can be made of a maximum of 1 acre of land. No No

No

No

No

No

No

Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963

No

No

Haryana Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1972 Uttar Pradesh Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1960 West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955 Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961

No

No

Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling on Land) Act, 1961

None

The land cannot be transferred except by way of mortgage in favour of a financial institution for a period of 15 years may be levied by the SG

Non-transferrable

SG to determine

Not provided (Continued)

If ownership of land (owner’s land that is in possession of a tenant) is liable to be purchased by a cultivating tenant, then that extent of land is not calculated while imposing a ceiling limit.

Not provided

Not provided

PA is required to examine records and make inquiries to determine the irrigated lands existing

Disputed land is to be excluded in calculation of ceiling limit; the govt can modify the notification and in such cases land would not vest until the requisite amendments are made; the govt may allow any industry to possess land in excess of the ceiling area through a specified process Not competent to transfer, Not provided sell, lease or mortgage

None

Source: Author

Not provided

Yes (limit up to 2.5 or 5 standard acres)

No

Not provided

No

No

Himachal Pradesh Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1972 Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976

Tripura Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act, 1960

Allotment on the Provision Basis of Quality for Allotting of Land a Minimum Amount of Land

List of Ceiling Legislations

(Continued)

Not provided

Yes

No

Payment by Beneficiaries to the Government

Not provided

May be levied by the SG

None

Limitations on Rights of Beneficiaries

The Act deems a 2.5 standard acre of area as a basic area, and every person having anything less than the basic area is a beneficiary. Not provided

Not provided

Unique Provisions

799,663 acres

721.5 acres

168,280 acres

370,660 acres

257,980 acres

1,030 acres

151,200 acres

1.32 lakh acres

258,050 acres

Not provided 89,118 acres

26,127 acres

Delhi

Gujarat

Maharashtra

Madhya Pradesh

Manipur

Orissa

Punjab

Rajasthan

Sikkim Tamil Nadu

Haryana

Amount of Land Declared Surplus

Data on Ceiling

Andhra Pradesh

A7: Data on ceiling

86% of surplus

Not provided 92.2% of surplus

89.9% of surplus

1.05 lakh acres

86.6% of surplus

41.2% of surplus

57.% of surplus

9% of surplus

71.9% of surplus

51.8% of surplus

641,655 acres

Amount of Land Vested/Ceiled

56.8% of land taken under possession Not provided 86.9% of land taken under possession 80.6% of land taken under possession

100% of land taken under possession 47.1% of land taken under possession 78.5% of land taken under possession 60.6% of land taken under possession 100% of land taken under possession 88.3% of land taken under possession 1.02 lakh acres

582,319 acres

Amount of Land Redistributed

(Continued)

Annual Report, 2004–2005, Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India Ministry of Rural Development (Land Reforms Division), 1984 Ministry of Rural Development (Land Reforms Division), 1984 Ministry of Rural Development (Land Reforms Division), 1984 Ministry of Rural Development (Land Reforms Division), 1984 Ministry of Rural Development (Land Reforms Division), 1984 Ministry of Rural Development (Land Reforms Division), 1984 Report of Revenue Department of the Government of Punjab, 1994 Ministry of Rural Development (Land Reforms Division), 1984 Not provided Ministry of Rural Development (Land Reforms Division), 1984 Ministry of Rural Development (Land Reforms Division), 1984

Source

171,435 acres

294,400 acres

128,250 acres

267,600 acres

247,213 acres

5,000 acres

Not provided

West Bengal

Karnataka

Kerala

Bihar

Himachal Pradesh

Jammu and Kashmir

Tripura

Source: Author

210,363 acres

Amount of Land Declared Surplus

Data on Ceiling

Uttar Pradesh

(Continued)

Not provided

N/A

99.4% of surplus

61.1% of surplus

64.9% of surplus

51% of surplus

69.8% of surplus

91.4% of surplus

Amount of Land Vested/Ceiled

Not provided

89.4% of land taken under possession 59.4% of land taken under possession 72.1% of land taken under possession 67.4% of land taken under possession 96.7% of land taken under possession 7.2% of land taken under possession N/A

Amount of Land Redistributed

Ministry of Rural Development (Land Reforms Division), 1984 Ministry of Rural Development (Land Reforms Division), 1984 Ministry of Rural Development (Land Reforms Division), 1984 Ministry of Rural Development (Land Reforms Division), 1984 Ministry of Rural Development (Land Reforms Division), 1984 Ministry of Rural Development (Land Reforms Division), 1984 Ministry of Rural Development (Land Reforms Division), 1984 Not provided

Source

Max Rent Payable

Not Yes provided Not Yes 15 years provided Not Not provided Not provided provided

No

No

No

Yes Not Yes provided

No

Money

Yes

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided

Yes

No

Not provided

Gradual Freezing of an Enhancement Amount

Not Yes provided Not No provided Money Yes

No

Reasonable Mode Rent

Rent Management

Agra Tenancy Act, No 1926 Ajmer Tenancy Act, No 1950 AP (Andhra Area) land revenue Tenancy Act, fixed for lands 1956 based upon the type of soil AP (Telangana Divided as per Area) Tenancy classes of land Act, 1950 and irrigation facilities Assam (Temporary Divided as Settled Areas) per mode of Tenancy Act, payment 1971 Bihar Tenancy Act, Not provided 1885 Bombay Tenancy Defines both and Agricultural maximum and Lands Act, 1948 minimum rent Chota Nagpur Not provided Tenancy Act, 1908

List of Tenancy Legislation

A8: Tenancy legislations across India: rent management

Not provided

Not provided

None

Land revenue

Not provided

Type pf soil

Not provided

Not provided

10 years

Yes

No

Not provided Not provided

Not Not provided provided

Yes

Not provided Not Not provided provided Yes 6 years

No

(Continued)

Not Not Not provided provided provided

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Not provided

Yes

No

Basis of Receipts Division of Rent

Length of Term of Suspension/ Tenancy Remission

Max Rent Payable

Not Not provided Not provided provided

Not provided

Not Not Yes 15 years Orissa Tenancy Act, Enhancement provided provided 1913 of rent by contract, suit; “prevailing rent” in certain districts PEPSU Tenancy Amount to not Not Not Not provided Not provided and Agricultural exceed oneprovided provided Lands Act, 1955 third of the produce or the value of it

Yes

Not Kind/ Yes provided Produce

Not provided

Wet and Dry land divided as per region Not provided

Not provided

Irrigation facilities and type of soil

Not Not provided Not provided provided

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

No

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided

Length of Term of Suspension/ Tenancy Remission

Yes

Not Not provided provided

Not Not Not provided provided provided

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Basis of Receipts Division of Rent

Not Not provided Maximum Rent Not provided provided value is fixed for 5 years.

Gradual Freezing of an Enhancement Amount

No

Reasonable Mode Rent

Rent Management

Goa, Daman & Determined after Diu Agricultural Tenancy Act, Survey and 1964 Settlement Hyderabad Tenancy The rent is and Agricultural determined as Lands Act, 1950 per the land revenue of various lands. Jammu & Kashmir Not provided Tenancy Act, 1980 Malabar Tenancy Not provided Act, 1929

List of Tenancy Legislation

(Continued)

Source: Author

Money

No

Kind/ No Produce

Yes

5 times the assessment levied

Not No provided

No

No

Not provided

Not No provided

No

Not provided

Not No provided Not No provided

Not provided

Mamlatdar of a village decides the rate of rent Not provided

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided

Gradual Freezing of an Enhancement Amount

Yes

No

Reasonable Mode Rent

Not provided

Max Rent Payable

Rent Management

Kerala Land Not provided Reforms Act, 1963 Arunachal Pradesh The Act (Land Settlement mentions, and Records) Act, but does not 2000 determine.

Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 1955 Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961 Tamil Nadu Cultivating Tenants (Protection) Act, 1955 Gujarat Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948

List of Tenancy Legislation

Not provided

No

No

Yes

 

Class of lands

No

Yes

No

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided

Basis of Receipts Division of Rent

No

No

Yes

No

Yes

No

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided Not provided

Length of Term of Suspension/ Tenancy Remission

Not None provided

Yes

Yes Not provided

Yes Not provided

None

None

AP (Andhra Area) Tenancy Act, 1956 AP (Telangana Area) Tenancy Act, 1950

No

No

Yes

None

Ajmer Tenancy Act, 1950

No

Other Occupation/ Rights Ownership/ Over Land Cultivation

Yes

Rent

Basis of Definitions – Landowner/ Tenant/Other

Agra Tenancy Yes Act, 1926

List of Tenancy Legislation

A9: Rights of tenants and owners

Yes

No

No

No

Heritable, Transferable for certain classes of tenants; Right to Occupancy, Reinstatement Right to change Primary Rights – to build a rent, enter residential land, upon tenancy land, granting grazing cattle, re-instatement, mining lease acquiring proprietary right Resumption of Right to mortgage/ land create charge on lease land, heritable Not provided Right to Trees, produce, relief against termination, heritable

Sir Right

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

 

No

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Provisions for Preferential Treatment

No

Classes of Determination Players on Land – Rights and Liabilities Declared Tenants of Area of Family Landowner Tenant Landless Holding Labourer/ Other

Yes

Bihar Tenancy Yes Act, 1885

Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act, 1908

Yes

Yes

Not Not Bombay provided provided Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948

Yes

Yes Assam (Temporary Settled Areas) Tenancy Act, 1971

None

Yes

No

None Not provided

No

No

None

Yes

Not None provided

No

Right of Occupancy over land held for more than 3 years, right to transfer, to use, to trees, acquisition of ownership Acquisition of Occupancy, Appropriation Occupancy of Trees. Only Right when Raiyats holding he/she is a at fixed rate proprietor or have a right to permanent transfer and tenure holder succession Not provided Right to terminate tenancy for Personal Cultivation or for nonagricultural purposes Acquisition of Existing Occupancy Occupancy Rights to be Right when continued, he/she is a Rights in using proprietor or land permanent tenure holder

Not provided

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Not Yes provided

Yes

No

(Continued)

Not provided

Yes

No

Not provided

Rent

Malabar Tenancy Act, 1929

Yes

No

Yes

None

None

The lease agreement

Not None provided

Yes

Yes

Not provided

Yes

Yes

Other Occupation/ Rights Ownership/ Over Land Cultivation

Basis of Definitions – Landowner/ Tenant/Other

No Goa, Daman & Diu Agricultural Tenancy Act, 1964 No Hyderabad Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950 Yes Jammu & Kashmir Tenancy Act, 1980

List of Tenancy Legislation

(Continued)

No

No

Yes

No

Protected Tenant has a right to purchase land, exchange land

Heritable

Not provided

Not provided

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Provisions for Preferential Treatment

Not No provided

Not provided No Yes has a specific right to produce as a part of the rent payable Not Yes Not provided Certain classes of provided tenants ha; have the right to a fixed tenure; liable to pay assessment to govt; right to purchase rights of immediate landlord in certain cases; heritable and alienable; right to continue after expiry of landlord’s right

Not provided

Not provided

Classes of Determination Players on Land – Rights and Liabilities Declared Tenants of Area of Family Landowner Tenant Landless Holding Labourer/ Other

No

No

No

No

No PEPSU Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955 Yes Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 1955

No

Yes

Yes

Orissa Tenancy Act, 1913

None

As per the Revenue Laws

None

No

Yes

No

Not expressly provided

Not provided

Not provided

Khudkasht Rights, No Khatedari Rights (availability of these rights is subject to the area and certain other exemptions made by the Act)- the tenant has been empowered to attain these rights on payment of a compensation to the landlord

Yes

(Continued)

No

Yes Not Fixed-rate raiyats Not provided provided would have similar incidents as a permanent tenure holder; Settled raiyats to have occupancy rights Not Not Not To make provided provided provided improvements on land

Yes

Not expressly provided

No The definitions have been based upon the right of landlord to evict the tenant from the holding

No

Not expressly provided

Yes Heritable, responsible for maintenance of boundary marks, has a right to erect farm house, is barred from eviction from dwelling house, right to purchase site, entitled to compensation for improvements made by them No Not expressly provided except protection from eviction

Yes

No

No

Provisions for Preferential Treatment

No

Classes of Determination Players on Land – Rights and Liabilities Declared Tenants of Area of Family Landowner Tenant Landless Holding Labourer/ Other No

None

No Tamil Nadu Cultivating Tenants (Protection) Act, 1955

No

Yes

No

Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961

Other Occupation/ Rights Ownership/ Over Land Cultivation

Basis of Definitions – Landowner/Tenant/Other

Rent

List of Tenancy Legislation

(Continued)

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963

Arunachal Pradesh (Land Settlement and Records) Act, 2000

Source: Author

Yes

No Gujarat Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948

No

No

No

Yes

No Certain odacharthudars, mortgagees, land occupants for a minimum of 7 years and others are also deemed to be tenants. No The right to ownership in land accrues on allotment by the govt.

None

Transferable, right to erect farms and buildings, construct wells

Interest of tenant No shall be in accordance with the terms of agreement.

Yes Barred from has the right eviction from to terminate dwelling house, tenancy for right to trees personal grown by him, cultivation or responsible for requirement maintaining for a nonboundary marks agricultural purpose No Not provided Right to fixity of tenure in respect of the holding, to sue for resumption of possession, claim compensation No

No

No

No

Not Yes provided

Bihar Tenancy No Act, 1885

Not provided

Not Not provided Not provided Not provided provided

Not provided Yes

Not Not provided Not provided Nonpayment of provided rent, sub-division, subletting. Bar from eviction from dwelling house Not Not provided Not provided Not provided provided

No

Yes

Other

Yes

Acquisition for Personal Cultivation

No

Completion of Term

Not Not provided Not provided Not provided provided Yes No Yes Not provided

Surrender

No

Ejectment

Extinction of Tenancy

Yes Assam (Temporary Settled Areas) Tenancy Act, 1971

Agra Tenancy Act, 1926 Ajmer Tenancy Act, 1950 AP (Andhra Area) Tenancy Act, 1956 AP (Telangana Area) Tenancy Act, 1950

List of Tenancy Legislation

A10: Extinction of tenancy and other provisions

Yes

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Subletting

Not provided

Special officer – adjudication of disputes

Not provided

Not provided

Yes

Not provided

Not provided Not provided

Yes

No

No

No

Registration - Powers of Land Records Authorities Management

The Act exempts certain types of land from its application, provision for compensation, sale of a holding for arrears of rent in certain cases of unsatisfied rent-decree Creates a separate category of a TenureHolder; Settlement of Bakasht Land

There lies a general prohibition on leasing out land after 3 years of commencement of this Act.

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided

Unique Provisions

Bombay Not Yes No Not provided Not provided Tenancy provided and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948 Chota Nagpur No Not Not provided Not provided Upon execution Tenancy provided of a decree Act, 1908 for ejectment passes on certain specified grounds Goa, Yes Yes Not provided Not provided Not provided Daman & Diu Agricultural Tenancy Act, 1964 Hyderabad Yes Not No Not provided Not provided Tenancy provided and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950 Jammu & Not Not Not provided Not provided Illegal ejectment Kashmir provided provided would not Tenancy interrupt Act, 1980 continuous possession Not provided Not provided

No

Not provided Not provided Not provided

Not provided Responsible person – Not provided Mamlatdar

No

(Continued)

Exempts certain kinds of lands from its application. A referee can be appointed for appraisement of the produce. Status of tenants is to be established at the next regular settlement.

Not provided

Distinct clauses for Tenure-Holders and Raiyats

Not provided Not provided

 

Not provided

Not provided Not provided

No

Malabar Tenancy Act, 1929 Orissa Tenancy Act, 1913 PEPSU Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955 Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 1955

List of Tenancy Legislation

(Continued)

Yes

Surrender

No

Yes

Acquisition for Personal Cultivation

Other

Subletting

Registration - Powers of Land Records Authorities Management

Yes

No

Not provided

Not provided Not provided Not provided

Not provided Not provided Grounds for ejection Not provided Not provided Not provided differ as per class of tenant Not provided Not provided Not provided Not provided Not provided Not provided

Completion of Term

Not Not provided Not provided Ejection is provided contingent to the amount of land landowner holds

Not Not provided provided

Yes

Ejectment

Extinction of Tenancy

The Act makes various provisions for compensating for the khatedari and other rights that accrue on land and its payment to the landholder. Compensation also needs to be made for improvements and other such matters.

Landowner that holds land more than 30 acres has a right to reserve land for personal cultivation

Separate class for tenure holders

Not provided

Unique Provisions

Yes

No

No

Tamil Nadu No Cultivating Tenants (Protection) Act, 1955

Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961

No

 

Other factors have No been specified – failure of payment of rent; doing act that is prejudicially harmful to land; sub-letting/ subdivision; failure to personally cultivate; usage of land for any other purpose than agriculture Guilty of negligence, Yes usage of land for other purposes, non-payment of rent, willful denial of title of landlord and other clauses - Revenue Divisional Officer is to address the dispute of ejectment No

Yes

(Continued)

There exists a general prohibition on creation of tenancies after the commencement of this Act. Certain tenants have been registered as occupants under the Act after vesting of the land in SG where the leases fall outside the purview of the Act. Revenue Divisional The Act addresses Officer is the court a limited issue of of first instance eviction from tenancy.

Not provided

Ejectment

Surrender

Extinction of Tenancy

Source: Author

Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963 Arunachal Pradesh (Land Settlement and Records) Act, 2000

Acquisition for Personal Cultivation

Other

Not provided Failure of tenant to cultivate personally, pay rent or revenue, did any act destructive to land, personally cultivate etc. Not provided Not provided Not provided

No

Completion of Term

Not Not Not provided Not provided Terms of ejectment provided provided are not provided

Not Not provided provided

Gujarat Not Yes Tenancy provided and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948

List of Tenancy Legislation

(Continued)

No

Yes

Not provided

The Act makes tenants liable to pay the due revenue.

Unique Provisions

Only for the purpose Not provided of land settlement and revenue collection.

Not provided

Not provided Not provided

Registration - Powers of Land Records Authorities Management

Not provided Yes

No

Subletting

When a land has been held from the time of permanent settlement at the same rate of rent A landlord whose proprietary rights in a mahal are transferred by foreclosure or sale in execution of a decree of Civil or Revenue Court or also by voluntary alienation in certain cases. Every tenant who has acquired a right of occupancy under the Agra Tenancy Act, 1901 or has been conferred with right of occupancy by this Act or is a tenant of govt estates.

Fixed-rate tenant

Occupancy tenants

Ex-proprietary tenants

A permanent and transferable interest in land has been held by a person intermediate between the landlord and occupant from the time of permanent settlement at the same rate of rent

Permanent tenure holder

Agra Tenancy Act, 1926

A Brief Description of Each Class

Classes of Tenant

Legislation

A11: Classes of tenants

Occupancy rights from the time of permanent settlement

Basis of Division of Class

None

None

Clause for Termination

Occupancy Right; heritable No sale of sir to a limited extent- heir or agreement, would be entitled to retain relinquishment or possession of the holding other transaction can for 5 years or until the terminate expiry of the period of lease; non transferable Heritable to a limited None extent – heir would be entitled to retain possession of the holding for 5 years or until the expiry of the period of lease; non transferable

Sir right; Can confer a right of occupancy; interest is both heritable and transferable; may apply to the Collector to acquire for him land held by a statutory tenant or an heir for a specified purpose Occupancy Right; both heritable and transferable

Corresponding Rights of Each Class

(Continued)

None

Preferential Treatment, if Any

Ajmer Tenancy and Land Records Act, 1950

Legislation

(Continued)

Heirs of statutory tenants Non-occupancy tenants Occupancy tenants

A tenant of land other than sir, grove or pasture land (at the commencement of this Act) not falling under any of the above classes; or is after the commencement of this Act admitted as a tenant by a permanent tenure-holder (or anyone else) without a right of occupancy to land. The person entitled to succeed to the tenancy of statutory tenants All tenants other than any of the above categories Every person (before the Occupation of commencement of this Act) who land was admitted to the occupation of land and had made any development to such land or was recorded in the year of settlement as a tenant with a permanent right of tenancy and is in possession since such settlement.

Statutory tenants

Basis of Division of Class

A Brief Description of Each Class

Classes of Tenant

Clause for Termination

Heritable to a limited extent; None non transferable Heritable to a limited extent; None non transferable Heritable; Non-transferable Death without an heir; order of ejectment; surrender/abandon the holding; acquisition under LAA, 1894; non-application for recovery of possession after deprivation; redemption of mortgage; acquisition or succession to the proprietary right; land can be acquired by the landlord for certain purposes

Heritable to a limited extent; None non transferable

Corresponding Rights of Each Class

A tenant belonging to any class has an option of acquiring proprietary rights of the landlord by an application to the Collector on payment of a compensation

Preferential Treatment, if Any

Assam (Temporarily Settled Area) Tenancy Act, 1971

Non-ccupancy tenants Occupancy tenants

Hereditary tenants

Ex-proprietary tenants

A person who was an exproprietary according to the Ajmer Land and Revenue Regulation, 1877. Otherwise, when interest of a sole proprietor of a village or specific area is transferred by foreclosure or sale in execution of a decree or by voluntary alienation (with certain exceptions) he/she becomes an exproprietary tenant in his holding. Every person who is a tenant at the commencement of this Act but does not fall under any of the categories, or after such commencement admitted as one or acquires hereditary rights or acquires hereditary rights under the Act. There are certain lands specified in which hereditary rights cannot accrue. All tenants other than any of the above categories A tenant holding immediately under a proprietor, land holder or settlement-holder and having a right of occupancy in the lands held by him. Occupancy Rights accrue when a person has continuously held land as a tenant for a minimum period of 3 years. Holder of Occupancy Rights

Occupancy rights – permanent, heritable and transferable right of use and occupancy in the holding. The usage of land can be done in any manner that does not materially impair the value of land or render it unfit for the purpose of tenancy; rights in trees.

None

Heritable; Non-transferable

Heritable; Non-transferable; Any agreement for relinquishment of exproprietary rights shall be void except as provided under the Act

Not liable to ejectment except as provided under the Act

(Continued)

An occupancy tenant personally cultivating the land of his tenancy is entitled to acquire the rights, title and interest of the landlord.

Bihar Tenancy Act, 1885

Legislation

(Continued)

A person who has acquired from a proprietor or from another tenure holder a right to hold for the purpose of collecting rents or bringing it under cultivation by establishing tenants on it and includes their successors in interest.

The class is further divided into raiyats holding at fixed rates, settled raiyat (in possession for 12 years) occupancy raiyats and non-occupancy raiyats. A Raiyat is primarily a person who has acquired a right to hold land for the purpose of personal cultivation and includes their successors.

Raiyats and underRaiyats

A tenant holding immediately under a proprietor, land holder or settlement-holder but not having a right of occupancy in the lands held by him

Non-occupancy tenants

Tenure holder and under-tenure holder

A Brief Description of Each Class

Classes of Tenant

Occupancy Rights and Time for which land has been possessed.

Basis of Division of Class Right of possession until lawfully ejected; nontransferable except for the purpose of mortgage for agriculture in favour of the govt, co-operative society or an authorized bank. A permanent tenure holder is not liable for ejectment; is capable of being transferred and bequeathed in the same manner as any immovable property; voluntary transfer can be made; right of succession A fixed rate raiyat is subject to same provisions in respect of transfer and succession as a permanent tenure. SR and FRR have occupancy rights; rights in trees

Corresponding Rights of Each Class

FRR cannot be rejected except on the ground that a condition has been broken for which he/she is liable for ejectment as per the provision of this Act.

Not specifically provided

Clause for Termination

None

None

Preferential Treatment, if Any

Not provided

Other tenants

Raiyat – occupancy raiyats, nonoccupancy raiyat, raiyat having khuntkatti rights

Primarily a person who has acquired from the proprietor or from other tenure holder a right to hold land for the purpose of collecting rents or bringing under cultivation by establishing tenants on it. Raiyat is a person who has acquired a right to hold land for the purpose of personal cultivation. A person is called a raiyat having khunt-katti rights when he/she is in occupation of or has a subsisting title to land reclaimed from jungle by the original founders of the village or their descendants in the male line. A Settled Raiyat is the one who has held the land for a continuous period of 12 years.

A person is recognized as a protected tenant if he/she has been deemed to be one under the Bombay tenancy Act, 1939.

Protected Tenants

Chota Nagpur Tenure holder and Tenancy Act, under-tenure 1908 holder

Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948

Occupancy Rights, Personal Cultivation, Acquisition of right to hold jungle land

(Continued)

Tenancy cannot be Not specifically terminated by efflux provided of time; the grounds mentioned for termination of tenants are not applicable to protected tenants. Tenancy cannot be Tenant is given the terminated except as first option of provided under the purchasing site statute- specific grounds on which he has have been provided built a dwelling that need to be proved house for termination Not specifically provided None

The occupancy rights of Protection to Occupancy every Raiyat are continued Raiyats from Eviction notwithstanding the fact except as provided that the person may not under the Act. For a have cultivated the land Non-Occupancy Raiyat for 12 years; Settled a suit for ejectment on Raiyats have occupancy the ground of refusal to rights; Right in Trees; agree to pay a fair rent Provisions of occupancy cannot be instituted rights are applicable to unless the landlord khunt-katti; initial rent of has tendered to the a non-occupancy raiyat Raiyatan agreement to is according to the agreed pay the demanded rent conditions. and the raiyatan within 6 months has refused to execute the agreement.

Not specifically provided

Division between Sub-letting is valid under the tenants and Act unless it prejudicially protected affects tenants is done on the basis of persons being recognized as protected Bar to eviction from tenants under dwelling house; right to the 1939 Act. trees planted by him; right to produce of naturally growing trees

Gujarat Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948

Legislation

(Continued)

Other tenants

Protected tenants

Not provided

Tenants holding under Raiyats whether immediately or mediately Mundari-khunt-kattidar means a Mundari who has acquired a right to hold jungle land for the purposes of bringing suitable portions under cultivation by himself or male members of his family. If such person is deemed to be a PT under the provisions of the Bombay tenancy Act, 1939

Under-Raiyats

Mundari – Khunt Kattidar

A Brief Description of Each Class

Classes of Tenant

The Bombay Tenancy Act, 1939

Basis of Division of Class

Right to trees planted by him; Right to twothirds of the produce of naturally growing trees; right to exchange lands

Not provided

Not specifically provided

Not specifically provided

Corresponding Rights of Each Class

Preferential Treatment, if Any

Tenancy may be Not provided terminated for any other specified reason but the clause for usage of land for personal cultivation or nonagricultural purposes is not applicable to PT. Termination of tenancy Tenant has the can be done for default first option of tenant to pay rent, of purchasing acting prejudicial to the holding on the land, sub-letting, which he has sub-division etc. or by built a dwelling surrender by tenant house. himself. There exists a bar from eviction of the tenant from dwelling house. Landlord can terminate tenancy if he/ she wishes to use land for personal cultivation or non-agricultural use.

As per grounds specified in the statute

As per grounds specified in the statute

Clause for Termination

Other tenants

Protected tenants

Jammu and Occupancy tenants Kashmir Grade A Tenancy Act, 1980

Hyderabad Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950

Number of years for which tenant occupied the holding

OT G-A hold land directly from Length of a land holder or from the state. tenancy and OT are further divided into the area in classes depending upon the time which land is on which they began possession. situated i.e. length of their tenancy. Another classification is done for tenants with occupancy rights on the basis of the area and length of tenancy.

A person is a protected tenant in respect of his holding if he has held land for a minimum period of 6 years before the commencement of this Act (other specification provided) and has personally cultivated the land for such period. Also in certain cases of any land in respect of which no person is deemed to be a protected tenant, shall be one after one year of such commencement on disposal of all other claims. A person lawfully cultivating land of another

Enhancement of rent of an OT can only take place after a suit filed by the landlord on the grounds of- rate of rent paid is below the prevailing rate, productive powers of land have been increased etc.; OT may also sue for abatement of rent.

Right to trees planted by him; Right to twothirds of the produce of naturally growing trees; right to exchange lands

Not terminable for efflux of time; It can be terminated on specific grounds- surrender of rights by the tenant; failure to pay rent; action leading to destruction of land; sub-division; subletting; usage of land for any other purpose than agriculture None

A protected tenant is entitled None specifically to recover possession in respect of land of which he/she was not in possession at the commencement of this Act if he intimates such willingness to the landlord within 6 months of the said commencement; right to exchange lands.

(Continued)

None

Tenant is given the first option of purchasing site on which he has built a dwelling house.

At the commencement of the Amendment Act of 1954, a PT is entitled to purchase the land-holder’s interest in the land held by the former as PT.

A verumpattamdar is a tenant other than kanamdar, kanam-kuzhikanamdar or kuzhikanamdar of a holding for agricultural purposes.

Nature of land, length of tenancy, customary rights

Right to fixity of tenure; heritable and alienable; right to bid for sale of holding by landlord after obtaining eviction in an execution of a decree; right to file a restoration suit; right to continue on the holding as such after the death of landlord

Not specifically provided

All tenants other than OT and such fixed rate tenants as hold maliari or vegetable growing land

Corresponding Rights of Each Class

No right to occupancy

OT G-B hold land from OC G-A

Occupancy Tenants Grade B Tenants holding land from OC G-B Protected Tenants

Basis of Division of Class

Holding lands under OT G-B

A Brief Description of Each Class

Classes of Tenant

Malabar Verumpattamdar Tenancy Act, 1929

Legislation

(Continued)

Right ceases when a landlord resumes land for personal cultivation; or on the expiry of mortgage Not specifically provided

Clause for Termination

Where rent has not been paid by the intermediary to the landlord for a period of three consecutive years due to default of such intermediary, the tenant is entitled to purchase the interest of intermediary.

Preferential Treatment, if Any

CV is entitled to sue for restoration of possession of land when evicted in certain cases where the landlord fails to use the land for purpose for which eviction was obtained or transfers the land.

Not specifically provided

Cultivating Any verumpattamdar who Verumpattamdar has contracted (expressly or impliedly) to cultivate the land and actually cultivates the same, but is not a janki, intermediary or customary verumpattamdar

Customary Any verumpattamdar who was Verumpattamdar entitled by the custom of the locality to possession of the land for a definite period of years.

Specific grounds have been provided under the Act for eviction of a cultivating verumpattamdar- the tenant wilfully denied the title of the landlord; tenant has committed acts to impair the value of land; tenant has not paid rent within three months of it becoming due, at the end of agricultural year, the landlord needs the holding bonafide for purposes of raising crops, constructing residence etc. Specific grounds for eviction have been provided under the Act- tenant has wilfully denied title of landlord, tenant has committed acts to impair the value of land, tenant has allowed a stranger to encroach upon the holding, period of lease has expired and the landlord needs the land for bonafide purposescultivating, construction of house etc.

(Continued)

Legislation

(Continued)

Holder of a protected Ulkudi

Kuzhikanamdar Tenant of a Kudyiruppu

A person who holds a hut on the land and is in continuous possession of such land.

The person to whom a transfer of landlord’s interest in specific immovable property for the enjoyment of the right to hold the property and be liable for consideration. The transferee of garden land with fruit bearing trees. The incidents of this transfer include a right in the transferee to hold the said lands liable for consideration paid by him/her. The transferee of garden lands. A person who is a tenant of the site of any residential building

Kanamdar

Kanamkuzhikanamdar

A Brief Description of Each Class

Classes of Tenant

Basis of Division of Class

 

Clause for Termination

If the landlord wishes to Not provided take over the protected ulkudi, the person in possession is entitled to be provided an alternative and suitable site of an equal area and is bound to accept the arrangement

Corresponding Rights of Each Class

Not provided Where a separate or separable kudiyiruppu has been in occupation for a period of at least 10 consecutive years. The tenant is entitled to purchase the rights of his immediate landlord. Not provided

Not provided

Not provided

Preferential Treatment, if Any

Chandnadars

Under-Raiyats

Raiyats – holding at Fixed-Rates, Occupancy Raiyats, NonOccupancy Raiyat, Settled Raiyats

Orissa Tenancy Tenure holder and Act, 1913 Under-tenure holder

Persons holding land under raiyats. A person holding land which is recorded as chandana in the course of settlement of land revenue and for which rent has been fixed for the term of that settlement and includes successor in interest.

A person who has acquired from a proprietor or from another tenure-holder a right to hold for the purpose of collecting rents or bringing it under cultivation by establishing tenants on it and includes their successors in interest. A person who has acquired a right to hold land for the purpose of personal cultivation and holds land immediately under a proprietor or a tenureholder. SR is a person who has continuously held land for a period of 12 years as a raiyat.

Right to hold land or collect rent, occupancy rights

Not specifically provided

Limited enhancement of tenure; certain tenure holders have a right to transfer their tenures without the consent of landlord (sub-proprietor, shikmi kharida, bazyaftidars) A Fixed-Rate Raiyat is subject to the same incidents as a holder of permanent tenure; occupancy rights have been continued; SR have occupancy rights (Occupancy Raiyat-OR) that include right to plant, enjoy the products, to fell and utilize and dispose of the timber on that land; transferable, sub-letting, mortgage Not specifically provided Not specifically provided

Not specifically provided

FRR cannot be ejected by the landlord except on the ground that he has violated a condition consistent with this Act. OR cannot be ejected unless on specified groundsusage of land to render it unfit for the purpose of tenancy or breach of condition consistent of this Act.

Not liable for ejectment

(Continued)

None

Classes of Tenant

Source: Author

Gair Khatedar Tenants

Tenants of Khudkasht

Maliks

Rajasthan Khatedar Tenants Tenancy Act, 1955

Legislation

(Continued) Basis of Division of Class

Every other tenant who does not fall under the above categories

Every person who is a tenant Khusdkasht and of land otherwise than as Khatedari a subtenant or a tenant of rights khudkasht or is admitted as such after the commencement of this Act according to the Raj LR Act 1956 or who acquires khatedari rights under this AC or Raj Land Reforms and Resumption of Jagir Act, 1952. Khatedari rights, however cannot accrue in certain areas and certain lands have also been exempted from such accrual like pasture land, land used for occasional cultivation etc. A Zamindar or Biswedar whose estate is vested in the state govt under the Raj Zamindari and Biswedari Abolition Act, 1959 and becomes a malik of khudkasht land. Any person to whom Khuskasht has been lawfully let out

A Brief Description of Each Class

Clause for Termination

In certain specified cases, khatedari rights can confer on tenants of khudkasht. None

Not specifically provided

A tenant is entitled to Provisions exist possess a residential house for extinction of in the abadi of the village khudkasht rights. in which he/she holds land; right to receive written lease; khudkasht rights are heritable but not transferable by exchange or partition or by gift for the purpose of maintenance. And, upon resumption or abolition of an estate the estate holder holding khudkasht shall become a khatedar tenant.

Corresponding Rights of Each Class

Persons having khudkasht rights are entitle to convert them into khatedari rights.

Preferential Treatment, if Any

Rights of Tenants

Agra Tenancy Act, 1926

Landowner – Rights of Landowners

Rights/ Liabilities/ Power

Legislation

Not provided

Amount of Rent Payable (or Any Other Amount)

A12: Bargaining power of landowners and tenants Claim to Produce/Other Rights in Land

Not provided Right to surrender; On passing of an ejectment order, the Collector is required to award the T a land with similar advantages and in the same village, or monetary compensation in case of unavailability of land; On such acquisition by the LO the T is entitled to a reduction of rent, retain the remainder of the holding or reinstated to another similar land. LO can apply to the C acquire land from the tenant for purposes of farming on improved lines, agricultural development, personal cultivation, groves/ planting trees, building houses/outhouses necessary for the management of estate etc.

Termination of Lease/ Provisions for Eviction Not provided

(Continued)

Right to Purchase Landowner’s Interest

Ajmer Tenancy and Land Records Act, 1950

Legislation

(Continued)

Liabilities of Landowners

Liabilities of Tenants

Rights of Landowners

Liabilities of landowners Rights of Tenants

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided

Claim to Produce/Other Rights in Land

If the LO give land in T cannot be ejected exchange with T’s consent, otherwise than in such T would have same accordance with the Act right in land so received or evicted from residential by him in exchange as he/ house in case of surrender; she had in the previous Right of Reinstatement if one. the land is not used for the purpose it was acquired. If the LO has a proprietary LO has a right to apply interest in an intimrari to C to acquire the land estate, he/she has a right held by T for- farming to open work a mine, on improved lines, lay out a lease for the making any water-course, purpose; LO may apply undertaking mining work to SDO to exchange the etc. area for land cultivated by other person in order to consolidate the area. On an order of ejectment Not provided being passed, T is liable to vacate the holding. Not provided Not provided

T is liable to pay such rent Not provided as is agreed upon between the T and LO. Not provided

Liabilities of Tenants

Termination of Lease/ Provisions for Eviction

Amount of Rent Payable (or Any Other Amount)

Rights/ Liabilities/ Power

Not provided

Not provided

On acquisition of proprietary right by the T, the T becomes a biswadar and the LO is entitled to claim reduction in the revenue payable by him.

T has the right to apply to the C for acquisition of proprietary right of LO if he so desires.

Not provided

Right to Purchase Landowner’s Interest

T is liable to pay not more Not provided than the maximum rent; during pendency of the procedure to determine fair rent, the T is liable to deposit the agreed rent. Not provided

Liabilities of tenants

Liabilities of landowners

LO can also apply for Not provided determination of fair rent.

Not entitled to be evicted T can apply for determination of fair rent; except by an application right to claim remission made on behalf of of rent in case of total or the LO for a specified partial failure of crops reason – failure to pay rent, neglectful act, sublet, violation of terms of tenancy etc.; right to surrender

Rights of landowners

Andhra Pradesh Rights of (Andhra Area) tenants Tenancy Act, 1956

(Continued)

T has a right to exercise Heritable rights; right to the option of purchasing create mortgage or charge land when the LO notifies on the property in favour the same; May apply of govt or co-op society; for determination of in the event of change of reasonable price of land ownership in land, the T is when no amount can be entitled to continue on the agreed upon; any sale same terms and conditions by LO in violation of the provisions would be voidable at the option of T Right to resume possession May apply for determination of land leased out by LO of reasonable price of land for personal cultivation when no amount can be agreed upon; In case the T fails to exercise the option, LO may sell the land to any other person The maximum rent payable Not provided by the tenant is 30% of the gross produce for irrigable land and 25% of the gross produce for un-irrigable land. Not provided Any LO willing to sell the land leased out is required to give notice to such T of his intention to sell and require T to exercise option to purchase the land.

Rights/ Liabilities/ Power

Andhra Pradesh Rights of tenants (Telangana Area) Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950

Legislation

(Continued)

May apply for determination of Reasonable rent

Amount of Rent Payable (or Any Other Amount)

Claim to Produce/Other Rights in Land

Right to Purchase Landowner’s Interest

Right to the produce of trees T is given the first option of Surrender of rights by T; purchasing site on which planted by T; entitled to if T is in occupation of he/she has built dwelling two-thirds of the total a dwelling house, he/ house if the LO intends to produce of naturally she cannot be evicted sell such site; A Protected growing trees; Interest from such dwelling Tenant is given the right to of T in any land held by house; if tenancy has purchase the LO’s interest him cannot be attached been terminated on the in land at any time after or sold in execution of ground that T has done the commencement of a decree; where a T is an act destructive to the 1954 Amendment Act. entitled to possession of holding, no proceeding of This right of Protected T is a land he/she can apply ejectment can be carried liable to certain specified to the Tehsildar to gain out unless the LO has conditions such possession; the served a notice upon T govt may by notification specifying the destruction declare that the interest of claimed of and T has all LO stand transferred failed for 1 year to restore to the Protected Tenant the land; similar notice holding them and PT needs to be given in cases shall be deemed to be of termination of tenancy the full owners of such for non-payment of rent land; PT have a right to exchange land; Rights of PT are heritable; Right of PT to erect farm house; PT is also entitled to compensation for any improvements made when the tenancy terminates

Termination of Lease/ Provisions for Eviction

Liabilities of landowners

Liabilities of Tenants

Rights of landowners

(Continued)

LO may intend to sell the LO may terminated tenancy Not provided land to a PT and he/she on the ground that- T has may give a notice to the failed to pay rent. Has protected tenant of the done any act destructive to intention to do so. the land, has sub-divided the land, has sublet, used land for purposes other than agriculture, is subject to mental or physical disability etc. Not provided On notification by the govt The Tribunal can require the T is only liable to pay an T to deposit the value of that interest of LO is amount less than or equal the site as is determined, transferred to the PT, the to the maximum rent on deposit of which the LO is required to apply to which is calculated as site would be deemed to the tribunal to determine multiples of land revenue be transferred to the T. the reasonable price of the depending upon the type holding of soil; can be made liable to pay Betterment contribution by the govt. Not provided A LO intending to sell the If the LO recovers rent from site is required to give any T in contravention notice to T requiring T of the provisions of to state whether he/she maximum rent, he/she is willing to purchase the is liable to refund the site; if the T intimates his excess amount and also willingness to purchase, compensation to the T as the LO is required to may be determined by the make an application to the Tehsildar; In cases where Tribunal for determination payment of land revenue of value of the site. is suspended or remitted, LO is liable to suspend or remit the payment of rent by the T; cam be liable to pay Betterment contribution by the govt

May apply for determination of Reasonable rent

Rights of Tenants

Assam (Temporarily Settled Areas) Act, 1971

Rights of Landowners

Rights/ Liabilities/ Power

Legislation

(Continued) Termination of Lease/ Provisions for Eviction

Claim to Produce/Other Rights in Land

Occupancy Tenants under When an unsatisfied rentA T may apply for the Act have permanent, decree relates to an arrear reduction of rent on a heritable and transferable of rent, the T is not liable few grounds- productive right of use and to ejectment. In such a powers have been occupancy; right to plant case where an unsatisfied decreased due to an and utilize the products rent decree is passed and action of the LO, area of of trees the holding of T liable T’s holding is decreased to be sold in execution, by diversion, revenue rate T is entitled to make an is decreased; entitled to application within 30 days obtain receipt to the court conducting the sale to set aside the sale on deposit of the decretal amount; an application to set aside the decree on ground of material irregularity or fraud can also be made. Not provided Not provided Subject the maximum limits, the rent is liable to enhancement on specific grounds- productive owners of the land have been increased by an improvement effected by LO, area of T’s holding has increased by alluvion, revenue payable to the govt has increased. For such purposes, the LO may apply to the Deputy Commissioner

Amount of Rent Payable (or Any Other Amount)

In case of such acquisition of right, the LO is entitled to receive a sum of compensation

An OC personally cultivating the land is entitled to acquire rights, titles and interest of the LO and for this purpose, an application can be made; the govt may also declare by notification that such ownership rights of any or all LO stand transferred to their respective OC.

Right to Purchase Landowner’s Interest

Bihar Tenancy Act, 1885

Liabilities of Tenants

Liabilities of Tenants

Rights of Landowners

Not provided

Liabilities of Landowners Rights of Tenants

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided On such unsatisfied rent decree, although ejectment proceedings cannot be done, but the holding is liable to sale in execution of the unsatisfied rent decree.

Transferable and heritable In determination of the fair Not liable to be ejected rights, occupancy rights; if except on the ground and equitable rent, the the rent is paid in cash, the of breach of condition court shall leave to the T has a right to plant trees specified in the contract T a minimum profit of and appropriate the same; between parties or on 10% of the balance which however, if the rent is paid the grounds of usage remains after deducting otherwise than in cash, the of land in any manner the gross rents payable LO and T shall have equal which renders it unfit for shares in the timber and the purpose of tenancy other trees or broken a condition consistent with the provisions of this Act. Not provided May eject for breach of a If the rent is paid otherwise contractual condition or than in cash, the LO shall for an act doe in violation have equal right to the of the statute produce of the trees as would the T Not provided Payment of a fair and Liable to be ejected for equitable rent breach of contractual or statutory condition Not provided Not provided

Obligated to pay rent at a fair and equitable rate, subject to a maximum rate

Liabilities of Tenants

(Continued)

In cases of acquisition, payment of compensation of an amount equal to 50 times the land revenue. The T is also required to deposit an amount in the office of the DC within three months in order for him to pay that amount to the LO LO is liable to give away the ownership rights in land Not provided

Rights/ Liabilities/ Power

Rights of Tenants

Legislation

Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948

(Continued) Termination of Lease/ Provisions for Eviction

Claim to Produce/Other Rights in Land

Right to Purchase Landowner’s Interest

If the LO intends to sell the T is entitled to receive Tenancy is not terminated A maximum limit is site on which dwelling compensation on by efflux of time or any specified for the house is built (at the termination of tenancy other reason except as amount of rent – 5 expense of T or his/her for the trees planted by T provided under the Act; times the assessment predecessor), the T shall during the continuance of T can terminated tenancy payable of land or Rs be given first option to tenancy; entitled to twoby surrendering the land 20 per acre; subject to purchase such site; On thirds of the total produce in favour of the LO; If such limitations, the giving of notice by the LO of naturally growing trees; the T is in occupation Mamlatdar of the village to T for his/her intention if land is mortgaged by a of a dwelling house (having regard to the rate to sell the site, if the T LO b way of usufructuary built at the expense of T prevalent in the locality, does not respond within mortgage to T, tenancy or his/her predecessor, productivity of land etc.) the stipulated time, T shall be in abeyance for such T is not entitled is required to fix the shall be deemed to have such period and after the to be evicted from such rate of rent payable by relinquished his/her right expiry of such period it dwelling house; where T; In case the amount of of first option. Also, if the shall resume on the same a tenancy is terminated revenue and cess payable T residing in a DH intends terms and conditions; Bar on the ground that it by the T exceeds oneto purchase such site, T is to attachment, seizure or has done a destructive sixth of the produce of entitled to give notice to sale of land held under act, no proceeding of such land. T is entitled the LO to such effect and tenancy ejectment can be carried to deduct the amount so may apply to the Tribunal. out against T, unless in excess from the rent the LO has served T a payable to the LO; In notice specifying the act cases where payment of of destruction and T fails land revenue is suspended within a period of one or remitted, the rent shall year to restore the land; In also be suspended or case of termination due to remitted. nonpayment of rent, the Mamlatdar is required to call upon T to tender such amount and until then, no ejectment proceeding can be carried out

Amount of Rent Payable (or Any Other Amount)

Rights of Landowners

A minimum limit is specified for the amount of rent-twice the assessment payable of that land

LO is entitled to one-third of Not provided Tenancy can be terminated the produce of naturally by the LO if the T has growing trees failed to pay rent, acted in destruction of property, subdivided or sublet the land, failed to cultivate personally etc.; where T has surrendered the land, LO is entitled to retain the land so surrendered; LO has a right to terminated tenancy for personal cultivation and usage for non-agricultural purpose. However, no such termination for personal cultivation can happen if- it leaves the T with less than half the area of land leased to him/ her, is in contravention of Fragmentation and Consolidation law of 1947 or when the T has become a member of a co-op society (Continued)

Legislation

(Continued) Right to Purchase Landowner’s Interest

Liabilities of Landowners

On an order by the Tribunal T are responsible for If tenancy has terminated Until the rent is so fixed (for sale of site of DH to maintenance of boundary on the ground that T has by the Mamlatdar, T is T), the T may be required marks on the land held by done a destructive act, liable to pay rent at a rate to deposit the amount so them; if the maintenance on receipt of the notice at which it was payable determined and on deposit of any bunds protecting specifying such act, the immediately before of such amount, the site land held by T is neglected T is liable to restore the the commencement of shall be deemed to have due to a dispute between land within a period of this Act, subject to the been transferred to the T. T and LO, the govt may one year. maximum limit specified. require such maintenance The T is liable to pay land to be carried out by revenue, irrigation cess the person in actual and other cess levied for possession of the land, the land he holds under i.e. T tenancy. LO is not liable to make LO intending to sell site of If tenancy is terminated on If the LO recovers rent any contribution towards DH is required to send a the ground that T has in contravention of the cultivation of land in notice to T of his intention done a destructive act, LO the provisions, he/she possession of the T. to do so and requiring is liable to give T a notice is liable to refund the T to state whether he/ in writing specifying the excess amount and also she is willing to purchase destructive act. pay compensation to site; If the T does so, LO T as determined by the is required to make an Mamlatdar. application to the Tribunal for determination of the value of the site. However, if the T gives a notice to LO, the Lo does not have an option to refuse.

Claim to Produce/Other Rights in Land

Liabilities of Tenants

Termination of Lease/ Provisions for Eviction

Amount of Rent Payable (or Any Other Amount)

Rights/ Liabilities/ Power

Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act, 1908

Rights of Landowners

Rights of Tenants

(Continued)

A right of acquisition of A settled raiyat is entitled to Settled Raiyats have If the land is held by T (in right of occupancy of a Occupancy Rights; In case be protected from eviction an event of LO applying proprietor exists rent is paid in cash, the except on grounds for enhancing the rent T has the right to plant specified under the Actpayable) in excess of the trees and appropriate their usage of land leading to area for which rent has produce and if the rent destruction of property been previously paid by is paid otherwise than in or breach of contractual him, no such increase shall cash, T and LO have equal condition be made in the amount rights to the produce of payable by T; The DC may such trees. rather decrease the amount of rent on certain grounds on an application by the Tthat the soil of the holding has deteriorated for no fault of the T, or the LO has failed to carry put the necessary arrangements for irrigation, a fall in local prices etc. All interests in land may Occupancy rights in land A non-occupancy raiyat The rent payable by T is become united in one can be transferred to is liable to be ejected on liable to be enhanced by person by succession or the LO by transfer or certain grounds- failure to an order of the DC and transfer and the LO. succession and thereafter pay rent, usage of land in the LO may apply for the LO holds land as a violation of local custom or the same specifying the proprietor; If the rent is in an injurious manner to prevalent rates in the paid otherwise than in the land, breach of statutory locality, the amount that cash, the LO is entitled condition etc.; however, a LO wishes to claim, the to an equal extent to the suit for ejectment on the rates at which various produce of trees planted ground of refusal to pay classes of land are rented by T a fair and equitable rent for etc. cannot be instituted unless a notice specifying the same has been tendered.

Goa, Daman and Diu Agricultural Tenancy Act, 1964

Legislation

(Continued)

Not provided

Liabilities of Landowners

Benefit of suspension and remission of rent is available to T

T is liable to pay rent at a fair and equitable rate

Liabilities of Tenants

Rights of Tenants

Amount of Rent Payable (or Any Other Amount)

Rights/ Liabilities/ Power

Claim to Produce/Other Rights in Land

Right to Purchase Landowner’s Interest

Not provided On receipt of notice of non- Not provided payment of rent, a nonoccupancy T is required to pay the amount within a period of six- month; if T does not agree to pay such rent, DC may pass an order of ejection On refusal to pay a fair and If the holding is divided by an order of the court, it equitable rent, the LO is shall be binding on the LO required to give a notice to T to pay such amount within a period of sixmonths When LO intends to sell the If a T apprehends If any person is ejected land, T has a first right to dispossession in from land otherwise than purchase such land; On contravention of the in accordance with the tillers’ day, every land held provision of this Act, he/ Act, the person is entitled by the person as a T shall she is entitled to apply to recover immediate be deemed to have been to the Mamlatdar for an possession on an purchased from LO free order safeguarding the application to Mamlatdar from all encumbrances; possession; Rights are within six months of heritable; the land is not such dispossession; T can liable to be attached and surrender the holding; in sold ion execution of a case of termination by nondecree Rights in Trees, payment of rent where LO right to erect farmhouse files a proceeding for nonpayment, the Mamlatdar shall give an opportunity to the T to pay the amount within 30 days of the order

Termination of Lease/ Provisions for Eviction

Not provided

Payment of rent not exceeding the maximum limit; payment of irrigation cess or any other tax levied

If the LO recovers amount in excess of maximum rent, LO is liable to restore the amount pay compensation; payment of land revenue; not liable to contribute towards cost of cultivation; compensation for improvements made to the T

Rights of Landowners

Liabilities of Tenants

Liabilities of Landowners

Not provided

LO may terminate tenancy Not provided on a few grounds like nonpayment of rent, improper usage of land, sub-division or sub-letting etc. Not provided Maintenance of boundary marks and protection of protective bunds

(Continued)

If the T is willing to purchase but contends the price, he/she is required to apply to the C for determination of a fair price; For tillers’ day Mamlatdar is required to determine prices of sale of land When LO intends to sell the land, Lo is liable to give a notice to the T to exercise his option to purchase at a price specified in the notice

Not provided

Rights of Tenants

Gujarat Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948

Rights of Landowners

Rights/ Liabilities/ Power

Legislation

(Continued) Termination of Lease/ Provisions for Eviction

Claim to Produce/Other Rights in Land

Right to Purchase Landowner’s Interest

Right to trees planted by T; If the LO intends to sells a Limited right of surrender Maximum amount of site at which T has built two-third of the produce of holding; a T cannot be rent provided and the DH, T is given the first of naturally growing trees; evicted from DH if it is rate of rent paid by T is option of purchasing the a T entitled to possession built at the expense of T subject to such limit; the site at a value determined of a land or DH may or predecessor; tenancy amount of rent payable by the tribunal apply to the Mamlatdar cannot be terminated for is determined by the in order to take such personal cultivation if it Mamlatdar; If, for a year, possession leaves the T with only less the aggregate amount of than half of the area of land revenue payable by land or T has become a T exceeds one-third of the member of co-op farming total value of produce, society etc. the T is entitled to deduct the excess amount from the rent payable to LO. One-third of the produce of Not provided A minimum limit is The tenancy can be naturally growing trees specified for the amount terminated on a few of rent-twice the grounds only – nonassessment payable of payment of rent, destructive action to the that land property, sub-division or sublet of land, failure to personally cultivate, usage of land for other purposes; However, the T has a right to terminate tenancy for personal cultivation or usage for non-agricultural purpose

Amount of Rent Payable (or Any Other Amount)

Liabilities of Landowners

Liabilities of Tenants

(Continued)

T is liable to respond to the If the T intends to terminate T is responsible for Until the rent is so fixed maintaining boundary notice of LO for purchase tenancy by surrendering by the Mamlatdar, the marks; repairs of of site and if fails to do so, the interest in land, T is T is liable to pay to the protective bunds on orders would relinquish his/her required to intimate the LO the rent at which it of the state govt preferential right; Once C to that effect and C was payable immediately the Tribunal determines is required to conduct before the commencement the value of the site, T is an enquiry; the Act of the Amending Act of required to deposit the provides certain relief 1955; the T is also liable amount in the Tribunal. from termination on the to pay land revenue, ground of non-payment irrigation cess and other of rent and where T cesses levied by the has conducted an act govt for the land under destructive to the property tenancy Not provided When a LO intends to For any proceeding of LO is not liable to make sell a site of DH, LO is termination to commence, contribution towards bound to give a notice the LO is required to cost of cultivation; if to T requiring him/her give three months’ notice any amount of rent to exercise option of to the T informing the is recovered by the purchase within three decision and also citing LO in contravention months; If the T intimates the grounds; for tenancy of the provisions of such willingness, LO to terminate for personal the Act, LO is liable is required to apply to cultivation or nonto refund the excess the Tribunal for the agricultural purposes, amount so recovered determination of value of certain conditions need to and is also liable to the site. be fulfilled as specified in pay compensation the Act. as determined by the Mamlatdar; LO is liable to suspend or remit the rent if the revenue payable to the govt has been suspended or remitted.

Rights of Tenants

Hyderabad Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950

Rights of Landowners

Rights/ Liabilities/ Power

Legislation

(Continued) Termination of Lease/ Provisions for Eviction

Claim to Produce/Other Rights in Land

If T has planted any trees, T may apply to the Tribunal Tenancy is not terminable T is entitled to their by efflux of time; may be for determination produce; entitled to twoterminated by surrender of reasonable rate; thirds of the produce of by the T of his rights suspension or remission naturally growing trees; to the LO; if a T is in of rent and in case of no interest of a T is liable occupation of a DH on default by the LO, T is to be attached or sold in a site belonging to LO, entitled to compensation execution of a decree or such T is not liable to order of a court; A PT be eviction; if tenancy is entitled to redeem has been terminated for possession of the holding destructive act done to if PT is not in possession the land or non-payment at the commencement of of rent, relief exists in this Act the form that no eviction proceedings can be carried out without giving of notices to the effect LO may also apply LO may terminated tenancy Entitled to one-third of the produce of naturally for determination of on the ground that T has growing trees reasonable rate failed to pay rent, did a destructive act towards land, sub-divided or sublet the holding, has used land for purpose other than agriculture etc.

Amount of Rent Payable (or Any Other Amount)

Not provided

T is given the first option of purchasing site on which T has built DH; A PT has a right to purchase LO’s interest in the land held by former as a PT

Right to Purchase Landowner’s Interest

Liabilities of Tenants

Payment of rent subject to the maximum limit set as per the Act

Not provided

(Continued)

When LO intimates the T of T is responsible for his/her intention to sell the maintenance of boundary site of DH, T is required marks of lands held by to communicate his/her him/her; if the govt finds willingness to buy the that construction or site; if T does so, and Lo maintenance of protective applies to the tribunal, T bunds of land is neglected is required to deposit the owning to a dispute requisite amount in the between the two parties, it tribunal; A PT desiring shall declare the work to to purchase LO’s interest be carried out by any one shall make an offer to and the costs thereof shall LO stating the price PT be payable by the person is prepared to pay and if in actual possession, i.e. T the LO fails to respond, T may apply to the tribunal for determination of fair price

Legislation

(Continued)

Amount of Rent Payable (or Any Other Amount)

Any LO receiving rent in terms of service or labour is required to apply to the Tehsildar for commutation of such rent into cash rent; if any LO recovers any amount of rent in contravention of the provisions of the Act, the Lo is liable to refund to the T the excess amount and pay such amount of compensation as may be determined by the Tehsildar; the rate of rent is liable to be suspended or remitted by the LO for any case where the payment of land revenue is suspended or remitted; if the LO fails to do such suspension or remission, he/she is liable to pay compensation

Rights/ Liabilities/ Power

Liabilities of Landowners

Termination of Lease/ Provisions for Eviction

Right to Purchase Landowner’s Interest A LO intending to sell site on which T has made a DH, he/she is required to give a notice in writing requiring the T to communicate his willingness to purchase within a period of three months; when T does so, LO is required to make an application to the tribunal for determination of the value of site

Claim to Produce/Other Rights in Land Not provided

Jammu and Kashmir Tenancy Act, 1980

Rights of Landowners

Rights of Tenants

Not provided Commutation of mode of payment can take place only with the consent of both T and LO; if the LO or T does not agree to the amount fixed by appraisement of a harvest by division of the actual produce, the LO or T may require division of the actual produce and if either party disagrees, the matter could be taken to a RO to be determined; T may apply for abatement of rent if the productive powers or area of holding is decreased Commutation of mode of payment can take place only with the consent of both T and LO; If the T fails to pay rent due to the LO, the LO may apply to a Revenue Officer for realization of the amount due; rent is liable to be enhanced if the LO sues for enhancement on a ground that- rate being paid is below the prevailing rate, productive powers pf the T have increased by an improvement effected during the currency of present rent; even when rent is paid in cash, LO may by application enhance the rent The LO is entitled to a part of the produce where rent is decided to be paid in terms of produce of the land

Occupancy rights may be acquired by the T as per the local customs; A T is entitled to tend, cut and harvest the produce of tenancy in due course of husbandry, without any interference on the part of LO

Not provided

(Continued)

Right to Purchase Landowner’s Interest

Liabilities of Landowners

The rent payable in respect Not provided Except for the rent charged Not provided of a tenancy is first on produce as per the charged on the produce specifications; mentioned in the Act, a tenant is not liable to pay for a tenancy rent exceeding an amount equal to half of the produce or value of such produce. LO is bound to give T a Not provided receipt for the rent paid; if the rent is taken by appraisement of produce, the LO is bound to attend If the LO intends to sell Under certain Entitled to suspension or Tenancy cannot be a site on which T has circumstances, where T remission of rent where terminated by efflux of constructed a DH, it can has been dispossessed land revenue is suspended time; Any land resumed be sold only to the T at of the holding either by or remitted from the T cannot be whose expense DH is surrender or eviction, T is transferred but can only built; otherwise, T also entitled for restoration of be sold to the T who has a right to purchase possession by applying to on resumption has been such site and may exercise the Tribunal; Heritable; evicted from such land; such right by notifying Right to surrender limited In cases where eviction the LO to that effect; only to surrenders to state proceedings have been and if the LO refuses to govt; right to trees planted instituted for non-payment sell, to may apply to the by T; Right to erect of rent, order of eviction tehsildar to continue the farmhouse; for registration shall not be passed if T proceedings of sale; T purposes, where T holds pays the amount due; on also has the first option to land from more than one termination of tenancy, T is purchase land held by T LO, T is entitled to choose entitled to be compensated that LO intends to sell the land for which he/she for any improvements wishes to be registered made by him/her

Claim to Produce/Other Rights in Land

Liabilities of Tenants

Termination of Lease/ Provisions for Eviction

Amount of Rent Payable (or Any Other Amount)

Rights/ Liabilities/ Power

Karnataka Land Rights of Reforms Act, Tenants 1961

Legislation

(Continued)

Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963

Rights of Tenants

Liabilities of Landowners

(Continued)

The rent payable is an aggregate of 10 times the land revenue and water rate; T is liable to pay land revenue No LO can recover rent LO is not liable to make any If a LO evicts a T and takes LO intending to sell site of DH is required to send a in terms of service or contribution towards cost possession of a holding, notice to T of his intention labour; the LO is liable to of cultivation but fails to cultivate such to do so and requiring refund any excess amount land or use it for the T to state whether he/ received purpose for which it was she is willing to purchase acquired, the land shall site; If the T does so, LO stand transferred to and is required to make an vest in the state govt; application to the Tribunal Repair of protective bunds for determination of T on order of state govt The persons who are entitled Not provided T has a right to fixity of Land Tribunal may to possession of the land tenure; a T from whom determine proportion of as per the provisions of land is resumed under the rent to be paid in certain the Act have a right to Act is entitled to be paid circumstances; the Act apply for restoration of a sum of compensation specifies an amount of possession for the improvements fair rent that is payable belonging to him and also by the T to LO a solatium equal to the value of gross produce of a period of 2 years

Liabilities of Tenants

T can be evicted on certain Not provided Not provided grounds by the LO – nonpayment of rent, failure to personally cultivate etc. Not provided Responsible for maintenance Price payable for site of DH is an amount equal to 10 of boundary marks; times the land revenue Repair of protective bunds on order of state govt

Not provided

Rights of Landowners

Legislation

(Continued)

A LO may apply to the LT for recovery of arrears of rent due from T

If the LT determines an amount to be paid by T for arrears of rent on an application by LO, T is required to submit the amount to the LT Not provided

Rights of Landowners

Liabilities of Tenants

Liabilities of Landowners

Amount of Rent Payable (or Any Other Amount)

Rights/ Liabilities/ Power

Claim to Produce/Other Rights in Land

Not provided The LO who requires possession of the holding for purposes of personal cultivation from a T holding land in excess of ceiling area, can resume such land from T; a LO may also resume a holding from a T that comprises of agricultural lands if such holding is absolutely necessary for the purposes of plantation in the opinion of the LB Not provided Not provided

Termination of Lease/ Provisions for Eviction

Not provided

Right to Purchase Landowner’s Interest

Malabar Tenancy Act, 1929

Rights of Tenants

(Continued)

In cases where the T’s rights are heritable and The Act determines fair rent Certain classes of tenants intermediary has alienable; on extinction of have a right to fixity of to be paid and revision LO’s rights a cultivating T committed default in tenure; In any case where of such fair rent can take is entitled to continue in respect of payment of eviction has been obtained place only after a period the holding as such rent for three consecutive on the any of the specified of 12 months pf such years, the intermediary is grounds, and the LO fails payment; A T who pays bound on application of to use reasonable portions an amount equal to fair the T to sell land to such of land without reasonable rent, is not liable to pay T at a price calculated cause and within 6 years LO any other amount; as specified by the Act; of such eviction, the T is right to obtain receipts In other cases where T entitled to file a suit for belongs to the class of restoration of possession; Kudyiruppu and has when a LO obtains a held land for a minimum decree of eviction and period of 100 years, T is intends to sell the land, entitled to purchase LO’s the T is entitled to bid interest; Also, if the T is for such sale; right of too poor to pay the price surrender of the holding in a lump sum, T may apply to the court to order that the amount should be paid to the immediate LO with interest at 5½% per annum by a maximum of 12 instalments as fixed by the court.

Legislation

(Continued) Right to Purchase Landowner’s Interest

Liabilities if Landowners

Liabilities of Tenants

Not provided

Not provided LO is entitled to sue for The LO is entitled to file a possession if the T suit for eviction on certain (kudiyiruppu) transfers specified; grounds – T has rights to any other person wilfully denied title of otherwise than as a LO, T has intentionally kudyiruppu; in case of committed acts of waste as protected ulkudi, the LO are calculated to materially is entitled to possession of impair the value of land, that land. T has not paid rent, T has allowed a stranger to encroach upon land etc.; A LO who has obtained a decree of eviction is entitled to sell the holding Not provided Not provided When the LO provides a Not provided protected ulkudi with an alternative site, he/she is bound to accept the same Not provided Not provided When the LO intends to Liable to pay land revenue possess the land of a due to the govt; LO is liable protected ulhundi, LO to bear the tax levied by is liable to provide the T municipal or cantonment to with another site as an such extent where the fair alternative and suitable of rent paid is higher than what an equal area is payable as tax, otherwise the LO and T are required to bear the tax in equal shares; where assessment payable in respect land is remitted by the govt, the LO is also liable to remit the rent proportionately

Claim to Produce/Other Rights in Land

Rights of Landowners

Termination of Lease/ Provisions for Eviction

Amount of Rent Payable (or Any Other Amount)

Rights/ Liabilities/ Power

Orissa Tenancy Act, 1913

Not provided Enhancement of rent may be done either by contract or a suit based on specified grounds – rate that T is paying is below the prevailing rate, there has been a rise in the average local prices, productive powers of T have increased by an improvement expensed at the LO or by fluvial action

Rights of Landowners

Can only be ejected on one of the following groundsT has used land in a manner which renders it unfit for the purpose of tenancy or has broken a condition consistent with the provisions of this Act and on such breach is liable to be ejected as per the terms of contract

If a suit is filed for enhancement of rent, such suit shall not be entertained if within the preceding 15 years rent was enhanced by a contract; T may also apply for reduction of rent on the grounds thatsoil of the holding has permanently deteriorated by no fault of T or there has been a fall in the average local prices of staple food crops.

Rights of Tenants

Right of Occupancy obtained by custom or otherwise is continued under the Act; when the entire interests of the LO and the T become united in the same person by transfer or succession or otherwise, such person shall hold the land as a proprietor or permanent tenure holder as the case may be; Right to plant and enjoy the products of flower, trees, utilize and dispose of the timber, trees etc.; interest of T is transferable without the LO’s consent to any payment of fee to the LO __

Not provided

(Continued)

PEPSU Tenancy and Agricultura Lands Act, 1955

Legislation

(Continued)

Obligation to pay rent at fair and equitable prices

Not provided

Liabilities of Tenants

Liabilities of Landowners Rights of Tenants

Not provided

Termination of Lease/ Provisions for Eviction

Right to Purchase Landowner’s Interest

T has been given an option of purchase of site on which a Dh has been built on T’s expense at a price agreed upon in writing or as determined by a PA; if LO does not respond or T is not willing to pay the price offered by LO, T may file an application to PA for determination of price

Any transfer of T’s interest is Not provided to be made by a registered document  

Claim to Produce/Other Rights in Land

A T admitted after the The T is not liable to pay Tenancy can only be commencement of any amount exceeding the terminated on certain 1956 Amendment Act maximum as specified in specified grounds (failure are entitled to hold the Act. of payment of rent, failure the tenancy land for a to personally cultivate minimum period of three etc.); a T holding land years; right to make for more than 12 years improvements on land by are not liable for eviction applying to the LO for on additional grounds permission to conduct of land being reserved or such improvements being less than 30 acres; there exists a bar from eviction of T from a DH; on termination of tenancy, T is entitled to receive an amount of compensation for any improvements made by him on the land

Amount of Rent Payable (or Any Other Amount)

Rights/ Liabilities/ Power

Liabilities of Landowners

Liabilities of Tenants

Rights of Landowners

(Continued)

Not provided Not provided Tenancy may also be terminated on additional grounds of- land comprising tenancy is reserved by LO for personal cultivation, if the LO owns 30 acres or less of land, and the land falls within permissible limit A T intending to purchase Not provided Not provided Every LO owning land such site of DH is required exceeding 30 standard to give a notice to LO in acres is entitled to writing; select land for personal cultivation from land held by him Not provided Where a Lo has received Bound to give receipts of notice from the T to rent paid; if any rent has purchase DH site, Lo is been received in excess of liable to communicate to the prescribed amount, the T in writing, the price the PA may order the LO at which LO is willing to to refund the amount to sell the holding T, provide compensation for any service rendered by T and pay govt a penalty

Not provided

Rights/ Liabilities/ Power

Punjab Tenancy Rights of Act, 1887 Tenants

Legislation

(Continued) Termination of Lease/ Provisions for Eviction

Not provided For commutation of the mode of payment of rent, the consent of both the parties is required; if either part does not attend the appraisement, either can apply to the RO for appointment of a referee for such division; rent can be reduced where a land ceases to be irrigated or flooded; T is entitled to an abatement in respect of any deficiency is due to the loss of land; remission or suspension of rent is permitted when land revenue is suspended or remitted; T has a power to deposit rent with RO where Lo refuses to receive or grant receipt of rent or where the T is doubtful as to the person entitled to receive rent

Amount of Rent Payable (or Any Other Amount)

Right to Purchase Landowner’s Interest

Not provided Right of Occupancy is acquired by certain persons like the ones occupied land for a period of 20 years through ancestors and other circumstances as have been specified and once the right has been identified, such occupancy shall continue to vest in the same person after the commencement of this Act; A T is entitled to tend, cut and harvest the produce of tenancy in due course of husbandry without any interference from LO; T is entitled to the exclusive possession of the produce before division (if rent is taken by produce)

Claim to Produce/Other Rights in Land

Rights of Landowners

For commutation of the mode of payment of rent, the consent of both the parties is required; if the land is occupied without the consent of LO, the LO is entitled to receive from such person an amount for the use or occupation of that land at the rate of rent payable in the preceding agricultural year; if either part does not attend the appraisement, either can apply to the RO for appointment of a referee for such division; rent is entitled to be enhanced where a land previously not irrigated or flooded becomes irrigated or flooded; rents paid in cash can also be enhanced on specified grounds

The rent payable in respect of a tenancy is first charged on the produce; LO is entitled to be present at and take part in the division of the produce and thereafter to the possession of his/her share; If a decree is passed for attachment and sale of the produce of a tenancy the LO may apply to the RO to sell the produce and pay the proceeds

(Continued)

Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 1955

Legislation

(Continued)

Liabilities of Landowners Rights of Tenants

Right to a written lease; no payment other than rent can be made to LO

Not provided

Not provided Where rent is taken by division or appraisement of the produce, if the T removes any part of the produce or deals with it in a manner contrary to established usage, the produce would be deemed to have been as the fullest crop; every T is liable to pay additional rent for all land proved to be in excess of the area for which rent has been previously paid unless the addition is to tenancy which was previously lost by diversion or otherwise Not provided

Liabilities of Tenants

Termination of Lease/ Provisions for Eviction

Amount of Rent Payable (or Any Other Amount)

Rights/ Liabilities/ Power

A T has a right to possess a residential house free of charge in the abadi of the village; right to remove and utilize for any work in connection with the holding or residential house for making improvements

Not provided

Claim to Produce/Other Rights in Land

Not provided

Not provided

Right to Purchase Landowner’s Interest

Source: Author

Not provided

Liabilities of Tenants

Liabilities of Landowners

Not provided

Rights of Landowners

Not provided

Khudkasht right evolves upon the person who succeeds the estate and is not transferable except by exchange or by partition; there lies a restriction on letting if khudkasht except as per the provisions of the Act and the right can extinguish upon failure to succession, transfer etc.; accrual of khatedari rights in improvements and otherwise An amount of compensation Not provided is due to the LO for accrual of khatedari rights and for any improvements made by LO Every person claiming compensation for accrual of rights in the land held from him/her by the T of khudkasht shall submit a detailed statement of claim to the SDO

Haryana Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1972

Gujarat Lands Ceiling Act, 1960

The permissible area under ceiling law has been determined with respect to a landlord or a tenant.

While determining the excess of land for a unit, the CA is required to consider whether such land is held by the person as a Bhumidar or an Asami (tenant) The Act prohibits holding land whether as a tenant or a landowner any land in excess of ceiling area. And thereafter, the holders of land have to furnish to the Mamlatdar a statement that specifies whether land has been held by such person as a tenant or landowner and particulars of these lands. In cases where a tenant holds surplus land, the landowner is entitled to restoration of possession of such land.

The Act does not consider tenancy while determine the area of ceiling. However, In cases of PT, the Tribunal is bound to determine whether such land stands transferred under the provision of the tenancy law, and if so, the extent of land so transferred would be excluded from holding of such owner and included in the holding of the tenant, as if the tenant was the owner for the purposes of this Act. None

Andhra Pradesh Land Reforms (Ceilings on Agricultural Holdings) Act, 1973

Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1950 Delhi Land Holdings (Ceiling) Act, 1960

Ceiling Area Determined with Respect to Tenants

Ceiling Legislation

A13: Status of tenants under ceiling legislations

Where notice is issued to interested persons after order of surplus land has been made by the tribunal, the tenant is entitled to apply to the tribunal for compensation to be paid as also to make claims of possession and interests. For the purposes of distribution of land, the land shall be allotted to a co-operative farming society (generally comprising of tenants) and also to small holders. In case the mamlatdar considers that allotment of land may take time, he/she may allot land for cultivation as leases for a period of one year. When persons are required to furnish declaration of their holdings, they are not liable to include the land that is under the permissible area of a tenant under the Punjab or Pepsu law. The right and interest of the tenant in the surplus area which is included within the permissible area of the landowner stands extinguished under the Act. While disposing the surplus area, the state govt is to frame a scheme for distributing the land to the extent of permissible area to tenants that are liable to ejectment.

Converts the interest of tenure-holders into that of tenants. None

When the land vested in the govt is required to be distributed, the Act does say that it shall be distributed to poor people depended upon agriculture for their livelihood but does not exclusively mentions tenants.

Appearance of Tenants as a Beneficiary of Ceiling Law

Permissible area is determined both for a landowner and a tenant

All lands held by tenants immediately prior to the date of commencement None

Ceiling area is determined for a person and family unit, but the Act does not consider tenancy. At the time of selection of land, the person may choose to select land and retain such land whether held as an owner or tenant. While holding an enquiry to fix ceiling limit for a person, the C shall consider if any land is held by the holder as tenant, and if so whether the landowner has a subsisting right of resumption of the land for personal cultivation. After such consideration, the C has the power to restore possession of land to the LO of so much of the surplus land as LO is entitled to resume and the holding does not exceed the ceiling limit. This order of restoration of possession can be passed by the C if it appears to him that the land is held from a LO and the LO has a right of resumption for personal cultivation in respect of that land under the relevant tenancy law. Tenants have a claim of compensation and the amount would be decided based upon the fact that whether their tenancy was terminable under the relevant tenancy law on expiration of period or otherwise

Himachal Pradesh Ceiling on Land holdings Act, 1972

Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961 Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963

Maharashtra Agricultural Lands (Ceiling on Holdings) Act, 1961

(Continued)

The Act provides for resumption of land by tenants under certain circumstances, and for the persons who cannot resume land, the Act makes them as beneficiaries when distribution takes place. At the time of distribution of surplus lands, in cases where the surplus land belonged to a holder who rendered a tenant landless by resuming possession of the land, the surplus land shall first be offered to that tenant.

If the landowner, for the purposes of selecting lands and furnishing details to the C, selects all land under possession of tenants, the landowner is not entitled to eject the tenants from except the grounds given under tenancy laws. None

Under the process of determining excess land, the CA is required to determine whether such land is held by the person as a LO or a tenant. When such land is in possession of the tenant, the compensation payable is required to be apportioned between the LO and tenant in a proportion determined by the CA. (Provisions relating to Bhumidar and Occupancy Rights available but unclear)

Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act, 1960

The ceiling area is determined for a person. It is not clear if a person includes a tenant also and no specific provision has been made in that respect.

Rajasthan Imposition of Ceiling on Agricultural Holding Act, 1973 Sikkim Agricultural Land Ceiling and Reforms Act, 1977

None

No person, either as a land-holder or raiyat is not entitled to hold any land in excess of ceiling area. Every person is allowed to only hold land up to the limit of permissible area, whether held as a LO or tenant and thus the area is determined for a LO or tenant, as the case may be. Also, while determining the surplus area of any person, a tenancy created in such land which could have been declared surplus shall be ignored.

Orissa land Reforms Act, 1960 Punjab land Reforms Act, 1972

Madhya Pradesh Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1960

Ceiling Area Determined with Respect to Tenants

Ceiling Legislation

(Continued)

None

The SG is required to frame a scheme that provides for the terms and conditions on which the rights of ownership are to be conferred on the tenants and also the terms on which land comprised in the surplus area is to be allotted. The Act also specifically saves certain rights on tenants to purchase land in cases where the tenant was entitled to purchase land comprised in tenancy at the same terms and conditions as provided under tenancy law. None

Displaced tenants are one of the beneficiaries to whom surplus land is to be distributed. Temporary leases for a period of one year can be allotted in cases where the C considers that the proceedings of distribution of land would take time None

Where excess land is held by a tenant, such person may be allowed to retain the excess land or a part as falls within the ceiling limit and acquire the rights of the LO in respect of that land on payment of compensation to the govt in whom the land vests.

Appearance of Tenants as a Beneficiary of Ceiling Law

Source: Author

Uttar Pradesh Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1960 West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955

Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling on Land) Act, 1961 None

None

Ceiling area is determined for a raiyat.

Not provided

While filing of returns for the purpose of ceiling, the person has to declare the extent of land that is held by a tenant through him/her. In cases where transfer of a land is declared void under the Act, the land so transferred to a cultivating tenant shall be included within the ceiling area. Ceiling are is determined with respect to tenure holders.

Ceiling LawAP Land Reforms (Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings) Act, 1973

None

Tenure Holder

None Bound by ceiling limit but has a right to choose the land as desires to keep in possession; the LO is also entitled to receive the possession of land held by a tenant that he/she has surrendered and also to receive the rent for last agricultural produce of the tenant.

Tenancy Laws- Right of personal cultivation, right AP (AA) to resume land, Tenancy termination of Law, 1956, tenancy AP (TA) Tenancy and Agricultural Lands, 1950; Hyderabad Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950

Andhra Pradesh

Landowner

Law

State

A14: Status of various players on land Small Holder

None Cultivating rights, Option of first purchase of land leased to the tenant or site at which DH is built, payment of fair rent, bar to eviction from DH; right of PT to purchase LO’s interest, right of PT to exchange lands, PT’s right to erect farmhouse; right of PT to resume possession of land None Special provision for a PT – the Tribunal is first to decide whether the land stands transferred to PT under the tenancy law and if it does, the extent of land so transferred would be excluded from the holding of the owner and would be included in the holding of the tenant as if the tenant was the owner.

Tenant

None

the law prohibits sub-tenancy

Subtenant

Land vested in the state govt is to be distributed as housesites to an AL.

The govt may direct that the provisions of bar to eviction from DH and right of first purchase of site of DH may also apply to AL or artisans

Agricultural Labourer (AL)

Not specified Tenancy Law-Assam (Temporarily Settled Areas) Tenancy Act, 1971

Tenancy Right to receive Law- Bihar rent Tenancy Act, 1885

Assam

Bihar

Right to possession of land, protection against ejectment, OC is entitled to acquire rights, titles and interests of LO, specifies maximum rate of rent payable; OC has a right to transfer and use of land

None

None Right to hold land Right to hold land for the purposes of for the purpose of personal cultivation collecting rents or (Raiyat); Right of bringing the land use of land; Right of under cultivation occupancy raiyats by establishing in trees tenants on it; a permanent TH is not liable for ejectment; a permanent tenure is capable of being transferred; right of succession to PTH

None

(Continued)

None the law prohibits sub-tenancy; also disallows formation of new under- tenants but those already formed under the 1935 tenancy law, are entitled to acquire rights of their landlord (called the intermediary rights) and also the ownership rights of the LO None None

Goa

State

(Continued)

Landowner

Ceiling Law

Not provided

Tenancy Law- Right to terminate tenancy on Goa, Daman specific grounds and Diu Agricultural Tenancy Act, 1964

Ceiling LawNone Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1950

Law

Not provided

Intermediary interests have passed to and become vested in the state; right to be compensated None

Tenure Holder None

Small Holder

None Bar from eviction saving the provisions of this Act, restoration of possession of land in cases where tenant is evicted otherwise; right to surrender holding; right to first purchase LO’s interest when intends to sale; heritable; right to trees on land; compensation for improvements made on termination of tenancy; right to erect farmhouse Not provided Not provided

None

Tenant

Not provided

Sub-tenancy is prohibited

None

Subtenant

Not provided

None

None

Agricultural Labourer (AL)

Gujarat

Termination of tenancy for default of tenant; termination of tenancy for personal cultivation or for use of any non-agricultural purpose (conditional)

LO is bound by the ceiling limit; LO is entitled to restoration of possession from the tenant where the tenant is in possession of the surplus land

Tenancy LawGujarat Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948

Ceiling LawGujarat Agricultural Lands Ceiling Act, 1960 Not provided

None

None Subletting Surrender of holding prohibited with intimation to the Collector; bar to eviction from DH; entitled for first option of purchasing site on which tenant has built dwelling house; right to trees planted; relief against termination in certain cases of non-payment of rent and misuse of land None SH is one Tenant is also bound of the by the ceiling limit; beneficiaries temporary lease can under be granted for a ceiling law period of one year who is where govt takes entitled to time for deciding an be allotted allotment policy land

(Continued)

AL is one of the beneficiaries entitled to be allotted land under the ceiling law

Provisions of bar of eviction from DH of a tenant also apply to an AL for the site of a DH and the land held on lease by persons carrying on an allied pursuit

Law

Ceiling LawHaryana Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1972

State

Haryana

(Continued)

Permissible area is declared for both a LO and tenant

Landowner None

Tenure Holder Permissible area is declared for both a LO and tenant; the rights and interest of the tenant in the surplus area which is included within the permissible area of the LO stands extinguished; the surplus area vested in the govt is required to be distributed to tenants and also to tenants liable to ejectment (on payment of a purchase price)

Tenant None

Small Holder

Agricultural Labourer (AL)

The definition of a Beneficiary of the ceiling tenant includes law and thus a subtenant and entitled to are thus liable to receive land be ejected and at the time of entitled to receive distribution land same as the tenants

Subtenant

Karnataka

Karnataka Land Reforms, 1961

The Act creates a general prohibition on creation of tenancies or their continuance in respect of a land; all lands in possession of tenants other than the leases permitted by the Act stand transferred to and vest in the govt.

None

None Tenant’s right is not terminable on efflux of time; eviction of tenant for default of payment of rent cannot be ordered if rent is paid during pendency of proceedings; right to trees; surrender of land by admission before tehsildar; bar to eviction from DH; site on which DH is built can be only sold to tenant if the LO intends to sell the same; tenant has the first option to purchase; entitled to be compensated for improvements made on land; entitled to be registered as occupants in certain circumstances

Subletting prohibited

(Continued)

If an AL is ordinarily residing in a DH not belonging to him/her then such DH shall vest absolutely in the govt and the AL would become the registered owner of such site.

Kerala Land None Reforms Act, 1963

Kerala

Landowner

Law

State

(Continued)

None

Tenure Holder A tenancy has been exempted from the application of the chapter of ceiling; rights of tenants to fixity of tenure; the Act creates specific circumstances for certain tenants to restore possession of their land if they had been dispossessed from such possession; certain sales of land for decree of arrears of rent accrued have been cancelled on deposit to the court an equal amount that the tenant is liable to pay; also tenants whose lands are resumed are to be paid compensation improvements and solatium

Tenant

Subtenant

None A small holder is entitled to resume a portion of the holding from the tenant who is in possession of land exceeding the ceiling area. Total area of land that an SH can possess is 5 acres and the acre of land under tenant should not be below the ceiling area for such tenant.

Small Holder

None

Agricultural Labourer (AL)

Madhya Pradesh Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1960

Maharashtra Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948

Madhya Pradesh None

None A LO has a right to terminate tenancy for default of tenant under specific circumstances. LO can also terminate tenancy for personal cultivation and non-agricultural purpose.

Ceiling determined for a “holder” of land.

None Land can be allotted to a co-operative farming society but not to a tenant directly. Although temporary leases may be allotted to tenants for a period of one year. None Tenancy cannot be terminated by efflux of time. If, in case a tenant is in occupation of a DH built at the expense of such tenant, the such tenant is not liable for ejection from such site of DH. Also, if the LO intends to sell the site of DH where tenant resides, the tenant shall be given first option to purchase the site. Or, if the tenant also has a right to purchase such site by giving notice to the LO to such effect. Have the right over produce of trees. They are also entitled to relief against eviction in certain cases. Sub-tenancy is prohibited

None

(Continued)

AL have been given similar rights over the site of DH as the tenantsright against eviction, first option to purchase site, right to purchase site. Also, such rights have been extended to the lands held on lease.

First in the order of priority for allotment of bhumiswami rights over surplus land.

Odisha

State

(Continued)

Landowner

Tenure Holder

Tenant

Tenants that have While determining Not provided been evicted by the area of resumption of land ceiling, the by the resumption Collector is of land by the LO, required to they are entitled consider whether to receive land any land is held at the time of by the holder as a redistribution. tenant, and if so, whether the LO has a subsisting right of resumption of the land for personal cultivation under the relevant tenancy law. Orissa Tenancy LO may terminate Tenure-holder is one Raiyats have a right to hold land for the Act, 1913 tenancy on of the classes of purpose of personal certain specified tenants and has a cultivation and also grounds. right to hold land have the right of for the purpose of continuance of such collecting rents or occupancy rights. bringing the land The Act provides under cultivation protection from by establishing eviction except on tenants on it. specified grounds. A permanent tenure-holder is not liable for ejection

Maharashtra Agricultural Lands (Ceiling on Holdings) Act, 1961

Law

None

Not provided

Small Holder

None

Not provided

Subtenant

None

Landless persons are also entitled to receive land under the Act.

Agricultural Labourer (AL)

Orissa Land Ceiling area has Reforms Act, been determined 1960 for both LO and tenant. None

Persons who fall under None the category of tenants of raiyats, but did not have any permanent or heritable rights in respect of their land on which they have built DH or farm house, shall be deemed to be a raiyat or tenant with respect to such site. The extent of resumable rights (land that can be resumed by the LO for the purpose of personal cultivation) is required to be determined and the extent of such right cannot be more than one-half of the lands in respect of each tenant. Tenants to whom land had been leased out in contravention of the provisions of the Act, are entitled to become raiyats of the same land by making an application to the RO.

None

(Continued)

The provisions for DH also apply to DH constructed by AL, whereby such people become raiyats or tenant with respect to such site.

None

Tenure Holder

Punjab Land No person can hold None Reforms Act, land more than 1972 the permissible area in one capacity or the other. And any such person- a LO/tenant/ mortgagee with possession is required to select permissible area and intimate such selection to the Collector.

Punjab LO has a right to Tenancy Act, produce where 1887 rent is being paid as a part of the produce.

Punjab

Landowner

Law

State

(Continued) Small Holder

None Rights of occupancy; rights to produce. The occupancy rights that have been acquired by the tenant as per the customs are entitled to be continued after the commencement of this Act. And OR can also be acquired under various under circumstances. None In determining the surplus land for any person, a Collector shall ignore a tenancy created in any land which has been or could have been declared as surplus of such a person. Also, the state govt is required to frame a scheme for utilizing the surplus land aby allotment of ownership rights on tenants in respect of such land as is compromised in the surplus area of the LO of such a tenant.

Tenant

None

None

Subtenant

AL are entitled to be allotted land of an area not exceeding 2 hectares of the first quality land or equivalent area, provided that the total area held by such allottee should not exceed 2 hectares of first quality land.

None

Agricultural Labourer (AL)

Tamil Nadu

Rajasthan

None

None Rajasthan Imposition of ceiling on Agricultural Holding Act, 1973 Tamil Nadu None Cultivating Tenants (Protection) Act, 1955 None

None

Rajasthan None Tenancy Act, 1955

A cultivating tenant cannot be evicted from the holding by a LO except under certain specific circumstances. Cultivating tenants also have a right to restoration of possession of land of which they are entitled.

None

None

None

None The Act majorly discusses the situations under which khatedari rights can occur in respect of a holding.

None

A subtenant is entitled and liable to similar rights and conditions as a khatedar tenant is. None

(Continued)

Landless persons are also entitled to receive land under the Act. None

None

State

(Continued)

None Where a land is in excess of the extent of land which the person is entitled to hold, and such land is held by the person as a tenant, the possession of the land in such cases would revert to the LO where and to the extent that which the LO is him/ herself not liable to be declared as surplus land.

Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceiling on Land Act, 1961)

Tenure Holder

Landowner

Law

Small Holder

None While submitting the statement of surplus land, a person has to mention the particulars of the land held by a tenant and the name and address of such tenant. And, the CA has to declare similar particulars while declaring surplus land. When a draft statement published by the CA, a notice is to be served to the concerned tenant wherever needed and would decide the objections received by them. Where the LO is entitled to restoration of possession of the land and the contract provides for continuation of the tenancy, the tenant is entitled to receive compensation form the LO. Govt may make rules protecting certain classes of tenants and allowing them to stay in possession.

Tenant None

Subtenant None

Agricultural Labourer (AL)

Uttar Pradesh

Agra Tenancy Act, 1926

Rights over land were None Permanent tenure LO have sir right heavily depended holders could with respect to upon the class of have sir right over their holdings. tenant a person their holdings as A LO has the belonged to. The per the Act and right to apply interest of a PTH they also appear to the Collector and FRT were as one of the to acquire the both heritable and classes of tenants. land held by an transferable and for They possess ex-proprietary or others was heritable a permanent occupancy tenant but not transferable. transferable for the purpose A tenant who has a interest and were of farming on right of occupancy intermediate improved lines. in any land has a between the LO A LO can also right of occupancy and the tenants apply to acquire in any other land from the time land from a which may be of permanent statutory tenant received by the LO settlement. A PTH for various or PTH. Tenants may also acquire purposesalso have a right land from a agricultural to exchange land statutory tenant development, between them if they based on the same own cultivation, belong to the same grounds as a LO. for groves etc. class. Tenants whose rights have been acquired by LO/PTO are entitled to get reinstated, reduction of rent for remainder of holding, retain the remainder holding etc.

(Continued)

None Subletting was allowed by the Act and most of the classes of tenants were only allowed to sublet for a period of 5 years. Also, the successor of the tenant is bound by subletting done by the previous tenant. The interest of any tenant holding under another whose interest is nontransferable shall extinguish on the extinction of the interest of that tenant. But where there is a valid sub-lease, at the time of extinction of tenant’s interest by surrender/ abandonment, the LO shall be bound by such agreement.

Source: Author

State

(Continued)

Landowner

None

Law

Uttar Pradesh Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1960 The ceiling limit is imposed upon a tenure-holder. Where possession of the surplus land is taken by the Collector, he/she shall permit the person to tend, gather or remove any ungathered crop/ fruits/trees on such and also to remove any other property.

Tenure Holder None

Tenant None

Small Holder None

Subtenant

None

Agricultural Labourer (AL)

Brief Description

Territorial Jurisdiction

The Act essentally aims to Whole of Andhra 1937, 1950 Andhra Pradesh Pradesh provide the requisite (Andhra Area) financial assistance to Co-operative land owners to pay Land Mortgage off their debts and Banks Act, make agricultural 1934 improvements. The bank is empowered to issue debentures as per the security of mortgages and other assessts. The SG is to carry the guarantee to these debuntures issued. The property is liable to be attached and sold in case of non-payemnt of the loan after approval of the board.

Agency Tracts Interest and Land Transfer Act, 1917

None

None

None

Madras Revenue Recovery Act, 1864- Sec 1 defining Public Revenue None None

None

Laws Repealed by the Act

None

Corresponding Rule/Regulation

None

Amendments If the Act to the Act Amends Any Other Law

None Limits the rate of interest Ganjam, Vizakapatnam and checks transfer of and Godavari land in the scheduled Districts districts of Ganjam, Vizakapatnam and Godavari. A transfer of land by a hill tribe member can only be done to another and to no one else. The maximum interest that can be levied on a member for any debt or liability is 24 % per annum and cannot exceed the principle amount. Whole of Andhra None The Act levies a rate of Andhra Land Pradesh, in surcharge on payment Revenue force for a of land revenue (Surcharge) Act, period of one for the fasli year 1956 year commencing on the 1st of July 1955

Legislation

A15: Land legislations in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana

None

None

Board of Directors of Central Mortgage Bank, Sale officer, Registrar of Co-operative Societies

Revenue Inspector (RI)

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Overriding Effect/Subject to Other Laws

Andhra Pradesh None Land Revenue (Additional Assessment) and Cess Revision Act, 1962 None None

AP Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulation Act, 1959

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

None

Appellate Authority

(Continued)

None General Supervision of Mortgage Banks and deciding the amount of Debentures, Supervision of the Sale Process, Registrar is required to direct distraint and sale

Tehsildar RI to determine the surcharge payable by such person

None

Corresponding Function

Brief Description

Prohibits the alienation Andhra Pradesh of communal, forest (Andhra and private lands Area) Estates in estates. The Communal, preamble describes Forest and that the statue was Private Lands enacted pending (Prohibition of the enactment of a Alienation) Act, legislation acquiring 1947 the intrests of landholders in such estate and thereby introducing the ryotwari system. A landholder owning communal, forest or private land cannot sell, lease out or mortgage, convert to ryot or otherwise alienate the land as notified by the SG. Any such transaction is deemed to be void under the Act.

Legislation

(Continued)

Amendments to the Act

1950, 1953, Andhra Area 1957, of Andhra 1961 PradeshGoverned by the Andhra pradesh (Andhra Area) Estates Land Act, 1908

Territorial Jurisdiction

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

None

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

None

None

Laws Repealed by the Act

None

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

None

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws Corresponding Function

District Collector, Can sanction the alienation of a First Class particular land, Magistrate imposition of fines

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

None

Appellate Authority

Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Estates Land Act, 1908

Andhra Area The Act declares the law of Andhra relating to holding Pradesh of land in estate. An estate land in Andhra comprises of a permanently settled estate or a temporarily settled zaminadri, or any such portion of the land that is seperately registered, an unsettled palaiyam/ jagir or any inam village. It declares that the landholder is entitled to collect rent in respect of all ryoti land that falls within the occupation of a ryot. Such rent would first a charge upon the holding and upn the produce of the holding. Further, every ryot in possession of his/her ryoti land situated in the estate of the landholder has been given the right of occupancy of such holding. Such occupancy right is heritable and transferable by sale gift or otherwise. Although the present Act marks out the relations of landholders and the ryots, the relations between a ryot and his tenants or between a landholder and a tenant of his private land are not regulated by its provisions. For the purposes of maintaining the usage of lands, if any ryoti land is not being used for the specfic purpose of cultivation, the occupier can be evicted by the collector. As for rent, the amount being lawfully payable is presumed to be fair and equitable and there are restrictions on enhancements.

1934, 1936, 1937, 1948, 1950, 1953, 1961

None

Madras Acts VIII None Andhra Pradesh of 1865 and II (Andhra of 1871 and Scheduled Section 7 of Areas) (Estates Madras Act III Land Repealing) of 1890 Regulation, 1943

None

Collector

The Collector has been empowered to settle questions connected with improvements. As also to decide whether land is communal land or not and the related customary rights to such land. The Collector can divert the use of a ryoti land to communal purposes if its original usage has perished, and is required for such a purpose. He/ she has the power to acquire a land for communal purpose when no such land has been set aside. Otherwise, if a ryoti is not being used for cultivation purposes, the occupier can be evicted by the collector.

(Continued)

None

Brief Description

Territorial Jurisdiction

Provides for preparation Andhra Area Andhra Pradesh of Andhra and execution of land (Andhra Pradesh improvement schemes. Area) Land The Board of Revenue Improvement is required to appoint Scheme an officer to prepare a (Contour draft a scheme which Bunding and needs to be approved Contour by the Board. Thre Trenching) Act, Act requires this 1949 approved scheme to be then made available by the collector for public inpection after a notification in the District Gazzette. A Inquiry Officer is needed to look into the objections and report to the Board which then may sanction or reject the scheme. If sacntioned, the Board will appoint an officer to impliment the scheme. An owner can be made liable to carry out works under the schemes. Andhra Area The preamble claims Andhra Pradesh of Andhra to make separate (Andhra Area) Pradesh assessments provisions Land Revenue for alienated portions Assessment Act, of permanently 1876 settled areas. An application is required to be made by the alienor or alienee to the Collector for the purposes of registration of the estate in the name of aliened and thereby for its seperate assessment of revenue.

Legislation

(Continued) If the Act Amends Any Other Law

None

None

Amendments to the Act

 

 

None

Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Scheduled Areas) Land Improvement Schemes (Contour Bunding and Contour Trenching) Regulation, 1956

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

None

None

None

None

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

Laws Repealed by the Act

None

None

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

Collector

Board of Revenue; Enquiry Officer; Executing Officer

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Appellate Authority

Conducting an enquiry to determine the present owner of land and register the name accordingly.

Board of Revenue, A suit in civil court is also permitted under the Act.

None Sanctioning/ Rejection of schemes; Preparation and maintenance of Records of Rights

Corresponding Function

Andhra Area The government has Andhra Pradesh of Andhra bee empowered to (Andhra Area) Pradesh levy on all lands on Land Revenue which land revenue Assessments (Standardization) is now payable a standard rate of Act, 1956 assessment of the revenue. The standard rates of assessment have been settled as per the type of land and the area under which they fall. The standard assessment is recoverable as land revenue. Telangana Area The Act provides that Andhra Pradesh of Andhra if before the date (Telangana Pradesh of commencement Area) Ijra and of this Act, a patta Kowli Land of any ijra or kowli Cancellation of land has been granted Irregular Pattas the pattadar has not and Abolition been put in actual of Concessional possession of such Assessment Act, land, such patta 1961 stands cancelled and person to whom such patta was granted shall be deemed never to have acuire any rights except the right to recieve compensation. Telangana Area In the Taluquas where Andhra Pradesh of Andhra resettlement is due and (Telangana Pradesh have been specified Area) Land in the Schedule to the (Special Act, the Act levies Assessment) special assessment Act, 1952 on lands for the year commencing on June 1, 1952 and every subsequent year shown as specified. However, such assessements have not been brought on the former nondiwani areas where assessments have not been brought to the level of the adjoining ones.

 

None

None

1957, 1961

 

None

None

None

None

None

None

Not provided

None

None

Not provided

None

None

Not provided

None

None

Not provided

None

None

Not provided

(Continued)

None

None

Not provided

The Act intends to ensure Telangana Area of Andhra proper utilisation of Pradesh land and provides for making and execution of schemes relating to land improvement and preservation of soil erosion, improvement of water supply etc. The Board is required to draft schemes and then impliment them after considering objections, if any. The improvement scheme may relate to reclamation of waste, maintainance and improvement of soil fertility, prevention of erosion, making dry lands suitable for irrigation, fixing zones for different types of irrigation, introductoin of new methods of farming , improving methods of cultivation and the like. In order to ensure that the improvement is maintained, the Act places a statutory duty upon persons shown in the stateement to carry out maintainance and repair works.

Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Land Improvement Act, 1953

Territorial Jurisdiction

Brief Description

Legislation

(Continued) If the Act Amends Any Other Law

 

Amendments to the Act

1961, 1957 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Scheduled Areas) Land Improvement Schemes (Contour Bunding and Contour Trenching) Regulation, 1956

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

The Improvement None of Agricultural Land and Management of Irrigation Sources Regulation of 1353 Fasli.

Laws Repealed by the Act

None

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

Hyderabad Area Land Improvement Board, Collector, Executing Officer (Chairman of Board)

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Appellate Authority

None For the purposes of carrying out the provisions of the Act- the board can direct preparation of Land Improvement Schemes. The collector is required to publish the draft scheme and invite objections. After consideration of the objections, the Board has the power to sanction the schemes with or without modifications. EO is to enforce the scheme. The committee is also required to prepare a statement on completion of a scheme.

Corresponding Function

Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Land Revenue Act, 1317F

Telangana Area The said Act has been of Andhra enacted subject to Pradesh the provisions of Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Board of Revenue Regulation, 1385-F and AP (Telangana Area) (Abolition of Jagirs) Regulation 13858F and the AP (Telanagana Area) tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950. The Act further declares all public roads, lanes paths etc the property of government. The Act further creates propruetary rights of government over toddy, sendhi and gulmohwa trees that are within the limit of the land occupied by a pattadar, shikmidar or any other person. The trees shall be deemed to be the property of the owner but such owner shall not be entitled to plant such trees without the permission of government. The owner is entitled to charge 25 % of tree tax on those he permits to tap the trees. Most significantly, the Act declares all land to be liable to payment of revenue and it shall be assessed in accordance with its mode of use. The settlement of land revenue is to be made with the pattadar.

1950, 1954, 1956, 1957, 1974, 1308-F

None

None Andhra Pradesh Secunderabad Area Land Administration Rules, 1976; Andhra Pradesh Telangana Area Grant of Lease of Lands for Non-Agricultural Purposes, Rules, 1977; Andhra Pradesh Conferment of Pattadari Rights on Shikmidars Rules, 1964; Andhra Pradesh Project Affected Lands Assignment Rules, 1961; Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Alienation of State Lands and Land Revenue Rules, 1975; Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Board of Revenue Regulation, 1358 F; Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Grant of Lease of land for Non-Agricultural Purposes Rules, 1977; Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Land Revenue Rules, 1951; Assignment Land-Revised Assignment Policy Further Instructions Issued; Construction of Tanks and Kuntas in Patta Lands Rules of 1950; Laoni Rules, 1950;

None

None

(Continued)

None Chief Controlling Board of Authority in all Revenue, matters relating Collector, to land revenue; Additional Collector is Collector, required to Assistant perform as per Collector, the provisions Tehsildar, of the Act; Commissioner Tehsildar is of Survey the revenue Settlement, officer entrusted Commissioner with revenue of Land administration Records of a taluqa. The Commissioner of Survey Settlement may assign a land for public purpose.

Telangana Area The law regulates the of Andhra relations of landholders Pradesh and tenants of agricultural land and the alienation of such land. In particular, the law intends to prevent the excessive subdivision of agricultural holdings, empowers the government to assume the management of agricultural lands in certain circumstances, to provide for the registartion of Co-operative Farms and other matters. However, the Act creates a general prohibition of leases after three years from the commencement of this Act and thus no tenancy shall be created except as otherwise provided under the Act itself. A lease can only be granted by a landholder holding land with an area equal to or less than three times the area of family

Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950

Territorial Jurisdiction

Brief Description

Legislation

(Continued) If the Act Amends Any Other Law

None

Amendments to the Act

1951, 1954, 1956, 1957, 1961, 1971, 1979

Laws Repealed by the Act

Rules for Assignment of House Sites In Villages and Towns In Telangana Area; Rules for the Grant of Land for Cattle or Dairy Farms, 1950; Rules for Remission and Suspension of Land Revenue in The Telangana Area None Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Declaration of Substantial Holdings Rules, 1954; Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Land Census Rules, 1954; Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Protected Tenants Rules, 1956; Validation of Alienations and Transfers of Agricultural Lands Rules, 1964; Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Tenancy and Agricultural Lands (Recovery of Arrears of Rent) Rules, 1958; Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Tenancy Records (Correction) Rules, 1956;



Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

None

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

None

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

Collector; Tehsildar; Tribunal

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Appellate Authority

The Collector may Not provided allow leases to be entered after the stipulated period of three years; A copy of the lease is to be submitted to the Tehsildar, a tenant or an agricultural labourer may apply to the Tahsildar for obtaining possession of a land he/ she is entitled to possess; Determination of Reasonable Rent, determination of reasonable price of purchase of land by a protected tenant

Corresponding Function



holding; or a landholder who is minor, female, permanently incapable of cultivating land, is a serving defence officer or is temporarily prevented from cultivating land may lease out land after three years with the permission of the Collector. Also, the Act fixes the peiod of lease entered within the three year period to be of 10 years. Apart form this, the Act has provisions for summary ejectment, maximum rent payable by a tenant in respect of classes of land, prohibits recieveing rent in terms of labour, making inquiries to the Tribunal for determining reasonable rent, specific instances where tenancy can be terminated, bars eviction from dwelling house and gives the tenant first option of purchasing site on which he built dwelling house. A seperate class of protected tenants has been created which has the right to purchase the landholder’s interest, to exhange lands, their right is heritable and can erect a farm house on this holding.



Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Protected Tenants (Transfer of Ownership of Lands) Rules, 1973; Transfer of Possession and Eviction Rules, 1957; Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Rules, 1950; Reservation of Lands for Resumption for Personal Cultivation Rules, 1957; Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Assumption Of Management Or Acquisition Of Surplus Land Rules, 1955; Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Tenancy and Agricultural Land Rules, 1951

(Continued)

Whole of Andhra 2006, 2012 Conversion of land for Pradesh non-agricultural purposes has been prohibited under the Act and such conversion cannot take place without permission from the District Collector. The Act also requires payment of a conversion tax by the owner/ occupier of the holding for nonagricultural purposes at the arte of 9% of the basic value of land in areas notified by the government. Also, the Act empowers the a competent authority to convert a land from agricultural to nonagricultural purposes. Addiitonally, it exempts certain lands like the ones owned by governement, relugious institutions, used for communal purposes, notified by the SG to have been exempted etc.

Amendments to the Act

Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Land (Conversion for NonAgricultural Purposes) Act, 2006

Territorial Jurisdiction

Brief Description

Legislation

(Continued)

None

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

Laws Repealed by the Act

None Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Land (Conversion for NonAgricultural Purposes) Rules, 2006

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

None

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

None

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

Collector; Revenue Divisional Officer; Competent Authority

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Appellate Authority

RDO is competent None to convert a land from agricultural to non-agricultural wherever he believes to be a need; CA is to approve a conversion sought under the Act, CA can also levy fines in cases of noncompliance.

Corresponding Function

Whole of Andhra Not The statue has been Andhra Pradesh Pradesh provided enacted for giving Agricultural effect to Article lands 39 (b) and c of (Prohibition of the constitution. It Alienation) Act, prohibits alienation 1972 of holdings for any person who holds the land in excess of the specified limit- 4 hectares for wet land and 10 hectares for dry land. Alienation cannot be done in the form of- sale, lease exceeding a period of six years, gift, exchange, usufructuary mortgage or otherwise to effect a partition or create a trust of such holding or a part of it. Accordingly, restrictions have been placed on registration of documents under the Regulation Act, 1908 unless the a declaration b the transferor has been made stating that the holding of such transferor does not exceed the specified limit.

None

None

Andhra Pradesh Assigned Lands (Prohibition of Transfers) Ordinance, 1972

None AP Land Reforms (Ceiling on Agricultural Holding) Act, 1973

None

None

(Continued)

None

Brief Description

Territorial Jurisdiction

Whole of state The motive behind Andhra Pradesh of Andhra this statute is to Assigned Lands Pradesh prohibit the transfer (Prohibition of of those lands that Transfers) Act, have been assigned 1977 to the landless poor by the government for the purpsoes of cultivation or as a house-site. Such assigned lands cannot be transferred or be deemed to never have been transfered. Accordingly, no title can vest in any other person for that land except the person to whom it was assigned. The Act also disallows registration of any document notwithstanding the Registration Act that relates to the tranfer or creating title in any of the assigned lands. It also exempts lands that are held by the SG, any local authority, a co-operative society a scheduled bank or any other financial institution.

Legislation

(Continued) If the Act Amends Any Other Law

None

Amendments to the Act

1989

Laws Repealed by the Act

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh Assigned Assigned Lands Lands (Prohibition of (Prohibition Transfers) Rules, of Transfers) 1977 Ordinance, 1977

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

None

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

None

Corresponding Function

Appellate Authority

Revenue Mandal Revenue Executing the Divisional consequences Officer, Officer of breach of District provisions Collector i.e. taking possession of the transferred land and restore it to the assignee. DC can call for revision either suo moto or on application of records of any officer subordinate to him to satisfy himself for the regularity of the process. He/ She can pass orders to modify, remit, annul or reverse the decision accordingly.

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Whole of state The Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh Co-operative Central Co-operative Land Mortgage Bank Central Land Ltd has been formed Mortgage Bank under this Act by the (Formation) amalgation of the Act, 1961 Andhra Co-operative Central Land Mortgage Bank Ltd with the Hyderabad Central Co-operative Land Mortgage Bank Ltd. The scheme of amalgation has been described under which the Registrar is required to place a scheme providing for the transfer of services and other related matters before the two banks for such amalgation to take place. A Board of Management has been formed under the Act stating its members and representatives. Whole of State The Act identifies that Andhra Pradesh of Andhra certain buildings and Lands and Pradesh lands held by the Buildings government have (Termination been leased out to of Leases) Act, private parties and the 1986 government is finding difficult to impliment activities of public purpose due to the lack of availablity of land. In certain cases the government has been forced to take private accomodation. This statute thus, empowers the government to terminate the existing leases of land and buildings in respect of any demised premises and resume them wherever possible. The Act creates a nonobstane clause for both the Indian Contract Act and the Transfer of Property Act. The premises

None

None

Not provided

Not provided

Andhra Pradesh Government Lands and Buildings (Termination of Leases) Rules, 1986

None

None

None

Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Co-operative Land Mortgage Bank Act, 1349 Fasli (Act II of 1349F.)

None

None

None

None The provisions of this Act have effect notwithstanding the Andhra Area Co-operative Societies Act, the Andhra Area Cooperative Land Mortgage Banks Act and the Telangana Area Co-operative Societies Act.

None

None

(Continued)

None

None

Amendments to the Act

Not provided

Territorial Jurisdiction

Brief Description

Undefined The Act empoweres the govt to acquire any land as specfied in the schedule of the Act for the purposes of executing housing schemes under thr AP Housing Board Act, 1956 by publishing a notice in the state Gazette stating that the govt has taken such a decision. On the date of publishing of notice, the land shall vest absolutely in the govt free from all encumbrances. Such vested land may then be tranfered to the Housing Board and the Board is liable to pay the cost of acquisition of the land. Every person whose land is acquired under the Act has a right to recieve compensation, an amount of interest when the amount is not deposited before taking possession of land.

Legislation

Andhra Pradesh Housing Schemes (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1961

(Continued)

None

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

None

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

None All notifications issued before commencement of this Act in respect of any land acquired under this Act are cancelled and shall be deemed to never have been issued.

Laws Repealed by the Act

None

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

Prescribed Authority

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Appellate Authority

For the distribution None of compensation amount, the PA can require furnishing of information of applicants and other requirements.

Corresponding Function

Andhra Pradesh Indebted Agriculturists, Landless Labourers and Artisans (Temporary Relief) Act, 1976

The law applies in relation Whole of Andhra   Pradesh to the recovery of all debts due on the date of commencement of the Act from any agriculturist, landless labourer or artisian. Although this law was enacted with the intention of providing relief indebted labourers, it limits its applicablity to a minimum. The following debts have been excluded from the application of the ActRent/ Compensation for land for property, liability arising from breach of trust, liability in respect of maintainance, a sum payable to gvot/ local authority by way of revenue/ tax, cess, loan or otherwise, sum payable to co-operative society or a land mortgage bank, a sum payable to charitable institution, liability ariring out of breach of law relating to payment of wages or in respect of a banking company or any financial institution. Apart from this, the Act bars suits and applications for recovery of any other debt. Any further proceedings in suits and application in which relief is claimed against an agriculturist stand stayed. None

None

Andhra Pradesh Indebted Agriculturists, landless Labourers and Artisans (Temporary Relief) ordinance, 1975

None

None

None

None

(Continued)

None

Whole of State It provides for measures of Andhra to check unauthorised Pradesh occupations of land which in fact is the property of the government by placing a statutory basis to the customary levy of assessment of lands that are without authority. In particular, the Act intends to protect two kinds of lands from encroachment‘Poramboke’ and ‘Assessed Waste’. The former is an unassessed land set apart for public purposes or for communal use for villagers like threshing floors, roads etc. The latter is the land available for occupation by private parties but which was been formally applied for or assigned by the revenue authorities under the prescribed rules. Prior to this, encroachment was only deemed to be an act of criminal trespass. The Act first declares all public roads, lanes, paths, lakes etc to be the property of government except in cases where perons have proprietary right in such land and thereafter places the right upon government to levy by way of assessment where such land is unauthorisedly possessed.

Andhra Pradesh Land Encroachment Act, 1905

Territorial Jurisdiction

Brief Description

Legislation

(Continued)

Andhra Pradesh Land Encroachment Rules, 1975

1978

None

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

Amendments If the Act to the Act Amends Any Other Law

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

None

Laws Repealed by the Act

None

None

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

Tehsildar, Collector, State Government

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Appellate Authority

levy of assessment Appeal shall go from on unauthorized Tehsildar to holding, Collector Collector or the Tehsildar can summarily evict the person in unauthorized occupation of property; SG can call for examination of records relating to any decision or order passed

Corresponding Function

Andhra Pradesh Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 1982

There have been organized attempt to grab land belonging to government either by force or deceit and the Act intends to remedy this fault. The land grabbers form bogus co-operative housing societies, set up fictitious claims and conduct large scale and unprecedented and fraudulent sales of land. The Act thus prohibits the activity of land grabbing and all the connected matters. Thereby, the Act prima facie declares land grabbing in any form to be unlawful and makes such an act an offence punishable. Any act of selling, alloting, advertising for sale, instigating, using grabbed land for purpsoes of sale has been made punishable under the Act.

1987 Whole of State of Andhra Pradesh. The Act applies to all lands situated within the limits of urban agglomeration and of urbanizable nature.

None

Andhra Pradesh Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Rules, 1988; Andhra Pradesh Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Special Court Regulations, 1988

None

None

None

Special Courts, Special Tribunal

(Continued)

SC are established Appeal from ST to SC for the purpose of providing speedy enquiry into an alleged act of land grabbing and trial of cases in respect of ownership; ST has the power to take cognizance of cases not taken up by the SC. ST can pass an order awarding compensation in terms of money for wrongful possession. SC can determine its order and initiate a civil and criminal liability against the defence. SC has the power of a civil court and of a court of session.

Brief Description

Territorial Jurisdiction

Amendments to the Act

Whole of Andhra   This law provides for Andhra Pradesh Pradesh loan and other Land Licensed benefits for farmers Cultivators Act, who do not have 2011 any record for enjoyment os such financial assistance without the consent of Owner. A licenced cultivator who is in need of a loan is entitled to enter his ame in the Register of Loan and Other Benefits in respect of the concerned land. And on such entry of records, the person would be entitled to hold a Loans and Other Benefits Eligibility Card. This card issued to the cultivator creates a right on crop raised and he/she shall be entitled to secure cop loan from any public financial institution, crop insurance, subsidy in his name or any other claims of damaged crops. Farmers having occupancy rights under the AP Rights in land and Patttadar Pass Books Act, 1971 have been excluded from the application of this Act. In the Scheduled Areas, the Act applies to licensod cultivators who belong ont the scheduled tribes notified within the Agency area only.

Legislation

(Continued)

None

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

Andhra Pradesh Land Licensed Cultivators Rules, 2012

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

AP Land Licenses None Cultivators Ordinance 2011

Laws Repealed by the Act Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Corresponding Function

Issue of Eligibility The Act overrides Revenue Officer, Card, Nodal Chief all other laws, Agency to issue Commissioner but is subject the necessary of Land to the AP orders and Administration Scheduled instructions to Areas Land implement the Transfer provisions of Regulation, the Act 1959.

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

Tahsildar of the Revenue Mandal (to dispose of the matter by a summary enquiry within 15 days)

Appellate Authority

Andhra Pradesh Land Reforms (Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings) Act, 1973

Whole of Andhra 1975 One of the major Pradesh redistricution startegies of the state has been to allow a person to hold land only upto a specified limit, The AP Ceiling Law allows every family holding to hold land to an extent equal to one standard holding. The extent of ceiling area is further stipulated according to the number of individuals in the family. One standard family is considered to be of 5 members. A standard holding is determined as per the First Schedule that classifies land as per being wet or dry and therafter according to the region/ district in which it appears. Landholders are required to make a declaration of their holdings and after inquiry by the tribunal are required to surrender the land in excess of the ceiling limit. This land vests in the SG free from all encumbrances. The vested land is to be allotted for use as house-sites for agricultural labourers, village artisians or other poor persons owning no houses or are to be transfered to the weaker sections of the society.  

Andhra Pradesh (Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings) Act, 1974

AP Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1961; AP Agricultural Lands (Prohibition of Alienation) Act, 1972

None

Tribunal, Overrides Revenue anything Divisional inconsistent in Officer any other law for the time being in force or any custom, usage or agreement

On receipt of declaration, or information obtained of the declaration of holding by a person, the tribunal is required to make an enquiry and pass orders determining the excess land of the ceiling area for that person. RDO is required to take possession of surrendered land

(Continued)

Appellate Tribunal

Andhra Pradesh Land Revenue (Additional Assessment) and Cess Revision Act, 1962

Legislation

(Continued)

Territorial Jurisdiction

Amendments to the Act

In order to protect the provisions of the Act from being defeated, alienation of holding as on a stipulated date has been prohibited. It also creates a range of exemptions from its application- like lands held by CG/ SG, charitable/ religious institutions, a govt company, covered by tea coffee plantattions, a bank etc. Whole of Andhra 1962 In the case of dry land Pradesh within the state, (Andhra the Act levies an Area means additional assessment territories at the rate of 75% of of the state the assessmen payable other than for a fasli year for Tenlangana that land. In other area) cases of wet land which is served by a government source of irrigation, an additional assessment shall be charged at the rate of 100% for certain classess of land and 50% for other classess of land payable for a fasli year for that land. This classification of wet land is based upon the number of crops it cultivates per year. This additional assessment is to be treated as land revenue.



Brief Description

Sec 78 AP (Andhra Area) District Boards Act, 1920

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

None

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

AP (Andhra Area) Andhra Pradesh The provisions of this Act Land Revenue Land Revenue override (Enhancement) Additional anything Act, 1967 Wet inconsistent Assessment contained in Act, 1956; AP any other law, Commercial custom or Crops usage (Assessment) Act, 1957; AP Land Revenue (Surcharge) Act, 1957; Madras Land Revenue (Surcharge) Act, 1954; Madras Land Revenue (Additional Surcharge) Act, 1955

Laws Repealed by the Act

None

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

None

Corresponding Function

None

Appellate Authority

1986 Whole of State In respect of every wet Andhra Pradesh of Andhra land in the state held Land Revenue Pradesh by a pattadar and (Additional Wet served by a government Assessment) source of irrigation, Act, 1975 the Act levies an additional land revenue assessment at the rate of 100% payable for that fasli year. This amount will be in addition to the land revenue payable by a pattadar in respect of that land. The amount shall be ordinarily determined and for the fasli year by the Tehsildar. The additional land revenue shall be remmitted in cases of total faliure of crops. Whole of Andhra Not The Act aims to declare Andhra Pradesh Pradesh provided the government's Land Revenue right to levy revenue (Enhancement) and thereby to levy Act, 1967 additional revenue on certain lands. It also makes provision for revision of cess. The additional land revenue is collected form every land held by a pattadar for every fasli year and the amount differs according to the type of land- wet or dry. The Act also provides for exemption for pattadars from payement of revenue if they are liable to pay an amount more than Rupees 10 for both revenue and additional revenue. The governemnt has the power to grant exemptions to pattadars or a class of them in case the levying of such revenue, in the opinion of the government is causing undie hardship to the masses.

None

Andhra Pradesh Remission and Suspension Rules, 1968; Andhra Pradesh Land Revenue (Enhancement) Rules, 1967

None

None

(Continued)

Revenue Divisional Officer to determine questions of exemptions, assessment of additional land revenue; Examination of records of any officer or any proceeding under the Act either suo moto or on application Tehsildar; Board of Revenue or District Collector

None Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Land Revenue (Additional Wet Assessment) Act, 1956; Andhra Pradesh Commercial Crops Assessment Act, 1957; Andhra Pradesh Land Revenue (Surcharge) Act, 1957; Andhra Pradesh Land Revenue (Additional Assessment) and Cess Revision Act, 1962. Sec 78 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) District Boards Act, 1955

None

Revenue Divisional Officer

Tehsildar is required to assess the additional land revenue

The Act overrides Tahsildar AP Land Revenue Andhra Pradesh all other laws, Land Revenue (Additional custom or (Enhancement) Wet usage having Act, 1967; Assessment) the force of Andhra Pradesh Ordinance, law. Land Revenue 1974 (Additional Assessment) and Cess Revision Act, 1962

Whole of Andhra Not The multiplicity of Pradesh provided the number of land legislations in the state of AP has certainly not been conducive to the ready and easy understanding of the provisions of land laws in the state. This code is an attempt to streamline the law relating to land administration of the state and simplify various provisions that are applicable now. The state has been divided into Revenue Divisions > Mandala > Villages. The govt has been empowered to form new districts and amend boundaries. On an order from the government, the suvery officers are required to conduct survey of the land for the purpsoes of the Act. A person aggrieved by the determination of any boundary under the Act has the right to institute a suit. The land owners have been giveb the responsibility to maintain, renew and repair if necessary the boundaries marked by the authorities. Division ot Demarcation of land can also happen on the application of a pattadar or joint owners.

Amendments to the Act

Andhra Pradesh Land Revenue Code, 1999

Territorial Jurisdiction

Brief Description

Legislation

(Continued)

None

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

None

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

None

Laws Repealed by the Act

None

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

Subject to AP Farmers Management of Irrigation Systems Act, 1997

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws Corresponding Function

Appellate Authority

None CCLA can form Chief a new village, Commissioner alter boundaries of Land etc., he/she shall Administration; invite objections Collector to the proposal and Special by publishing Collectors, a notification Joint Collectors, from the people Sub-Collectors, who are likely Deputy to be affected Collectors; thereby; survey Mandal officers are to Revenue carry out survey Officers; of land on an Director of order from Survey and government. Land Records, A SO shall Survey Officers; have the power Irrigation to determine Officers and record an undisputed land boundary as also a disputed land boundary. The SO shall make an enquiry into the dispute and thereafter decide it. The SO is also to notify in the official gazette the fact of completion of demarcation.

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

NonIn cases of nonAndhra Pradesh Agricultural agricultural land in NonLands of a local area with a Agricultural Andhra specified population, Lands Pradesh the Act levies an Assessment Act, assessment from the 1963 owner of the land for each fasli year. The rate of this assessment would depend upon the usage of land- commercial, industrial, residential or any other purpose. When such assessment is levied as per the provisions of this Act, no other amount of land revenue under any Act or regulation, rule or by-law shall apply in case of the lands that fall under the application of this Act. The assessment paayable is recoverable as public revenue. In certain cases, where the owner himself is not the occupier of the land and makes a default in payment, the amount can be recovered from the occupier of the land. The Act exempts government lands, ladns held by local authority, lands used exclusively for residential purposes where its extent does not exceed 100 square meters, lands held by educational or charitable institutions.

1994

None

None

None

None

In cases of Nonagricultural lands, no other land revenue can be levied as per any other statute, rule/ regulation or by-law.

RI is required to Revenue determine the Inspector (RI); assessment Government payable by an owner of nonagricultural land, RI has revisional powers that he can exercise either suo moto or on application; govt may remit the assessment payable for any local area.

(Continued)

Tehsildar

Brief Description

Land Grabbing has been Andhra Pradesh considered one of the Prevention of dangerous activities Dangerous that destroys public Activities of order and hence the Boot Leggers, Act provides for Dacoits, Drug preventive detention Offenders, of all such offenders. Goon Das, The government Immoral Traffic has been given the and Land power to make an Grabbers Act, order directing that 1986 a person may be detained with the view of preventing him from acting prejudicial to public order. The maximum period of detention is fixed at 12 months fromt he date of detention. The govt has powers to order or cancel a person's release.

Legislation

(Continued) If the Act Amends Any Other Law

Not provided

Amendments to the Act

Not provided

Territorial Jurisdiction

Whole of the state of Andhra Pradesh

Laws Repealed by the Act

None Andhra Pradesh Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Boot Leggers, Dacoits, Drug Offenders, Goon Das, Immoral Traffic and Land Grabbers Order, 1986

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

None

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

None

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

Advisory Boards

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Appellate Authority

In every case where None a detention order has been made, a reference is to be made to an advisory board within three weeks of the detention to consider the grounds of such detention and other related matters. The board is expected to submit a report to the effect.

Corresponding Function

Andhra Pradesh Records of Rights in Land Act, 1971

Whole of state The staute directs that of Andhra immediately after its Pradesh commencement, a Record of Rights shall be prepared by the recording authority in all lands in every village containing the names of owners, occupants, pattadars of land, the nature and extent of their respective rights and interest, the rent or revenue payable and other particulares as may be prescribed. Rectification can be applied for within a year. It has been made the duty of a person acquiring interest in land to intimate such alteration to the recording authority within 90 days of the date of such acquisition. On receipt of such information, an amendent if the record is to be made, after issuing a notice to all interested persons and invite objections. Also, every owner/pattadar etc can apply for the issue of a passbook. Such record of rights is open for inspection to the public. The Act does not apply to government lands.

1980

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Rights in Land Pradesh and Pattadar (Telangana Pass Books Area) Rules, 1989 Record of Rights in Land Regulation, 1358 Fasli (Regulation No. LVIII of 1358 F.) and all standing orders and any other provisions of law relating to the record of rights of land as in force in the State

None Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Record of Rights in Land Regulation, 1358 (Regulation No. LVIII of 1358 F) Fasli and all standing orders and any other provisions of law relating to the record of rights in land as in force in the State

Recording Andhra Pradesh Authority; (Telangana Tehsildar; Area) Land Collector Revenue Act, 1317 shall be read as per any required modifications and or omissions for the removal of inconsistency with this Act.

(Continued)

None Making and maintenance of the record of rights; the Tehsildar has the power to grant pass books to owners etc. after requisite enquiry; the collector may call for and examine a record or any procedure undertaken by a recording authority, either suo moto or on application. The recording or an appellate authority has the same power as a civil court for holding an enquiry under the Act.

Brief Description

Territorial Jurisdiction

Not provided The statute directs that Andhra Pradesh a record of rights be Rights in Land prepared containing and Pattadar the names and the Pass Books Act, nature and extend of 1971 rights of each person on their respective lands. Amendment and updation of these records needs to be undertaken after determination by the prescribed authority. The Act also regularises certain alienations made otherwise than by a registered document. Every pwner/ pattadar etc is needed to apply for the issue of a passbook and titile deed to MRO. The owner or any other interested person also needs to get the necessary entires in respect of a transaction carried out. Similarly, grant of leans and ecumbrances etc also need to be reocrded. It is obligatory on the part of a person having interest in land to produce the title deed and pass book before the registering authority appointed under the Registration Act alomg with other documents.

Legislation

(Continued)

1989, 1994

Amendments to the Act

None

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

Andhra Pradesh Rights in Land and Pattadar Pass Books Rules, 1989

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

None

Laws Repealed by the Act

None

Transfer of Property Act, 1882; Registration Act, 1908 or any other law for the time being in force

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws Corresponding Function

Appellate Authority

Revenue Mandal Revenue MRO to amend Divisional Officer and update the Officer record of rights after conducting an enquiry and inviting objections from all interested persons. He/ She also has the power to correct any clerical errors in the Pass Books. MRO can also regularize certain alienations made otherwise than by registered document. Applications for issue of pass book and a title deed

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Andhra Pradesh Slum Improvement (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1956

Whole of Andhra Not The Act recognizes the Pradesh provided number of slums in the state in its preamble and such slums are a danger to public health and sanitation. The previous law has been insufficient to provide for basic needs of sewerage, water supply, road and side drains. Firstly, the government has been empowered to declare an area a slum area if it is satisfied that the area would be dangerous to public health, safety or convinience of its neighbourhood by reason of its low lying, insanitary conditions. Further, the govt can take decision if it is necessary to acquire a land for the purpose of clearing or improving that area. It needs to call for a show cause by any interested person before ordering an acquisition. After such acquisition, the govt can undertake the management itself or transfer it to the Municipal Council for the purpsoe of undertaking clearance and improvement work. Every person who has a right to title or any interest is entitled to recieve an amouunt of compensation in lieu of the acquisition.

None

Andhra Pradesh Slum Improvement (Acquisition of Land) Rules, 1964

None

None

None

(Continued)

None MC can be made Municipal responsible for Corrporation; undertaking Prescribed improvement Authority work on slums; The PA has the power to declare the compensation amount, it can also decide the person entitled to compensation in cases of several interested persons.



Brief Description

Territorial Jurisdiction

Amendments to the Act

This amount is generally equal to 12 times the net average annual income of such land during 5 consecutive years immediately preceeding the date of publication of notice. The Act also prrovides for payament of an interest at the rate of 4% per annum in casesof delay. Its application has been extended to certain pending cases of acquisition where no award has been made by the Collector. The statute is of limited Whole of Andhra   Andhra Pradesh Pradesh application to Sugarcane Crop the assessment of Land Revenue those lands where Assessment Act, sugarcane crop is 1965 raised. The amount is determined as per the category of land- dry or wet and the source of irrigation for such wet land. The land revenue assessment can be remmitted in cases of total or partial failure of sugercane cropdue to seasonal conditions or natural calamities.

Legislation

(Continued)

None

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

None

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

None

Laws Repealed by the Act

None

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law Responsible Authorities Under the Act

None Overrides anything inconsistent in any other law for the time being in force or any custom, usage or agreement

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

None

Corresponding Function

None

Appellate Authority

Whole of Andhra 2004 This is essentially an Pradesh environmental protection legislation. It intends to promote water conservation and tree cover and regulate the expolitation of water sources, water and envioronment. The Authority regulates all sorces of aground water, issues guidelines for cinstruction of rain water harvesting structures, is responsible for preservation of lakes and ponds, undertakes measures for protection of trees and prevention of soil erosion etc. Not Whole of the In case of lands on Andhra Pradesh provided State of which any specified Commercial Andhra crops are raised, the Crops and Pradesh. govt is empowered Assessment Act, However, the to levy a special 1957 provisions do assessment on such not apply to land at a specified any land in rate corresponding an estate not to the crop raised taken over and it shall be in by the govt addition to the land under Madras revenue payable Estates on such land. Also, (Abolition and the govt has been Conversion empowered to order into Ryotwari) a remission in case Act, 1948 or of failure of crops to any land in any year. This used as a special assessment is nursery. recoverable from the person concerned as revenue due upon such land.

Andhra Pradesh Water, Land and Trees Act, 2002

Andhra pradesh Water, Lands and trees Rules, 2002 and 2004

None

None

None

None

None

None Andhra Pradesh Ground Water (Regulation for drinking water purposes) Act, 1996,

None

The provisions of this Act override anything inconsistent contained in any other law, custom or usage

None

Andhra Pradesh State Water, Land and Trees Authority

None

(Continued)

None

None Promote water conservation and tree covers, advice govt and take administrative measures for conservation of natural resources. It also regulates all ground water resources.

Whole of Andhra Not It was considered provided Pradesh necessary by the govt applies only to to convert inam lands inam lands into a ryotwari system in order to distribute the lands to their rightful owners. An 'inam' was a feudal title in the pre-British and British time when rulers used to gift lands to people in return of their extraordinary service to the state. The Act empowered the Tehsildar to enquire and determine the inam lands in the state. This required examination of revenue records, physical inquiry on land and giving notices to all interested persons. Further, in case of an inam land in a ryotwari or zamindari village (or for institutions in an inam village), the peron/ intitution holding such land would be entitled to hold a ryotwari patta. In the process of granting pattas, it is necessary for the authority to issue notice and call for objections.

Amendments to the Act

Andhra Pradesh Inams (Abolition of Conversion to Ryotwari) Act, 1956

Territorial Jurisdiction

Brief Description

Legislation

(Continued)

None

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

Laws Repealed by the Act

None Andhra Pradesh Inams (Abolition of Conversion to Ryotwari) Rules, 1957

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

None

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

None

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

Tehsildar; Board of Revenue

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Appellate Authority

Not provided Determination of Inam lands and Grant of Ryotwari Pattas; The BOR can call for examination of records relating to any pricedding undertaken by the Tehsildar.

Corresponding Function

Inams in the state Not A full assessment on Andhra Inams provided of Andhra certain inam lands has Assessment Act, Pradesh been levied under the 1955 Act. Inam Lands are those lands of which a grant has been made (by previos rulers) and is recognized by the govt. The definition includes an inam land in a ryotwari area or in the merged territory of Banagenapalle in resoect of which a grant in inam is made, but it excludes an estate under the madras Estates Land Act, 1908. From the fasli year that commenced on July 1 1955, a full assessment is done as per the specified rates. However, the Act does not affect any rights as between inamdar and other persons. Not The Act is giving effect of Whole of state Andhra Pradesh provided of Andhra the state policy towards Agricultural Pradesh securing principles Indebtedness specified in Article 46 (Relief) Act, of the Constitution. 1987 It provides relief from indebtedness to agricultural labourers, rural artisians and small farmers by deeming their debts discharged which were borrowed or incurred during the period between December 29, 2976 and May 31, 1989 including interest, if any. Civil Courts have been barred from entertaining any proceeding against the debtor for the recovery of such amount. Also, all provisions of AP Agricultural Indebtedness (Relief) Act, 1977 are applicable mutatis mutandis to the debts deemed be discharged under the Act.

Andhra Pradesh (A.A.) Inams Assessment Rules, 1955

Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Indebtedness (Relief) Rules, 1988

None

None

None

None

None

None

Collector

AP(Andhra Area) None Agriculturists Relief Act, 1938, AP (Telangana Area) Money Lenders Act, 1349 F., AP (Andhra Area) Pawn-brokers Act, 1943, AP (Telangana Area) Agricultural Debtors’ Relief Act, 1956, AP (Scheduled Area) Money Lenders Regulation 1960, AP Indebted Agriculturists, Landless Labourers and Artisans (Temporary Relief) Act, 1976

None

None

(Continued)

Not provided

Not provided The collector is responsible for levying and collection of the assessment.

Brief Description

Territorial Jurisdiction

Amendments to the Act

1957 Boravancha, Andhra Absorbed The Act provides for Paratala, the payment of Enclaves Gani Atkur, interim allowance (Hyderabad Maguloor, and commutation Jagirdars Kodavatikallu, sum to the jagirdars Commutation Vusthepalli, of the former state of Sum and Bathinipadu, Hyderabad. The state Allowance) Act, Mallavalli, govt is required to 1955 Pullapadu deposit in cash in the office of the Tribunal, the interim allowance payable fpr the period from january 26 1950 to March 31 1950 under the AP (Telangana Area) (Abolition of Jagirs) Regulation, 1358 and the commutation sum payable under the AP (Telangana Area) Jagirs (Commutation) Regulation, 1359F. If the final determination of the interim allowance is pending, the SG can at its discretion make advance payments of interim allowance and commutation sum and such payaments are to be recovered from the first installment of the commutation sum. It also gives the right to state govt to recover the money due to Hyderabad govt prior to January 26, 1950 from jagirdars.

Legislation

(Continued)

None

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

Andhra Absorbed Enclaves (Hyderabad Jagirdars Payments of Interim Allowances and Commutation Sum) Rules, 1956

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

None

Laws Repealed by the Act

None

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

The provisions of None AP (Telangana Area) Abolition of Jagirs Regulation, 1358-F (Regulation LXIX of 1358-F)], AP (Telangana Area) Jagirs (Commutation) Regulation, 1359-F (Regulation XXV of 1359F)], and the rules made under those Regulations will have effect save as otherwise provided by this Act.

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

None

Corresponding Function

Not provided

Appellate Authority

Andhra Area This statute provides for Andhra Pradesh of Andhra introduction of the (Andhra Pradesh ryotwari settlement Area) Estates in certain estates and (Abolition and consequently repeals the Conversion into systemt of permanent Ryotwari) Act, settlement. It is one 1948 the Acts included in the Ninth Schedule and is preotected by the Article 31-B. It claims to iontroduce a revolutionary system in the land tenures of the state. All estates governed by the Act stand transfered to the govt and are vested in them free from all encumbrances. The persons whose rights are terminated are entitled to compensation. Andhra Area The Act declares certain Andhra Pradesh of Andhra estates as impartible (Andhra Area) Pradesh and that the proprietors Imparitible of such estate cannot Estates Act, exercise unrestricted 1904 powers of alienation in its respect. The proprieter of an imparitable estate is incapable of alienating or binding by its debts. However, certain specific fucntions are allowed to the proprieter such as to grant sites for public charitable and religious purpsoes, minining or quarrying leases for terms not exceeding 60 years, leases of hom farms not excedding 15 years. Other alienations cannot be undertaken unless permission is obtained from the Collector of the district. For the purpose of ascertaining the succession to an imparitible estate, certain persons such as son, grandson shall have the right to maintainance out of the imparitible estate.

Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Scheduled Areas) Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Regulation, 1951

None

None

None

1960, 1962, 1965, 1967, 1971, 1973

1934, 1937, 1953, 1961

None Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Permanent Settlement Regulation, 1802, the Estates Land Act, and all enactments applicable to the estate as such except the Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Estates Land (Regulation of Rent) Act, 1947, shall be deemed to have been repealed in their application to the estate None None None

None

None

None

(Continued)

Not provided

DOS is responsible Not provided Director of to carry out Settlement, survey and Settlement settlement officers, Board operations in of Revenue, estates and Tribunals introduce ryotwari settlement therein. SO are subordinate to the Director and are guided by their lawful instructions. The BOR has the power to give effect to the provisions of the Act.

1914, 1941, The state govt The Act amends the 1950 can extend the law relating to application Village Officers of this Act in permanently to any estate settled and certain within the other estates. The Andhra Area proprieter is required of AP and to toprepare a register the offices of containing all village the following officers and village village servants employed officersin his estate and of village their emoluments accountants, and duties. They are heads of required to report villages, any vacancies in village village offices and watchmen or are also empowered police officers to appointa new village officer as per the specified rules and report the fact to Divisional Officer. In case the renumeration of a village office consists of lands in whiolem or in part, or assignments of revenue payable, the state govt may enfranchise the said lands from the condition of service by the imposition of quit rent. In case of ommission of duty by proprietors, the District Collector can impose penalty.

Amendments to the Act

Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Proprietary Estates' Village Service Act, 1894

Territorial Jurisdiction

Brief Description

Legislation

(Continued)

None

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

None

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

None Sec 18 to 26 Sec 11 of repealed by Regulation the Andhra XXV of Pradesh 1802 and (Andhra Regulation Area) XXIX of 1802 Proprietary Estates’ Village Service (Amendment) Act, 1914

Laws Repealed by the Act

Collector, Proprietor of an estate, Divisional Officers

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Appellate Authority

If it appears to the District Collector on matters of Collector that it appointment. is necessary to a In matters of portion should suspension/ be declared as a removal, the specific village, appeal shall he may do so. lie to BOR The proprietor is required to maintain a record of village officers and appoint new officers in case of vacancies. The DO can hold an enquiry into such appointment and require the proprietor to appoint another person. The Collector or DO may also fine, suspend, dismiss or remove village officers.

Corresponding Function

The Act repeals Andhra Whole of Andhra   Andhra Pradesh Pradesh other Pradesh (Andhra (Andhra Area) than certain Area) Proprietary Proprietary territories Estates' Village Estates' Village specified in Service Act, 1894, Service and the Sec 3 (1) of the Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh Reorganization (Andhra Area) (Andhra Area) Act, 1956. Hereditary Village Hereditary Offices Act, 1895 and Village Offices Chapter XI ofCentral Laws (Repeal) Provinces Land Act, 1969. Revenue Act, 1881.

None

None

None AP (AA) Proprietary Estates’ Village Service Act, 1894; AP (AA) Hereditary Village Offices Act, 1895; Chapter XI of Central Provinces Land Revenue Act, 1881; Sec 11, AP (AA) Permanent Settlement Regulation, 1802; Andhra Pradesh (AA) Karnams Regulation, 1802; P (AA) Village Officers Restoration Act, 1926; AP (AA) Restoration of Village Officers (Validation) Act, 1939; AP (AA) Proprietary Estates’ Village Service; AP (AA) Hereditary Village Officers Laws (Repeal) Ordinance, 1969

None

None

None

(Continued)

None

Applies to estates 1951, 1957, Providing for the 1961 as defined reduction of rents under Sec 3(2) payable by ryots in of AP (AA) estates governed by Estates land the AP (AA) Estates Act, 1908 Land Act, 1908 approximately to the level of assessments levied on lands in the neighbouring ryotwaris, the Act places the exclusive right of collection of rent o the govt. The Act wmpowers the state govt to appoint for any estate, a Special officer for recommending fair and equitable rates of rent for the ryoti lands. The state govt, after examining the report of the SO (submitted through the BOR) which specifies the extent to which rents for each class of ryoti in each village should be reduced, may take a decision accordingly. The govt may also cancel the order in needed, but once the rent is fixed, the ryot is mandated to pay the fixed amount. Also, the benefits of this Act of reduction of rent are not applicable to educational or charitable institutions which became an estate owning to the 1936 Amendment to the 1908 Act.

Amendments to the Act

Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Estates Land (Reduction of Rent) Act, 1947

Territorial Jurisdiction

Brief Description

Legislation

(Continued)

None

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

Scheduled Areas Estates Land (Reduction of Rent Amendment) Regulation, 1951 and Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Scheduled Areas) Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Regulation, 1951

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

None

Laws Repealed by the Act

None

None

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

Special Officer (SO)

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Appellate Authority

The SO is required Not provided to determine the rate of fair and equitable rent for the ryoti land and for such purposes, he/she shall first determine the average rate of cash rent per acre prevailing at the commencement of this Act and then compare the various rates in order to arrive at a decision.

Corresponding Function

Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Tenancy Act, 1956

1974, 1979, Andhra Area The maximum rents of 2002 of Andhra rent payable by a Pradesh. The cultivating tenant is application defined in terms of a has not been proportion of gross extended to produce- 30% of the plantation produce for irrigable crop lands, land and 25% in cases orchards, of unirrigable land. owned by The landhord and govt, held by cultivating tenant are corporation required under the Act or a charitable to come to an agreemnt or religious in regard to the institution. form of tenancy and particularly, whether the rent would payable in form of share in produce or a fixed rent in kind or cash, as also its amount. Either party has been empowered to apply to a SO for determination of fair rent for the holding. In cases where there has been a total failure of crops due to a calamity or any other reason, the tenant can apply for remission of rent to the SO. The cultivating tenant has been given certain rights- lease susbsisting the commencement of Amendment Act of 1974 to be in perpetuity; minimum period for a lease is 6 years; on expiration of lease period, it would be renewable for a further period of 6 years; rights to be heritable etc. However, the landlord can resume possession of the land if he requires it for personal cultivation. There is a specific procedure iunder the Act for termination of tenancy as no landlord is allowed to evict his tenant except on an application to the SO.

None

Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Tenancy Rules, 1980

Andhra Cultivating Tenants Protection Ordinance, 1956 (Andhra Ordinance 1 of 1956)

None

Special Officer The provisions (SO) have effect notwithstanding anything inconsistent contained in any pre-existing law, custom, usage, decree or order of court.

SO is responsible forDetermination of Fair Rent, Remission of rent, Determination of application for termination of tenancy

(Continued)

District Judge

1997, 1085, The Act, except Consolidation and 2005 Sec 3(2)(relates amendment of the to notice of previous law relating vacancy) to the regulation and would apply to control of lease of Hyderabad and buildings and also, Secundrabad, the prevention of Visakhapatnam unreasonable eviction and Vijaywada of tenants has been and to all covered under the Municipal Act. Every landlord Corporation is required to give a and notice of vacancy to Municipalities the govt within 10 in the state of days of the building AP. Sec 3 (2) becoming vacant. A shall apply to all fair rent would be areas mentioned determined by the if the govt Controller on an provides so. application by the tenant or landlord of a building after holding requisite enquiry and having due regard to the prevailing rent of locality, circumstances of the case etc. The Act prohibits any any further increase in such fair rent unless some addition, improvement or alteration has been carried out at the landlord's expense. Thus, the landlord cannot claim any amount in addition to the fair rent save as is provided under the Act, or in cases where such determination has not been made, anything exceeding the agreed amount.

Amendments to the Act

Andhra Pradesh Building (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1960

Territorial Jurisdiction

Brief Description

Legislation

(Continued)

None

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

Andhra Pradesh Building (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Rules, 1961

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

Madras Buildings None (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1949 (Madras Act XXV of 1949), and the Hyderabad Houses (Rent, Eviction and Lease) Control Act, 1954 (Hyderabad Act XX of 1954)

Laws Repealed by the Act

None

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

Collector

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Determination of Fair Rent, permitting conversion of building from residential to non-residential

Corresponding Function

Chief Judge, Small Causes Court in Hyderabad and Secundrabad and elsewhere to the Principal Subordinate Judge having original jurisdiction over the area

Appellate Authority

Andhra Pradesh Housing Board Act, 1956

ALso, a prohibition has been placed on eviction of a tenant except in cases where the landlord requires the land for repairs or alterations where the building needs to be vacated. The landlord can also not interefere with the amenities that are enjoyed by the tenant. A conversion of a rensidential to a non-residential building cannot take place without the permission of the Controller. Whole of Andhra 1981, 1983, The Act recognizes Pradesh 1984, the fact that there 1986 is an immediate need for the govt to undertake measures and impliment schemes for the purpose of dealing with and satisfying the need of housing accomodation. In an attempt to achieve this purpose, a Hyderabad Housing Board is established to specially undertake such tasks. The Act described the constitution of the board, manner of conduction of business, holding of meetings, appointment of officers and allm other related matters. The Board has a duty to udnertake works for the framing and execution of housing schemes as are deemed necessary by the Board under the supervision and control of the govt.



None Andhra Pradesh Land Housing Board, Acquisition (Allotment of Act, 1894 plots) Rules, 1977; Andhra Pradesh Housing Board (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1984; Andhra Pradesh Housing Board (Conduct of Business) Regulations, 1972; Andhra Pradesh Housing Board Travelling Allowance Rules, 1977; Andhra Pradesh Housing Board Rules, 1959; Andhra Pradesh (Office Accommodation Rental) Regulations, 1982; Andhra Pradesh Housing Board (Allotment of Garages)

None

None

Tribunal

(Continued)

Not provided The tribunal is the redressal authority for determining questions of payment of compensation by the Board and the amount of such compensation to be paid.

Legislation

(Continued)



The following matters may be considered by the Board- acquisition of property necessary for the execution of scheme, laying of land comprised in the scheme, distribution or redistribution of sites belonging to owners of property comprised in the scheme, improvement and clearance of slum areas, closure or demolition of dwellings unfit for human habitation, construction/ recontruction of buildings and their maintainance, construction of streets, drainange and water supply, provision of parks, play fields and open spaces, facilities for communication and transport and the like. However, such schemes cannot be made for an area foe which an improvement scheme has been framed by a Municipal Corporation, Village Panchayat or an empowered local body. The Board is required to submit a, Annual Housing Programme, Budget and Establishmwnt Schedule which would be publsihed and objections are to be invited for the sanctioning of such programme.

Brief Description

Territorial Jurisdiction

Amendments to the Act

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

Regulation, 1980; Andhra Pradesh Housing Board (Allotment, Management and Sale of High Income Group Houses) Regulations, 1977; Andhra Pradesh Housing Board (Allotment, Management and Sale of Houses for Economically Weaker Sections) Regulations, 1975; Andhra Pradesh Housing Board (Allotment Management and Sale of Low Income Group Housing) Regulations, 1975; Andhra Pradesh Housing Board (Allotment, Management and Sale of Middle Income Group Houses) Regulations 1975; Andhra Pradesh Housing Board Tenements and Premises Rental Regulations, 1974; Andhra Pradesh Housing Board (Self Financing Housing Scheme) Regulations, 1975;

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

Laws Repealed by the Act

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Corresponding Function

Appellate Authority

Andhra Pradesh (Rent and Revenue) Sales Act, 1839

Previously called the Madras Rent and Revenue Sale Act, 1839, the Act empowers certain officers to make sales of those distrained property that have been held fordefault in payment of rent or revenue.

Undefined

1958, 1959

None

Andhra Pradesh Housing Board [Shops] Rental Regulations, 1975; Regulations for allotment on lease-cum-sale of tenements and premises constructed by the erstwhile City Improvement Board; None



None

Sec 1 repealed by Regulation XXVIII of 1802

None

Tehsildar

Tehsildar is empowered to sell property distrained for areas of rent or revenue and shall be subjected to the rules framed by state govt.

(Continued)

Not provided

Brief Description

Territorial Jurisdiction

Not provided The Act regularises Andhra Pradesh certain unauthorised Regularisation constructions that of the had been previously Unauthorised made in the areas of Constructions municipal corporations, in Municipal municipalities and Corporations, urban development Municipalities authorities. The govt and Urban has been empowered Development to regularise the Authorities Act, unauthorised 2003 constructions made by owners who constructed the buildings unauthorisedly or in deviation of the sanctioned plan upto June 30, 1998 and filed voluntary declaration or application for regularisation at the cost of levying a penal amount. it also validates the govt orders issued in G.O. Ms. No. 419 MA dated 30th July, 1998 that authorised competent authorities to regularise certain unauthorised construction. The orders regularised constructions on the plots of size 100 sq meters and below where title deed vests with the plot holder irrespective of the nature of use of such plots on the payment of compounding fee. Such has also been done to constructions of more than 100 sq meters and upto 200 sq meters. And various such other orders.

Legislation

(Continued)

Not provided

Amendments to the Act

None

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

None

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

None

Laws Repealed by the Act

None

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law Responsible Authorities Under the Act

None Hyderabad Municipal Corporations Act, 1955, the Andhra Pradesh Municipalities Act, 1965 and the Andhra Pradesh Urban Areas (Development) Act, 1975

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

None

Corresponding Function

None

Appellate Authority

Andhra Pradesh Urban Areas (Development) Act, 1975

Whole of Andhra 1976, 1983, None An Urban Development Pradesh 1984, Authority has been 1994, constitutited under this 1996 (2), Act. For certain areas 1997, a Special Development 2000, Authority can be 2001, consituted if the govt 2003, sees a neccessity to. 2006, A Secretary, Chief 2007 Accounts Officer, Town Planner and an Engineer also need to be appointed to carry out the developmental work. The Authority is required to carry out a civic survey and prepare a Master Plan for the development of the area, and simultaneously a Zonal Development Plan would be prepared. Once prepared as per the provisions of the Act, the plan is required to be submitted to the govt for approval. The govt is empowered to declare certain areas as development areas as is necessary for carrying out the purpose sof this Act. However, the application of this Act is not extended to maintainance works of buildings which do not materially effect their external appearance, any works for the purpsoe of inspecting or repairing drains, sewers, mains pipes etc, any excavation work or construction of unmetalled road

None Andhra Pradesh Regulation of Unapproved and Illegal Layout Rules, 2007; AP Rules for Construction and Regulation of Multiplex Complexes, 2007; AP Urban Development Authorities Service Rules, 1988; AP Urban Art Commission Rules, 1978; Multi-storied Buildings Regulations, 1981; Urban Development Authority, Hyderabad (Constitution of Committees) Rules, 1979

None

None

Urban Development Authority, Special Development Authority, Tribunals

(Continued)

Tribunal Preparation of Master and Zonal Development Plan, In such preparation, civic survey needs to be conducted, every local authority needs to be contacted etc. and then the plans would be submitted to govt for approval. The Tribunals are constructed to decide disputes relating to levy or assessment of development charges.

Andhra Pradesh Urban Areas (Surcharge on Property Tax) Repeal Act, 1978 Whole of Andhra 1974 The Act prohibits Andhra Pradesh Pradesh alienation of any Vacant Lands vacant land in an in Urban Areas urban area by way of (Prohibition of sale, lease exceding Alienation) Act, a period of six years, 1972 gift, exchange, usuffructuary mortgage, or effect a partition or create a trust of such land. Even in case of any such alineation made in contravention of the provisions and after the commencement of this Act, the alienation would be null and void. Consequently, no such related document can be registered under the Registration Act, 1908.

Whole of Andhra 1965 The Act levies in the Pradesh cities of Hyderabad and Secundrabad and in every major municipality in the state of AP,a surcharge on the property taz payable in respect of every building specified. Such amount is calculated at a rate of 5 %of the propoerty tax payable in respect of that building irrespective of its annual or rateable value. None None Repeals the levying of surcharge on property.

Amendments to the Act

Andhra Pradesh Urban Areas (Surcharge on Property Tax) Act, 1958

Territorial Jurisdiction

Brief Description

Legislation

(Continued)

None

None

None

None

None

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

None

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

Andhra Pradesh Vacant Lands in Urban Areas (Prohibition of Alienation) Ordinance, 1972

Andhra Pradesh Urban Areas (Surcharge on Property Tax) Act, 1958

None

Laws Repealed by the Act

None

None

None

None

Andhra Pradesh Registration Act, 1908, the Act Vacant would also Lands in override any Urban Areas other law, (Prohibition custom, usage of Alienation) or agreement Repeal Act, to the 1978 contrary.

None

None

Corresponding Function

None

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

None

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

Andhra Pradesh Municipal Act Urban Areas (Surcharge on Property Tax) Repeal Act, 1978

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

None

None

None

Appellate Authority

Whole of Andhra Not District Planning Pradesh provided Committes have been constituted udner the Act for the purpsoes of Article 243-ZD of the Constitution and to discharge functions of the state govt in regard to the items of buisiness of the govt. A Development plan is needed to be constructed by every Gram Panchayat, Mandal parishad, Zilla Parishad, Nagar Panchayat, Municipal Corporation and others.

Not provided

None

Repeals the restriction of None prohibiting alienation of estates.

Andhra Pradesh Vacant Lands in Urban Areas (Prohibition of Alienation) Repeal Act, 1978 Andhra Pradesh District Planning Committees Act, 2005

None

None

The Act provides for the Whole of Andhra 2006 Pradesh levy and collection of cess for the rural development in the state. It establishes a Andhra Pradesh Rural Development Board for the purposes of carrying out the developmental activities under the superitendence and control of the govt. The cess shall be levied and collected by the gov at the rate of 5 %. The authorities are empowered to assess, re-assess, collect and enforce pament of any tax under the Andhra Pradesh General sales Tax Act, 1957.

Andhra Pradesh Rural Development Act, 1996

Not provided

None

None

Andhra Pradesh Vacant Lands in Urban Areas (Prohibition of Alienation) Act, 1972 Andhra Pradesh District Planning Committees Ordinance, 2003 and the Andhra Pradesh District Planning Committees Ordinance, 2005

Andhra Pradesh Rural Development Ordinance, 1996

None

None

 

None

None

 

Not provided The Board is a body corporate having perpetual succession. It can acquire and hold property for the purposes of this Act. The Board shall constitute a fund that is to be applied for the purposes of- providing accelerate comprehensive rural development including construction of rural roads and bridges, storage facilities for agricultural purposes etc. None None

(Continued)

Not provided District Planning DPC has the responsibility of Committee, consolidating the Subcommittees plans prepared by may also be panchayats and constituted municipalities in the district and also to prepare a draft development plan for the district. It also needs to ensure that every local authority prepares a developmental plan and to review its implementation from time to time.

None

Andhra Pradesh Rural Development Board

Brief Description

Territorial Jurisdiction

Amendments to the Act

Whole of Andhra   Constitutes the Andhra Pradesh Pradesh Metropolitan Metropolitan Planning Committee Planning in every metropolitan Committee Act, area in the state for 2007 preparation of Draft Development Plan for the development of area. Essentially , the committee is responsible for consolidating the plans prepared by the Municipalities and Panchayats in the Metropolitan Area and to prepare a draft plan. It defines its composition, appointment of members, their terms of office and all such related matters.

Legislation

(Continued)

None

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

None

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

Andhra Pradesh Metropolitan Planning Committee Ordinance, 2007

Laws Repealed by the Act

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

None

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

None

Metropolitan Development Committee

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Appellate Authority

None Consolidation of plans of Municipalities and Panchayats and preparation of Draft Development Plan; ensuring each panchayat or municipality makes development plans, reviewing implementation of these plans, making necessary recommendations to govt concerning development of the area

Corresponding Function

Telangana Area The Act provides for Andhra Pradesh of Andhra the settlement of the (Telangana Pradesh debts of jagirdars. Area) Jagirdars However, amounts Debt Settlement like revenue or tax Act, 1952 payable to govt, local authprity, a sum due to co-operative society, a sum due from decree of court or from a scheduled bank have been saved from the application of this Act. Settlement Boards were established under the Act. But, via a 1964 amendment, the Board has been dissolved and all pending proceedings stand transfered to the Court of First Additional Chief Judge of the City Civil Court. A jagirdar or his creditor are entitled to make an application to competent authority for the settlement of debts due by the jagirdar. On such application the authority undertakes the necesary proceedings as per the Act and determines the particulars and value of property concerned. The Board is mandated to scale down the amount of debt in accordance with a proceduredepending upon the amount of secured and unsecured debt so as to reduce the amount tot he value of less than half of his property.

1957, 1961, 1964

None

None

None

None

None

Settlement of Boards later replaced by Court of the First Additional Chief Judge of the City Civil Court (via 1964 amendment)

For the settlement of debts or any class of debts. The Board exercised its functions under the control of High Court

(Continued)

None

Brief Description

Territorial Jurisdiction

Andhra Pradesh Revenue Enquiries Act, 1893

 

Amendments to the Act

Whole of Andhra 1958 The Act attempts to Pradesh facilitate enquiries into matters connected with the administration of revenue and also into the conduct of public servants. The Act empowers the govt to in turn empower an officer to conduct an inquiry into any matter concerned with administration of revenue or into the conduct of any public servant. Such officer has the powers of summoning and conducting enquiries.

Undefined The jurisdiction, Andhra Pradesh powers and duties Board of of the Board of Revenue Revenue under the (Replacement AP (Andhra Area) by Board of Revenue Commissioners) Regulation, 1803, Act, 1977 AP (Telangana Area) Board of Revenue Regulation, 1358 have been transferred to the Commissioner concerned. The govt has been empowered to appoint such number of commmisioners as it deems fit. Thereby the Board of Revenue stands abolished and in replacement, Commisioners would taken upon the powers and functions.

Legislation

(Continued)

None

None

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

None

None

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

None

None

None Andhra Pradesh Board of Revenue (Replacement by Commissioners) Ordinance, 1977

Laws Repealed by the Act Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Overrides- Andhra None Pradesh (A.A) Board of Revenue Regulation, 1803, the Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Revenue Commissioners Act, 1849 (Central Act X of 1849) or the Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Board of Revenue Act, 1894 (Act I of 1894) or the Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Board of Revenue Regulation, 1358F. (Regulation XL of 1358 F.) None State govt (to empower other officers)

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

None

Appellate Authority

None SG is required to make rules for empowering officials to conduct enquiries related to revenue matters.

None

Corresponding Function

Andhra Pradesh Revenue Recovery Act, 1864

Not provided The Act delcares that every landholder within the state is required to pay to the Collectorthe revenue amount that is due on him within the specified time. In cases where the amount of revenue becomes an arrear, an interest rate of 6 % would be charged per annum. In case a defaulter neglects to pay the amount even after a notice issued to him by the collector, his/ her property could be sold for dischrage of the arrears due. The provisions describe in detail, the manner in which such distrain has to be exercised and the corresponding claims have to be addressed. The property is auctioned and is then disposed off to the highest bidder. All engagements entered into between the landholder and tenant have been declared to be binding upon the Collector during attachment of the property. An application to set aside sale can be amde to the collector within 30 days of the sale.

1909

None

Andhra Pradesh Revenue Recovery (Sales of Perishable Articles) Rules, 1959; Receipts for Payment of Land Revenue Rules, 1960

None

None

None

Collector, Revenue Officer

(Continued)

None The Collectorcollection of Land Revenue, conduction of distrain procedure; RO is responsible for management of the attached property.

Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Board of Revenue Act, 1894

None UndefinedThe Act empowers Notification Revenue Officers to and certain summon persons to other Acts attend their courts have defined for the settlement of the extent of matters connected application of with Revenue this Act Administration. The Revenue Officers empowered under the Act are Collectors, Sub-Collectors, Assistant Collectors, Deputy Collectors, Tahsildars and Deputy Tehsildars. Any person whose evidence is considered necessary for the investigation of any matter in which they are authorised to hold inquiry or require production of a relevant document under possession of any such person can be summoned by them 1937, 1953 Andhra Area The Act empowers the of Andhra Board of Revenue to Pradesh declare and distribute its functions amongst its members subject to the approval of govt. The Board is to consist of a minimum of two members.

Amendments to the Act

Andhra Pradesh Revenue Summonses Act, 1869

Territorial Jurisdiction

Brief Description

Legislation

(Continued)

Andhra Pradesh Revenue Submission Rules, 1959

None

None

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

None

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

Sec 1 of the Act is repealed by the Amending Act, 1901 (Central Act 11 of 1901)

None

None

None

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

Laws Repealed by the Act

None

None

None Overrides Regulation I of 1803, Regulation V of 1804 or any other enactment in force

Corresponding Function

None

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

None

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws

None

None

Appellate Authority

Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950

Telangana Area Determines the of Andhra relationship between Pradesh Tenants and Landowners. The Act creates a general prohibition upon land ebing leased put after three years from the commencement of the Act. There are certain special cases specified undet the Act in which leases are permitted- where a landholder holds an area which is equal to or less than three times the area of the family holding for the local concerned and certain others. Maximum rents has been specified as per the type of soil.

1959, 1969, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1974

None

None AP (TA) Declaration of Substantial Holdings Rules, 1954; AP (TA) Land Census Rules, 1954; AP (TA) Tenancy and Agricultural Lands (Recovery of Arrears of Rent) Rules, 1958; AP (TA) Tenancy Records (Correction) Rules, 1956; AP (TA)Resumption of Land for Personal Cultivation Rules, 1955; AP (TA) Protected Tenants (transfer of Ownership of Lands) Rules, 1973; AP (TA) Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Rules,1950 and 1951.

None

None

Tehsildar; Tribunal

(Continued)

Tehsildar- Decision Not provided on claims for a Protected Tenant, recovery of possession by a PT; Tribunal determines the reasonable rent and the price at which PT is entitled to purchase LO’s interest

Andhra Pradesh Splitting up Joint-Pattas Act, 1965

The Act provides for splitting up of all the joint pattas held by joint pattadars (expect those held by a joint hindu family) and consequetively, entitles every koint pattadar for grant of a separate patta in respect of the share of land in the joint holding.

None

Andhra Pradesh Splitting up of Joint-Pattas Rules, 1965

None

None

None

If the Act Has Been Repealed by Any Other Law

None Andhra Andhra Pradesh (T.A.) Pradesh Prevention of (Telangana Fragmentation Area) and Tenancy Consolidation of and Holdings Rules, Agricultural 1957 Lands, Act, 1950

Laws Repealed by the Act

Not provided

Corresponding Rule/ Regulation

If the Act Amends Any Other Law

Amendments to the Act

Whole of Andhra 1976 Pradesh

Telangana Area The Act provides of Andhra for prevention of Pradesh fragmentation of agricultural holdings and thereafter their consolidation. The govt is empowered to provisionally settle the minimum area that can be cultivated profitably as a separate plot and thereafter determine the standard area for each class of land. Any transfer or lease of fragment cannot be done except to am owner of a contiguous survey number. Restrictions exist on partition of land that create fragments, any such alineation etc.

Andhra Pradesh (T.A.) Prevention of Fragmentation and Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1956

Territorial Jurisdiction

Brief Description

Legislation

(Continued)

None

None

Overriding Effect/ Subject to Other Laws Corresponding Function

Appellate Authority

Not provided The govt is Govt; required Consolidation to frame Officer; schemes for Village consolidation Community; of holdings; Collector Consolidation is required to implement the provisions of the Act; If the holding of an owner under a scheme for the govt, is burdened with lease, the CO would determine whether such lease needs to be transferred and Co also determines questions of compensation; Function of Village Committee is to be determined by the govt Collector Tehsildar The tehsildar is required to publish notice to the interested persons and thereafter determine the shares of land of each pattadarin joint holding and grant a separate patta.

Responsible Authorities Under the Act

Source: Author

Telangana Area The Act provides for Andhra Pradesh of Andhra abolition of all inams (Telangana Pradesh other than village Area) Abolition service inams held of Inams Act, by religious and 1954 charitable institututes and giving adequate compensation for the lands resumed from inamdars. It also allows retention by the inamdar as well as his tenants of lands under their personal cultivation to the extent of the maximum allowed under the Hyderabad Tenancy and Agricultural lands Act, 1950.

Not provided

None

Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Abolition of Inams Rules, 1975

None

None

Subject to the Hyderabad Tenancy and Agricultural lands Act, 1950 to the extent of allowing retention of lands by tenants of inamdars.

Collector

The collector is competent to decide the cases under the Act.

Board of Revenue, Special Tribunal

Not provided

Improvement A company as of Village defined u/3 of sites; town/ the Companies rural planning; Act; society for state registered corporations; under Societies residential Registration purposes for Act; a poor/landless; co-operative educational, society; health, slum industrial clearance concern can scheme; locating be deemed of a public office a company in certain cases

Andhra Pradesh Not provided

Land Acquisition Act, 1894

Central Statute Types of Acquisitions Permissible and the State Amendment Acts to For Public For Companies the Land Purposes Acquisition Act, 1894 Not provided

Temporary Acquisition

Applicable to Not provided waste/arable land; additional circumstanceslibrary/ educational institution, construction/ improvement of building, society, DH for poor irrigation tank, road

Sudden change in the channel of any river; other unforeseen urgencybecomes necessary for Railway organization

Under Urgency Clause

Not provided

Previous consent of the AG is required > Agreement between the AG and the Company

Procedure

Not provided

The consent of the govt cannot be obtained unless the enquiry of the collector reveals that the acquisition is being made for some specified purposes (which is a mandate for a private company).

Conditions to Be Satisfied

Cases Where Land Can Be Acquired for a Company

A16: Land Acquisition Act, 1894, with state amends: types of acquisitions

Obligations Imposed

The C is Once possession Collector can empowered is taken, the take possession to take into land vests of land after possession absolutely giving 48 hours the land after in the govt; of notice to 15 days of the govt may the concerned notification, notify that person; C even if the provisions is to offer award is not of hearing compensation made of objections for standing are not crops and trees; applicable has to tender in cases of payment of 80% urgency of compensation before taking possession Not provided Possession is Not provided to be taken within three months (where provision of hearing of objections are not applicable);

Powers Granted Proceedings

Cases of Urgency

Not provided

Includes housing Not provided_ scheme that the state may frame from time to time

Goa

Gujarat

Not provided

Includes provisions Not provided of sanitary improvements, laying down of village sites or townships

Bihar

Not provided_

Includes waste/ arable land;

Not provided

Not provided_

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided

Not provided_

Not provided_

In cases where Not provided life or property needs to be protected from natural calamity, the C can immediately take possession of land after notification

AG is empowered All constructions Not provided_ to modify the made, developments agreement done and undertaken with permissions the company; obtained by the if there were company and any clause the procedures prohibiting undertaken by construction the authorities in the acquired shall be deemed to land, it shall be be valid; no suit deemed to be can be instituted deleted w.e.f. for cancellation 15-10-1964. of permission or demolition of construction done as per permission obtained from SA. Not provided_ Not provided_ Not provided_

Not provided

(Continued)

Not provided_

At the time of taking of possession, the presence of village head is compulsory; in cases of buildings, notice of 48 hours is to be given; compensation is to be offered for standing crops and sudden dispossession Not provided_

provision of village company formed sites, planned and registered development under any law form public including a funds town/ foreign country rural planning, (in which case housing/ principle place health scheme of business is cleaning of slum India) areas, relieving congestion, hosing for displaced persons etc.

Karnataka

Not provided_

Not provided_

Himachal Pradesh

Central Statute Types of Acquisitions Permissible and the State Amendment Acts to For Public For Companies the Land Purposes Acquisition Act, 1894

(Continued)

Temporary Acquisition

Procedure

Includes waste/ Not provided_ Not provided_ arable land; immediate possession can be obtained for library/edu inst/ construction of a structure for common usage in a village/ godown/for a registered society/DH for poor/ construction of labour colony Includes waste/ TA and use of Not provided_ arable land; waste/arable or any other land may situation where be done for SG needs to affording immediately accommodation acquire land for to displaced the purposes persons of maintaining road communication, irrigation, water supply.

Under Urgency Clause

Not provided_

Not provided_

Conditions to Be Satisfied

Cases Where Land Can Be Acquired for a Company

Not provided_

C can immediately take possession with the previous sanction of SG

Not provided_

Not provided_

Powers Granted Proceedings

Cases of Urgency

Not provided_

Not provided_

Obligations Imposed

Maharashtra

Madhya Pradesh

Kerala

Improvement Not provided_ Sudden change in The provision for Not provided_ of Village the channel of TA has been sites; town/ any river; other deleted rural planning; unforeseen for state urgencycorporations; becomes residential necessary purposes for for Railway poor/landless; organization educational, health, slum clearance scheme; locating a public office Not provided_ Includes a Not provided_ Not provided_ Not provided_ company registered under English Companies Acts, 1862-1890 or incorporated by Act of Indian or British Parliament or by Royal Charter or Letters Patent Not provided_ Not provided_ The Urgency Before direction Not provided_ clause was is issued for applicable under a TA, the C a temporary is required to amendment Act submit a report of 1972; in cases for the usage of acute scarcity of land and of water when it compensation is necessary for payable; SG to acquire thereafter it land, it may shall be lawful do so for the AO to take possession of land Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

(Continued)

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided_

Not provided_

Orissa Punjab

Tamil Nadu

Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided_

Central Statute Types of Acquisitions Permissible and the State Amendment Acts to For Public For Companies the Land Purposes Acquisition Act, 1894

(Continued)

Temporary Acquisition

Not provided_ Not provided_ Includes waste/ Not provided_ arable land; immediate possession can be obtained for library/edu inst/ construction of a structure for common usage in a village/ godown/for a registered society/DH for poor/ construction of labour colony/ irrigation tank/ public road; public purpose Waste/Arable Not provided_ land; when immediate possession is needed for l/ed inst. Construction/ improvement of town planning, DH for poor etc.

Under Urgency Clause

Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided_

Procedure

Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided_

Conditions to Be Satisfied

Cases Where Land Can Be Acquired for a Company

Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided

Powers Granted Proceedings

Cases of Urgency

Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided_

Obligations Imposed

Source: Author

Uttar Pradesh

Including provisions for sanitary improvement, laying down of village sites/ townships, settlement of land for agriculture,

Not provided_

Land can also be occupied in cases where land is required for sanitary improvements or planned development Not provided_

Not provided_

Where there’s a delay Not provided_ in payment of compensation in urgency cases, the C is required to make “on account” payment of up to two-third of the determined payment within six months of taking possession of the land

Not provided__ Not provided_

Order

Declaration of Requirement of Land

Objections

Authority

Process

Acquiring Notified Land

Preliminary Notification Marking Notice to Out of Land Interested Persons Ensuring Compliance

Final Acquisition Procedure

Yes- For acquisitions made before the amendment and validation Act of 1983; between March 9, 1976 and commencement of amendment Act of 2008

None

Rehabilita- Validation tion Clause of Certain Acquisitions

Land Appropriate Notification to Any interested declaration can The AG shall Collector is Collector will If a person To be made None Acquisition govt the effect that person may object be made by direct the to cause cause public wilfully at the Act, 1894 land is needed to acquisition to AG; on a Collector the land notice to be obstructs, cost of for pp/c; after the Collector > condition that to take to be given stating Imprisonment authority, which it is The C shall hear compensation order of measured that the govt of one month fund or permissible for and prepare a is to be acquisition and intends to and/or a fine company the authorities report for AG paid by the marked take the land of Rs 500 can for whom to enter land (containing record company out and invite be imposed by land is and deem of hearing and or public claims of a Magistrate; acquired; whether it recommendations) revenue compensation a Magistrate stamp is fit for the > Decision of AG can also duty is declared to be final enforce exempted; purpose surrender Andhra Not Collector is to Not provided_ Not provided_ Not Not Not provided Not provided Not provided None Pradesh provided cause public provided_ provided notice within 40 days of the publication of notification

Central Statute and the State Amendment Acts to the Land Acquisition Act, 1894

A17: Procedure of acquisition

Gujarat

Goa

Bihar

Declaration Not provided__ that a land is needed for public purpose will not be made unless the compensation is payable by the company or consolidated fund of India Not For the purpose The CP has the provided of enabling the right to receive govt to acquire compensation land, an AO and object to its is required sufficiency. to conduct a survey assessing the same. Not Additionally, Not provided_ provided_ setting out of boundaries and conducting survey; notification can also be issued for a company

Not provided

Not provided_

Not provided

Not provided_

Not provided

Not provided_

Not provided

Not provided

Not Not provided_ provided_

Not provided Not provided

Not provided_

Not provided_

None

Not provided None

If the C is It is lawful None opposed to use the in taking AL for possession, any other the Magistrate public can be purpose approached other or if not than for the M, the which the CoP can be possession approached; was actions cannot originally be called in taken. S. question in 17A i.b. s. any court but 13, 1963 compensation A. Act is payable.

Not provided_

Not provided

(Continued)

Yes- the validity of actions taken by the govt or officers cannot be called into question in any court

None

Yes- For acquisitions made between 1961-1975

Madhya Pradesh

Not Not provided_ provided_ Not Not provided_ provided_

Kerala

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not Not provided_ Not provided_ provided_ Not Precise limits At the time provided_ of the land of deciding have to be objections, the specified in the grounds have to declaration be specified

Not provided_ The DC has to Not mark out and provided_ measure land and send a report of the same to the SG; before issuing a declaration, DC has to submit a plan for use of land and estimating compensation Not provided_ Not provided_ Not provided_ Not provided__

Not provided_

Order

Declaration of Requirement of Land

Objections

Authority

Process

Acquiring Notified Land

Preliminary Notification

Himachal Pradesh Karnataka

Central Statute and the State Amendment Acts to the Land Acquisition Act, 1894

(Continued)

Not Not provided_ provided_ Not Not provided_ provided_

Not Not provided_ provided_ Not Not provided_ provided_

Marking Notice to Out of Land Interested Persons

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Ensuring Compliance

Final Acquisition

Not provided_ Not provided_

None

None

Not None provided_ Not None provided__

Procedure

Yes- lands acquired or purported to be acquired, proceedings have been initiated and possession has been taken before 26-021967

 

Yes- under the 1894 Act as amended by the 1961 Act

None

Rehabilita- Validation tion Clause of Certain Acquisitions

Not Not provided provided Not Not provided__ provided_

Punjab

Tamil Nadu

Orissa

Not In order to provided_ ascertain whether land is needed for public purpose, an officer may enter upon and survey lands, mark levels etc. Not Not provided provided_

Maharashtra

Not provided__

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not Not provided_ Not provided_ provided_ Not Not provided__ Not provided_ provided_

Not provided_

Not Not provided_ provided_

Not provided Not provided

Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided__ Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided

Not provided_

None

None

Not None provided__ Not None provided__

Not provided_

Not provided_

(Continued)

Yes- declaration made after 20-01-1967 shall be deemed to have been validly made (on the ground that such declaration has been made on the expiry of three years from the date of notification)

Yes- notifications published under the state Act 18 of 1948 (mentioned in the schedule to amendment Act of 1959) None

Yes- lands which are acquired for public purpose or company

Source: Author

Not provided_

Not provided_

Order

Declaration of Requirement of Land

Objections

Authority

Process

Acquiring Notified Land

Preliminary Notification

Uttar Pradesh Not When a land is Not provided_ provided_ situated in a regulated area as per the Building Regulation of 1948 and it is anticipated that the land is needed for preparation or finalization of the scheme, a notification can be issued on the same ground.

Central Statute and the State Amendment Acts to the Land Acquisition Act, 1894

(Continued)

Not provided

Not provided_

Marking Notice to Out of Land Interested Persons

Not provided_

Ensuring Compliance

Final Acquisition

Not provided_

Procedure

None

Yes- any acquisition made under the PA before commencement of amendment Act of 1974

Rehabilita- Validation tion Clause of Certain Acquisitions

Not provided

Interest at the rate of 4% per annum Not provided

Not provided

Andhra Pradesh

Not provided

Two years from Power to Similar as those that have to be the date of summon considered by the court if a publication and enforce reference is made of attendance of declaration witnesses and production of documents; C is empowered to take possession of the land once the award is made

Not provided

Not provided

Reference by Market value Collector on of the land, application damages by an IP sustained, reasonable expenses incidental to change of residence, interest at 12% per annum

Matters to Be Considered

Not provided

Yes

(Continued)

Payment to be made in lumpsum if the amount does not exceed Rs 500 or in five equal annual instalments

The collector shall pay the amount or deposit the same in court if the person refuses to accept it.

Right of Other Apportionment Payment of IP to Apply for Compensation Re-Determination of Amount

Degree of Yes urgency, disinclination of the person, damages sustained which if caused by a private person would not render liability, damages caused after the date of publication of acquisition, increase in the value of land accrued Not provided Not provided

Matters to Be Neglected

Re-determination of Compensation

Procedure

Enquiry into Period within Objections Made Which Award Is to Be Made

Powers Granted Determination of Compensation to the Collector Matters to Be Matters to Be Considered Neglected

Reference to Court

Award by Collector – Area of Land, Compensation Amount, Apportionment of Compensation

Land The Collector is Acquisition required to Act, 1894 conduct an enquiry into the value of land and any improvements made for the determination of compensation

Central Statute and the State Amendment Acts to the Land Acquisition Act, 1894

A18: Procedure for compensation

Not provided Not provided If the C is Not provided_ satisfied that the IP are agreeable to the proposal made, no further enquiry need to be conducted and compensation shall be awarded accordingly.

Goa Gujarat

Not provided

Not provided

if any amount Not provided Not provided Not provided If the land is has been paid a subject in excess, the matter of collector has ceiling law, the power to the amount realize back shall be that amount determined as a public accordingly demand Not provided Not provided Not provided Not provided Not provided Previous if the SG is Not provided__ Not provided_ Not provided_ approval entitled to of the SG be paid an required for amount for the collector the land, to make an it shall award be made; a tenant shall be compensated for the damages sustained as a tenant

Matters to Be Considered

Not provided

Not provided_ Not provided_

Not provided

Not provided_ Not provided_

Not provided

Right of Other Apportionment Payment of IP to Apply for Compensation Re-Determination of Amount

Not provided Not provided_ Additional Not provided_ groundincrease in the value of land by reason of environmental improvement

Not provided

Matters to Be Neglected

Re-determination of Compensation

Procedure

Enquiry into Period within Objections Made Which Award Is to Be Made

Powers Granted Determination of Compensation to the Collector Matters to Be Matters to Be Considered Neglected

Reference to Court

Award by Collector – Area of Land, Compensation Amount, Apportionment of Compensation

Bihar

Central Statute and the State Amendment Acts to the Land Acquisition Act, 1894

(Continued)

Not provided_

Not provided_

The Collector is required to conduct an enquiry into the value of land and any improvements made for the determination of compensation

Himachal Pradesh

Karnataka

Kerala

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Power to Not provided_ summon and enforce attendance of witnesses and production of documents; the collector can take possession of the land only after paying the due compensation

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

to be made Not provided_ by the DC within 90 days from the receipt of application Reference by Market value Collector on of the land, application damages by an IP sustained, reasonable expenses incidental to change of residence, interest at 12% per annum

Not provided

Not provided_

Not provided_

Degree of Not provided urgency, disinclination of the person, damages sustained which if caused by a private person would not render liability, damages caused after the date of publication of acquisition, increase in the value of land accrued

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided

Not provided_

Not provided_

(Continued)

Not provided_

Compensation can also be paid in kind, i.e. any equivalent land may be given if the person agrees; protection for compensationthe amount is not liable to be seized before its actual payment Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided_

Orissa Punjab

Tamil Nadu Not provided_ Uttar Pradesh Not provided

Source: Author

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided

Not provided_ Not provided

An award The amount of Not provided_ cannot be compensation made by the cannot C without exceed the previous maximum sanction of amount the SG; it may prescribed by also call for SG; in case of records for acquisition examination for a state company, payment is made by public revenue Not provided_ Not provided_ Not provided_ Not provided_ Not provided_ Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided_ Not provided_ Where the requisition is not for the union, if the SG believes the compensation awarded to be excessive, it can direct the C to refer the matter to the court; interest of 6% Not provided_ Interest of 4% Not provided Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided_

Matters to Be Considered

Not provided_ Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided__

Not provided_

Not provided_

Matters to Be Neglected

Re-determination of Compensation

Procedure

Enquiry into Period within Objections Made Which Award Is to Be Made

Powers Granted Determination of Compensation to the Collector Matters to Be Matters to Be Considered Neglected

Reference to Court

Award by Collector – Area of Land, Compensation Amount, Apportionment of Compensation

Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra

Central Statute and the State Amendment Acts to the Land Acquisition Act, 1894

(Continued)

Not provided_ Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided

Not provided_ Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_

Not provided_ Not provided_

Not provided_ Payment is secured- it is not liable to be attached or ceiled unless payment is actually made

Not provided_

Not provided_

Right of Other Apportionment Payment of IP to Apply for Compensation Re-Determination of Amount

Acting

Retrospective

Slum Areas (Improvement and Clearance) Act, 1956

State Acquisition of Lands for Union Purposes (Validation) Act, 1954

Centre

Status of the Act

Statute

Centre/State

Not specified

In order for the authority to execute any work of improvement in a slum area or re-development

Purpose for Which Land Can Be Acquired

A19: Allied status on land acquisition

CG may acquire land by way of publication of a notice to the effect in the official gazette when on representation made by an official it believes that such land is required for a specified purpose; notice for showing cause has to be issued to the owner Not specified

Procedure Laid Down

None

Yes

Statutory Right to Object/ Appeal

None

None

Permissions Required for Acquisition

Not expressly provided under the Act

Yes

Compensation Clause

None

None

Rehabilitation Clause

(Continued)

Yes | Acquisitions made by the SG for union purposes for a specific period after commencement of the constitution to the day when SG was vested with the power to acquire land

None

Validation of Certain Other Acquisitions Made

Centre/State

(Continued)

Status of the Act

Acting

Acting

Statute

Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisitions and Development) Act, 1957

Atomic Energy Act, 1962

If it appears to the CG that any minerals from which uranium and other prescribed substances can be obtained are present in/ on any land, the CG can vest in itself the exclusive right to work those minerals. All rights necessary to occupy the surface of any such land for constructing buildings etc. can be granted to the CG.

Where coal is obtainable from the land

Purpose for Which Land Can Be Acquired CG is first required to publish a preliminary notification followed by a declaration to the same effect; direct acquisition may also take place under an urgency clause By order of the CG

Procedure Laid Down

None

Yes

Statutory Right to Object/ Appeal

None

None

Permissions Required for Acquisition

Yes, in cases of compulsory acquisition of mine

Yes

Compensation Clause

None

None

Rehabilitation Clause

None

Yes | Certain notifications are validated

Validation of Certain Other Acquisitions Made

Acting

Acting

Acting

Land Acquisition (Mines) Act, 1885

Petroleum and Mineral Pipelines (Acquisition of Rights of Users in Land) Act, 1962

National Highways Act, 1956

The Act provides for the cases in which mines and minerals are situated in the land that is acquired under the 1894 Act The right of user in land can be acquired under the provisions of this Act for the purposes of laying down pipelines for transport of petroleum and minerals  The CG has to be satisfied that the land is needed for the building, maintenance, management or operation of a national highway or any part Notification for acquisition of right has to be issued by the CG, and after conducting inspections and hearing objections, the right can be acquired Notification for acquisition of right has to be issued by the CG, and after conducting inspections and hearing objections, the CG can make a declaration acquiring land

Follows the 1894 Act

Yes

Yes

Not provided

None- the declaration of acquisition cannot be called in question in any court/ authority

None

Not provided

Yes

Yes

Yes

None

None (Not required- only right of use is acquired)

Not provided

(Continued)

None

None

None

Centre/State

(Continued)

Acting

Acting

Requisitioning and Acquisition Of Immovable Property Act, 1952

Resettlement of Displaced Persons (Land Acquisition) Act, 1948 Airports Authority of India, 1994

Acting

Status of the Act

Statute

For the resettlement of displaced persons Any land required by the Airports authority for the discharge of its functions is deemed to be for public purpose

Competent Authority has to be satisfied that any land is required for public purposes

Purpose for Which Land Can Be Acquired

As per the 1894 Act

The competent authority has to be served a notice to the owner of the property to show why the property should not be requisitioned and thereafter, decide on taking or leaving the possession of property | The CG can requisition property with a notification published in the gazette By notification in the official gazette

Procedure Laid Down

As per the 1894 Act

Yes

Yes

Statutory Right to Object/ Appeal

None

None

None

Permissions Required for Acquisition

As per the 1894 Act

Yes

Yes

Compensation Clause

As per the 1894 Act

None

None

Rehabilitation Clause

None

None

Yes | Requisitions made by the SGs for the purposes of the union under any Act before the 25-01-1952 have been validated

Validation of Certain Other Acquisitions Made

Andhra Pradesh/ Telangana

Acting

Acting

Acting

Andhra Pradesh Housing Schemes (Acquisition of Lands) Act, 1961

Andhra Pradesh Slum Improvement (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1956

Nagarjuna Sagar Project (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1956

Where the govt deems it necessary to acquire land in a slum area for clearing or improving the area, it may do so. Purposes connected to the Nagarjuna Project; land can be acquired in the declared project area

For executing housing schemes under the Andhra Pradesh Housing Board Act, 1956

In accordance with the provisions of 1984 Act with certain amendments made which include extending the definition of urgency clause to cases where land is required for the project.

Publishing a notice in the AP Gazette to the effect that the govt has decided to acquire land in pursuance of the Act. Publishing a notice in the AP Gazette to the effect.

Yes- as per the 1894 Act

Yes- the owner of the land has a right to show cause why the land should not be acquired.

No

None

None

None

Yes- by virtue of 1894 Act

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

(Continued)

Yes

Yes | Certain proceedings initiated before the commencement of this Act

None

Centre/State

(Continued)

Status of the Act

Acting

Acting

Statute

Visakhapatnam Steal Project (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1972

Andhra Pradesh Urban Areas (Development) Act, 1975

If land is required for developmental purposes, it may be acquired

For the purposes of the project

Purpose for Which Land Can Be Acquired In accordance with the provisions of 1984 Act with certain amendments made which include extending the definition of urgency clause to cases where land is required for the project. As per the 1894 Act | Acquisition can also be made otherwise than under the provisions of 1894 Act when previous approval is taken by the concerned authority from the DC who has obtained sanction from the govt (this is statutorily called Acquisition by Private Negotiations)

Procedure Laid Down

Yes- when acquisition is made under 1894 Act

Yes- as per the 1894 Act

Statutory Right to Object/ Appeal

Sanction from govt required for acquisition by private negotiations

None

Permissions Required for Acquisition

Yes- when acquisition is made under 1894 Act

Yes- by virtue of 1894 Act

Compensation Clause

No

No

Rehabilitation Clause

None

Yes

Validation of Certain Other Acquisitions Made

Assam

Acting

Acting

Acting

Assam Public Works (Regulation Of Road Development And Road Transport) Act, 2010

Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority Act, 1985

Assam Town And Country Planning Act, 1959

The Road Authority can make any scheme requiring acquisition of land for the purposes of execution of road development The Authority has the power to take possession of land when such is necessary for the execution of any of its scheme | Any land within the line of a street or any remaining land after their portions are acquired can be taken under possession by the authority Same as above Same as above

The procedure laid down under 1894 is to be followed | The Authority has to approach the SG to acquire land on its behalf

No procedure laid down

Same as above

Yes

None

Same as above

The SG has to approve of the acquisition

None

Same as above

Yes | As per market value of land with 25% increase in the value | The right of compensation is limited to persons injuriously affected by such acquisition

None

None

None

None

(Continued)

None

None

None

Bihar/ Jharkhand

Centre/State

(Continued)

Acting

Acting

Acting

Jharkhand Highways Act, 2005

Bihar Displaced Persons Rehabilitation (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1950

Acting

Assam Land Acquisition (Dibrugarh) Act, 1953

Bihar Housing Board Act, 1982

Status of the Act

Statute

For the purposes of executing any highway construction schemes Wherever it is necessary to speedily acquire land for the purposes of rehabilitation of displaced persons

For construction of suitable works along the Brahmaputra river or preventing floods or soil erosion in the sub-region For the purposes of implementing housing schemes

Purpose for Which Land Can Be Acquired

A notice to the effect has to be published in the Official Gazette stating the areas and the boundaries of the lands proposed to be acquired.

As per the procedure established in 1894 Act applicable to the state Notification in the gazette

SG can make a notification to the effect

Procedure Laid Down

No

Yes

Yes- as per the 1894 Act

None

Statutory Right to Object/ Appeal

None

None

None

None

Permissions Required for Acquisition

Yes

 

Yes- by virtue of 1894 Act

Yes | Collector is supposed to conduct proceedings

Compensation Clause

No

None

None

None

Rehabilitation Clause

None

None

None

None

Validation of Certain Other Acquisitions Made

Gujarat

Delhi

Retrospective

Acting

Delhi Industrial Development Operation and Maintenance Act, 2010

Gujarat Land Acquisition Officers Proceedings Validation Act, 1949

Acting

Delhi Development Act, 1927

For public purposes (not defined by the Act) | Under the provisions of LA Act, 1894

Land may be acquired when it is needed by the corporation which generally is required to promote the rapid and orderly establishment and growth of industries in Delhi.

Where land is required for the purpose of development or for any other purposes in the Act As per the procedure established in 1894 Act; after taking possession the govt may transfer the land to the concerned authority in return for the amount of compensation payable Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd has been empowered to acquire and possess any immovable property as it is deemed necessary for the functions of the corporation. None None

No

Yes- as per the 1894 Act; the provision for appeal was repealed by an amending Act of 1963

None

None- govt may acquire unutilized portions and give them to other industries

None

None

Not expressly provided under the Act

Yes- by virtue of 1894 Act

None

No

No

(Continued)

Yes | The Act’s purpose is to validate certain proceedings done by officers for acquisition of land in the province of Bombay

None

None

Centre/State

(Continued)

Status of the Act

Acting

Statute

Gujarat Land Requisition Act, 1948

For public purposes, when the SG considers expedient to requisition land

Purpose for Which Land Can Be Acquired By order in writing

Procedure Laid Down None

Statutory Right to Object/ Appeal None

Permissions Required for Acquisition Yes

Compensation Clause None

Rehabilitation Clause

Yes | The Act validates certain requisitioning orders given by the SG for the purposes of the state or any public purpose |If the order was made on or after the 26th January, 1950 and before the commencement of the Bombay Land Requisition (Amendment) Act, 1951 and does not specify the purpose for which such requisition was made

Validation of Certain Other Acquisitions Made

Acting

Acting

Acting

Gujarat Industrial Development Act, 1962

Gujarat Housing Board Act, 1961

Gujarat Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance And Redevelopment) Act, 1973

The Housing Board has the power to take an acquire any property that is required for the purposes of functioning of the Act The Slum clearance board has the power to acquire and hold property to do all things necessary for the purposes of the Act. The Board can declare certain areas to be slums, require eviction of promises and demolish buildings that it considers inhabitable

If land is required by the Corporation for the purposes of conducting its activities and its SG considers the purposes to be relevant under the current land acquisition statute

As per the regulations of the board, approved by the Sg

The Corporation has to apply to the SG to acquire land on its behalf, if it is unable to acquire it by agreement and then the SG can order proceedings under the relevant LA law The SG has to conduct proceedings

None

Yes

As per the relevant LA Act

The SG has to approve of the acquisition

The SG has to approve of the acquisition

Yes | SG has to agree for the purpose to be public within the meaning of LA law

None

Yes

Yes

None

None

None

(Continued)

None

None

None

Centre/State

(Continued)

Status of the Act

Acting

Acting

Acting

Statute

Gujarat Private Forests (Acquisition) Act, 1972

Gujarat Highways Act, 1955

Gujarat Water And Gas Pipelines (Acquisition Of Right Of User In Land) Act, 2000

For laying down pipelines for transfer of water and gas from one area to the other

Any land required by the Highways Authority to perform its functions is deemed to be required for public purpose

Private forests are acquired to preserve their material resource and preserve them from destruction

Purpose for Which Land Can Be Acquired With effect from a certain date as prescribed, all private forests are deemed to be vested in the SG | Land under personal cultivation by the owner is exempted, as a general rule The Authority has to approach the SG who, if it deems expedient, issues notification of acquisition in the official gazette | The SG acquires land for the authority Notification in the official gazette

Procedure Laid Down

Yes

Yes

It is the statutory duty of the person to hand over possession of the land to the collector

Statutory Right to Object/ Appeal

None

Yes | SG has to agree for the acquisition

None

Permissions Required for Acquisition

Yes

Yes

Yes

Compensation Clause

None (Not required- only right of use is acquired)

None

None

Rehabilitation Clause

None

None

None

Validation of Certain Other Acquisitions Made

Himachal Pradesh

Haryana

Acting

Haryana Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act, 1973

Acting

Acting

Haryana Urban Development Authority Act, 1977

Himachal Pradesh Municipal Corporation Act, 1994

Acting

Repealed

Gujarat Land Acquisition (Industrial Areas) Act, 1961

Haryana Housing Board Act, 1971

Acting

Gujarat Town Planning And Urban Development Act, 1976

For the purposes of functions of the Corporation that includes regulation of land use

For the purposes of urban development as laid down in the Act Public Purpose

For implementation of housing schemes

When land is designated under the final developmental plan, for the purposes of development For the purposes of facilitating industrial development

By an order of requisition after hearing the objections of the party; The Commissioner can acquire land by agreement or when agreement fails, application can be made to the SG to acquire land as per the provisions of 1894 Act

Declaration by notification in the gazette | Rest of the procedure is as per 1894 Act By notification in the official gazette | Acquisition can also take place by purchase/ exchange As per the 1894 Act

By agreement of under the provisions of the 1894 Act

If done via the procedure of 1894 Act, then the right to object also lies as per the 1894 Act

Yes

As per the 1894 Act

Yes

As per 1894 Act

As per the 1894 Act

The SG has to approve of the acquisition, if 1894 Act is to be followed

None

As per 1894 Act

None

As per 1894 Act

None

As per agreement or 1894 Act

Yes

As per the 1894 Act

Yes

As per 1894 Act

As per agreement or 1894 Act

As per agreement or 1894 Act

No

As per the 1894 Act

No

None | As per 1894 Act

As per the agreement or 1894 Act

(Continued)

None

None

None

None

None

None

Centre/State

(Continued)

Status of the Act

Acting

Acting

Acting

Statute

Himachal Pradesh Town and Country Planning Act, 1977

Himachal Pradesh Slum Areas (Improvement ad Clearance) Act, 1977

Himachal Pradesh Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act, 1972

For the purposes of implementation of any town development scheme finalized by the Town Development Authority | If any land is designated by a development plan as subject to compulsory acquisition and the value of the land diminishes due to such a declaration, the owner can serve a notice on the SG to purchase interest in land For improvement and clearance of slums and rehabilitation of slum dwellers For a public purpose, being a purpose of the state

Purpose for Which Land Can Be Acquired

By a notification in the official gazette

By a notification in the official gazette

The Town Development Authority can acquire land by agreement and on failure of such attempt, can appeal to the SG to acquire land under the provisions of the 1894 Act

Procedure Laid Down

Yes

Yes

If done via the procedure of 1894 Act, then the right to object also lies as per the 1894 Act

Statutory Right to Object/ Appeal

None

None

The SG has to approve of the acquisition, if 1894 Act is to be followed

Permissions Required for Acquisition

Yes

Yes

As per agreement or 1894 Act

Compensation Clause

No

No

As per agreement or 1894 Act

Rehabilitation Clause

None

None

None

Validation of Certain Other Acquisitions Made

Karnataka

Acting

Acting

Acting

Acting

Karnataka Town And Country Planning Act, 1961

Sri Malai Mahadeswaraswamy Kshethra Development Authority Act, 2013

Kitturu Development Authority Act, 2011

Karnataka Urban Development Authorities Act, 1987

Land needed for a town planning scheme or master plan is deemed to be of public purpose under 1894 Act For the purposes of execution of development plans made by the authority, proposals for acquisition can be made Proposals for acquisition of land can be made by the authority which is necessary for the execution of development plan For the purposes of urban development as laid down in the Act A declaration has to be made by the SG after it sanctions the scheme for which land is to be acquired | Such declaration is regarded to be conclusive evidence of the fact that land is required for public purpose | Authority also has the power to acquire land by an agreement

By acquisition/ purchase/ exchange or otherwise

By acquisition/ purchase/ exchange or otherwise

A declaration to the effect has to be made as per the provisions of 1894 Act

None

As per the 1894 Act | If not done otherwise

As per the 1894 Act | If not done otherwise

As per the 1894 Act

The SG has to sanction the development scheme under which land needs to be acquired

As per the 1894 Act | If not done otherwise

As per the 1894 Act | If not done otherwise

As per the 1894 Act

None

As per the 1894 Act | If not done otherwise

As per the 1894 Act | If not done otherwise

As per the 1894 Act

None

As per the 1894 Act | If not done otherwise

As per the 1894 Act | If not done otherwise

As per the 1894 Act

(Continued)

None

None

None

None

Centre/State

(Continued)

Status of the Act

Acting

Acting

Statute

Karnataka Housing Board Act, 1962

Karnataka Acquisition of Land for Grant of House- Sites Act, 1972

Where land is required for the purpose of providing house-sites to the weaker sections of the people who are homeless

For housing or developmental schemes

Purpose for Which Land Can Be Acquired The scheme can provide for acquisition of land by purchase/ exchange otherwise | If the required land is under any municipal corporation or other govt agency, transfer to the housing board can be by giving the agency a notice to the effect SG has to give notice of its intention to acquire land in the official gazette and after such publication, it has to send a notice to the owner/occupier/ any interested person to show cause. 1894 Act applicable for enquiry and award of DC and apportionment of amount of compensation.

Procedure Laid Down

Yes- SCN is issued upon the interested person

Yes | The municipal/ other agency can raise objections

Statutory Right to Object/ Appeal

None

Scheme has to be sanctioned by the SG

Permissions Required for Acquisition

Yes

Yes

Compensation Clause

No

None

Rehabilitation Clause

None

None

Validation of Certain Other Acquisitions Made

Kerala

Acting

Acting

Kerala Land Development Act, 1964

Acting

Industrial Areas Development Act, 1966

Kerala Land Acquisition Act, 1961

Acting

Karnataka Highways Act, 1964

Schemes of development can be formed and the land needed for such scheme

For public purposes (not defined by the Act)

For the purposes of development by the Board

For the purposes of construction of highways

By a notification in the official gazette | Public notice has to be given the SG that it intends to take possession of such land Publication of notification to the effect by the SG Preliminary notification to be issued by the govt; when the govt/BOR is satisfied on a report of the Collector that a land is needed a declaration to the same effect shall be made; enquiry and hearing of objections shall be done by the Collector and thereafter, possession may be taken As per the 1894 Act Yes

Yes

Yes

None

Yes

Permissions from various govt officers required as per the established process

SG

None

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

None

None

(Continued)

None

None

None

None

Centre/State

(Continued)

Status of the Act

Acting

Statute

Kerala Municipalities Act, 1960

Public purpose

Purpose for Which Land Can Be Acquired Land that the Municipality is authorized to acquire under the Act can be acquired as per the provisions of the 1894 Act; lands can also be acquired by private purchase or free surrender; municipality also has the power to acquire and dispose of property for providing any arrangement or public purpose with the prior approval of the govt;

Procedure Laid Down No

Statutory Right to Object/ Appeal None

Permissions Required for Acquisition Not expressly provided under the Act

Compensation Clause No

Rehabilitation Clause

None

Validation of Certain Other Acquisitions Made

Kerala Requisitioning and Acquisition of Property Act, 1981

Acting

Public purpose

When the govt is of the opinion that a land is needed for pp and the property should be requisitioned, it shall serve a notice to the owner/ip to show cause why it should not be done and after considering any objections, it may requisition the property by an order; it may be acquired by publication in the official gazette to the effect that such land is acquired for a pp. Yes

None

Yes

No

(Continued)

None

Madhya Pradesh

Centre/State

(Continued)

Execution of housing schemes

For resettlement of displaced landholders

Acting

For the purpose of improving or developing any slum area, or for re-developing any slumclearance area or for rehabilitation of slum dwellers

Purpose for Which Land Can Be Acquired

Acting

Acting

Kerala Slum Areas (Improvement and Clearance) Act, 1981

Madhya Pradesh Griha Nirman Mandal Adhiniyam, 1972 Madhya Pradesh Resettlement And Rehabilitation Of Displaced Persons (Land Acquisition) Act, 1949

Status of the Act

Statute

When it is necessary to acquire any land within, adjoining or surrounded by any slum area or slum clearance area, it may be acquired by publication of a notice to the effect in the official gazette; before such notice is published, the govt is required to give a show cause to the owner/ip As per the provisions of 1894 Act By notification in the official gazette | Provisions of the 1894 Act are to be applied

Procedure Laid Down

Yes- as per the 1894 Act

Yes- as per the 1894 Act

Yes

Statutory Right to Object/ Appeal

Yes- as per the 1894 Act

None

None

Permissions Required for Acquisition

Yes- as per the 1894 Act

Yes

Yes

Compensation Clause

Yes- as per the 1894 Act

No

One of the purposes of acquisition of land is the rehabilitation of slum dwellers

Rehabilitation Clause

None

None

None

Validation of Certain Other Acquisitions Made

Maharashtra

Acting

Maharashtra Krishna Valley Development Corporation Act, 1996

For the purposes of the Actmunicipal development schemes, town area development etc. In order for the authority to be able to discharge its functions or to exercise nay of its powers or carry out its projects The purposes of this Act are deemed to be public purpose

Acting

Acting

For resettlement of displaced landholders

Acting

Maharashtra Housing Area Development Act, 1976

Madhya Pradesh Resettlement Of Displaced Landholders (Land Acquisition) Act, 1954 Madhya Pradesh Municipalities Act, 1961

As per the 1894 Act

A notification to the effect in the official gazette that the land is acquired by the SG; SCN to be issued

As per the provisions of 1894 Act

By notification in the official gazette

As per the 1894 Act

Yes

Yes- as per the 1984 Act

Yes

As per the 1894 Act

None

None

None

As per the 1894 Act

Yes

Yes

None

As per the 1894 Act | in accordance with the provisions of the Maharashtra Project Affected Persons Rehabilitation Act, 1986

Yes- where a building is demolished under the Act

No

None

(Continued)

None

None

None

None

Centre/State

(Continued)

Status of the Act

Retrospective

Acting

Acting

Statute

Land Acquisition (Maharashtra Amendment And Validation Of Certain Proceedings For Acquisition Of Lands) Act, 1965

Maharashtra Regional And Town Planning Act, 1966

Bombay Highways Act, 1955

Any land needed for construction of highway or any other purposes of this Act is deemed to be of public purpose

For the purposes of development of town

Not provided

Purpose for Which Land Can Be Acquired

The Development Authority has all powers of acquisition of land as per the procedure laid down in 1894 Act Authority has to approach SG who would then issue notification of intention to acquire land | After hearing of objections and a report submitted by the authority to SG, a notification of acquisition can be issued | Provisions of the 1894 Act do not apply to acquisitions made under this Act

Not provided

Procedure Laid Down

Yes

As per the 1894 Act

Not provided

Statutory Right to Object/ Appeal

Yes | SG has to approve

As per the 1894 Act

Not provided

Permissions Required for Acquisition

Yes

As per the 1894 Act

Not provided

Compensation Clause

None

As per the 1894 Act

Not provided

Rehabilitation Clause

None

Validates all actions/ proceedings/ decisions undertaken by special officers under the 1894 Act except a few mentioned in the Act None

Validation of Certain Other Acquisitions Made

Retrospective

Acting

Acting

Acting

Bombay Land Acquisition Officers Proceedings Validation Act, 1949

Maharashtra Municipalities Act, 1965

Maharashtra Private Forests (Acquisition) Act, 1975

Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment) Act, 1971

In order for the authority to be able to discharge its functions or to exercise any of its powers or carry out its projects

For all private forests to vest in the govt

For the purposes of construction of buildings

Not provided

By agreement with the owner or in case of failure of reaching such agreement, under the provisions of 1894 Act By the application of the Act all private forests vest in the govt; powers granted to officers to undertake possession SG may acquire land by publishing a notice to the effect in the official gazette; govt is required to give notice of show cause to the owner/ip

Not provided

Yes

No

As per the 1894 Act | If not done otherwise

Not provided

None

None

As per the 1894 Act | If not done otherwise

Not provided

Yes

Yes

As per the 1894 Act | If not done otherwise

Not provided

No

No

As per the 1894 Act | If not done otherwise

Not provided

(Continued)

None

None

Validates all actions/ proceedings/ decisions undertaken by special officers under the 1894 Act | Special officers are the ones who undertook proceedings under the 1894 Act but were not duly appointed by the Collector None

Acting

Madras Town-Planning Act, 1920

Source: Author

Acting

Orissa Town Planning and Improvement Trust Act, 1956

Orissa

Status of the Act

Statute

Centre/State

(Continued)

For the purposes of the schemes developed under the Act | If immovable property required for the purposes of the Act

For the purposes of town improvement and planning

Purpose for Which Land Can Be Acquired Amends a few provisions of the 1894 Act- a publication of an improvement scheme will have the same effect as that of a notification As per the 1894 Act

Procedure Laid Down

Yes

Yes

Statutory Right to Object/ Appeal

Yes

None

Permissions Required for Acquisition

No

Yes

Compensation Clause

No

No

Rehabilitation Clause

None

None

Validation of Certain Other Acquisitions Made

References

Statutes Airports Authority of India, 1994. 444 Agency Tracts Interest and Land Transfer Act, 1917. 373 Ajmer Tenancy Act, 1950. 297, 300, 30 Ajmer Tenancy and Land Records Act, 1950. 84, 312, 324 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948. 92 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Land Revenue Act, 1907. 125, 134 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Tenancy Act, 1950. 123 Andhra Pradesh Assigned Lands (Prohibition of Transfers) Act, 1977. 125 Andhra Pradesh Land Encroachment Act, 1905. 388 Andhra Pradesh Land Reforms (Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings) Act, 197. 109, 113, 130 Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulation, 1959. 144 AP Capital Region Development Authority Act, 2014. 177 AP Rights in Land and Pattadar Passbooks Act, 1971. 140 Andhra Absorbed Enclaves (Hyderabad Jagirdars Commutation Sum and ­Allowance) Act, 1955. 404 Andhra Inams Assessment Act, 1955. 403 Andhra Land Revenue (Surcharge) Act, 1956. 373 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Abolition of Inams Act, 1954. 425 Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Indebtedness (Relief) Act, 1987. 403 Andhra Pradesh Agricultural Land (Conversion for Non- Agricultural Purposes) Act, 2006. 382 Andhra Pradesh Agricultural lands (Prohibition of Alienation) Act, 1972. 383 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Agricultural Tenancy Act, 1950. 88 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948. 405 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Imparitible Estates Act, 1904. 405 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Land Revenue Assessments (Standardization) Act, 1956. 377 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Proprietary Estates’ Village Service Act, 1894. 406 Andhra Pradesh Assigned Lands (Prohibition of Transfers) Act, 1977. 125, 384 Andhra Pradesh Board of Revenue (Replacement by Commissioners) Act, 1977. 420 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Board of Revenue Act, 1894. 422

466  References Andhra Pradesh Building (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1960. 410 Andhra Pradesh Commercial Crops and Assessment Act, 1957. 401 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Co-operative and Mortgage Banks Act, 1934. 373 Andhra Pradesh Co-operative Central Land Mortgage Bank (Formation) Act, 1961. 385 Andhra Pradesh District Planning Committees Act, 2005. 417 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Estates Communal, Forest and Private Lands ­(Prohibition of Alienation) Act, 1947. 374 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Estates Land Act, 1908. 375 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Estates Land (Reduction of Rent) Act, 1947. 408 Andhra Pradesh Housing Board Act, 1956. 411 Andhra Pradesh Housing Schemes (Acquisition of Lands) Act, 1961. 386, 445 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Ijra and Kowli Land Cancellation of Irregular Pattas and Abolition of Concessional Assessment Act, 1961. 377 Andhra Pradesh Inams (Abolition of Conversion to Ryotwari) Act, 1956. 402 Andhra Pradesh Indebted Agriculturists, Landless Labourers and Artisans ­(Temporary Relief) Act, 1976. 387 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Jagirdars Debt Settlement Act, 1952. 419 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Land (Special Assessment) Act, 1952. 377 Andhra Pradesh Land and Buildings (Termination of Leases) Act, 1986. 385 Andhra Pradesh Land Encroachment Act, 1905. 388; section 7A (3). 143; ­section 7A(1). 142, 143; section 12A (1). 143 Andhra Pradesh Land Grabbing (Prohibition) Act, 1982. 389 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Land Improvement Scheme (Contour Bunding and Contour Trenching) Act, 1949. 376 Andhra Pradesh Land Licensed Cultivators Act, 2011. 390 Andhra Pradesh Land Reforms (Ceilings on Agricultural Holdings) Act, 1973. 109, 113, 264, 275, 285, 291, 354, 391; section 2 (f). 114, 115; section 2 (m.) 115; section 4 A. 114 Andhra Pradesh Land Revenue (Additional Wet Assessment) Act, 1975. 393 Andhra Pradesh Land Revenue (Enhancement) Act, 1967. 393 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Land Revenue Act, 1317F. 379 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Land Revenue Act, 1907. 125 Andhra Pradesh Land Revenue (Additional Assessment) and Cess Revision Act, 1962. 392 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Land Revenue Assessment Act, 1876. 376 Andhra Pradesh Land Revenue Code, 1999. 94 Andhra Pradesh Metropolitan Planning Committee Act, 2007. 418 Andhra Pradesh Non-Agricultural Lands Assessment Act, 1963. 395 Andhra Pradesh Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Boot Leggers, Dacoits, Drug Offenders, Goon Das, Immoral Traffic and Land Grabbers Act, 1986. 396 Andhra Pradesh (T.A.) Prevention of Fragmentation and Consolidation of Holdings Act, 1956. 424 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Proprietary Estates’ Village Service and the Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Hereditary Village Offices Laws (Repeal) Act, 1969. 407 Andhra Pradesh Records of Rights in Land Act, 1971. 397 Andhra Pradesh Regularisation of the Unauthorised Constructions in Municipal Corporations, Municipalities and Urban Development Authorities Act, 2003. 414 Andhra Pradesh Revenue Enquiries Act, 1893. 420

References 467 Andhra Pradesh Revenue Recovery Act, 1864. 421 Andhra Pradesh Revenue Summonses Act, 1869. 422 Andhra Pradesh Rights in Land and Pattadar Pass Books Act, 1971. 219, 221, 398 Andhra Pradesh Rural Development Act, 1996. 417 Andhra Pradesh (Rent and Revenue) Sales Act, 1839. 413 Andhra Pradesh Slum Improvement (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1956. 399, 445 Andhra Pradesh Splitting up Joint-Pattas Act, 1965. 424 Andhra Pradesh Sugarcane Crop Land Revenue Assessment Act, 1965. 400 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Land Improvement Act, 1953. 378 Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Area) Tenancy Act, 1956. 325, 409 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Tenancy Act, 1950: section 21 (1). 123 – 124; ­section 21 (5). 124 Andhra Pradesh (Telangana Area) Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1950. 326, 380, 423 Andhra Pradesh Urban Areas (Development) Act, 1975. 415, 446 Andhra Pradesh Urban Areas (Surcharge on Property Tax) Act, 1958. 416 Andhra Pradesh Urban Areas (Surcharge on Property Tax) Repeal Act, 1978. 416 Andhra Pradesh Vacant Lands in Urban Areas (Prohibition of Alienation) Act, 1972. 416 Andhra Pradesh Vacant Lands in Urban Areas (Prohibition of Alienation) Repeal Act, 1978. 417 Andhra Pradesh Water, Land and Trees Act, 2002. 401 Arunachal Pradesh (Land Settlement and Records) Act, 2000. 299, 305, 310 Assam (Temporarily Settled Areas) Act, 1971. 328 Assam Land Acquisition (Dibrugarh) Act, 1953. 448 Assam Public Works (Regulation of Road Development and Road Transport) Act, 2010. 447 Assam Temporary Area Tenancy Act, 1970. 83 Assam (Temporarily Settled Areas) Tenancy Act, 1971. 297, 301, 306, 313, 359 Assam Town and Country Planning Act, 1959. 447 Atomic Energy Act, 1962. 442 Bengal Tenancy Act, 1886. 34 Bihar Displaced Persons Rehabilitation (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1950. 448 Bihar Housing Board Act, 1982. 448 Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1948. 20, 21 Bihar Land Reforms Act, 1950. 272, 283, 289, 293, 354, 360 Bihar Tenancy Act, 1885. 297, 301, 306, 314, 329, 359 Bombay Highways Act, 1955. 462 Bombay Land Acquisition Officers Proceedings Validation Act, 1949. 463 Bombay Tenancy Act of 1939. 24 Bombay Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948. 297, 301, 307, 315, 330, 365 Board Standing Orders. 141, 147, 221 Bombay Tenancy Act of 1939. 124 Central Bank Inquiry Committee report, 1927. 52 Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act, 1908. 297, 301, 307, 315, 333 Coal Bearing Areas Acquisition and Development Act, 1957. 174 Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951. 21 Constitution (Forty-fourth Amendment) Act, 1978. 32 Constitution (Fourth Amendment) Act, 1955. 24, 38, 132

468  References Constitution (Seventeenth Amendment) Act, 1964. 25, 38 Constitution of India, 1950. 9, 31, 37, 38, 91 Constitution (First Amendment) Act, 1951. 21 Constitution (Fourth Amendment) Act, 1955. 24 Constitution (Seventeenth Amendment) Act, 1964. 25 Delhi Landholdings (Ceiling) Act, 1960. 117 Delhi Development Act, 1927. 449 Delhi Industrial Development Operation and Maintenance Act, 2010. 449 Delhi Land Holdings (Ceiling) Act, 1960. 117, 264, 275, 285, 291, 354 Goa, Daman and Diu Agricultural Tenancy Act, 1964. 298, 302, 307, 334, 360 Government of India Act, 1935. 16, 17 Gujarat Agricultural Lands Ceiling Act, 1960. 265, 276, 285, 291, 361 Gujarat Highways Act, 1955. 452 Gujarat Housing Board Act, 1961. 451 Gujarat Industrial Development Act, 1962. 451 Gujarat Land Acquisition (Industrial Areas) Act, 1961. 453 Gujarat Land Acquisition Officers Proceedings Validation Act, 1949. 449 Gujarat Land Requisition Act, 1948. 450 Gujarat Lands Ceiling Act, 1960. 354 Gujarat Private Forests (Acquisition) Act, 1972. 452 Gujarat Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment) Act, 1973. 451 Gujarat Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1948. 299, 305, 310, 316, 336, 361 Gujarat Town Planning and Urban Development Act, 1976. 453 Gujarat Water and Gas Pipelines (Acquisition of Right of User in Land) Act, 2000. 452 Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority Act, 1985. 447 Government Order No. 9 dated 27 – 10–1949 of Reorganisation of Survey and Settlement Department. 140 Haryana Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1972. 117, 269, 281, 288, 293, 354, 362 Haryana Housing Board Act, 1971. 53 Haryana Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act, 1973. 453 Haryana Urban Development Authority Act, 1977. 453 Hyderabad Land Revenue Act, 1317 F. 141 Hyderabad Records of Rights in Land Regulation 1358 F (1948). 141 Hyderabad Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act of 1950. 83, 84, 298, 302, 307, 317, 338, 358 Himachal Pradesh Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1972. 272, 283, 289, 294 Himachal Pradesh Ceiling on Land holdings Act, 1972. 355 Himachal Pradesh Municipal Corporation Act, 1994. 453 Himachal Pradesh Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act, 1972. 454 Himachal Pradesh Slum Areas (Improvement ad Clearance) Act, 1977. 454 Himachal Pradesh Town and Country Planning Act, 1977. 454 Indian Evidence Act, 1872. 141 Industrial Areas Development Act, 196. 457 Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1972. 122 Jammu and Kashmir Agrarian Reforms Act, 1976. 46, 120, 273, 284, 290, 294 Jammu and Kashmir Big Landed Estates Abolition Act, 1950. 79 Jammu and Kashmir Tenancy Act, 1980. 122, 298, 302, 307, 317, 341 Jharkhand Highways Act, 2005. 448

References 469 Kerala Land Reform Act, 1963. 26 Karnataka Acquisition of Land for Grant of House-Sites Act, 1972. 456 Karnataka Highways Act, 1964. 457 Karnataka Housing Board Act, 1962. 456 Karnataka Land Reforms Act, 1961. 271, 282, 289, 293, 299, 304, 309, 342, 355, 363 Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, 1961. 455 Karnataka Urban Development Authorities Act, 1987. 455 Kashmir Big Landed Estates Abolition Act. 121 Kerala Land Acquisition Act, 1961. 457 Kerala Land Development Act, 1964. 457 Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1961. 25 Kerala Land Reforms Act, 1963. 26, 47, 271, 283, 289, 293, 299, 305, 310, 343, 355, 364 Kerala Municipalities Act, 1960. 458 Kerala Requisitioning and Acquisition of Property Act, 1981. 459 Kerala Slum Areas (Improvement and Clearance) Act, 1981. 460 Kitturu Development Authority Act, 2011. 455 Land Acquisition (Mines) Act 1885. 174, 443 Land Acquisition Act of 1894. 159, 196, 202 Land Pooling Scheme Rules, 2015. 177 Land Reform Act of 1956. 84 Land Revenue Rules of 1951. 140 Laoni Rules of 1950. 141 Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948. 76, 91, 92, 401 Madhya Pradesh Ceiling on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1960. 266, 277, 286, 291, 356, 365 Madhya Pradesh Griha Nirman Mandal Adhiniyam, 1972. 460 Madhya Pradesh Municipalities Act, 1961. 461 Madhya Pradesh Resettlement and Rehabilitation of Displaced Persons (Land Acquisition) Act, 1949. 460 Madhya Pradesh Resettlement of Displaced Landholders (Land Acquisition) Act, 1954. 61 Madras Abolition Act of 1948. 77 Madras Estates (Abolition and Conversion into Ryotwari) Act, 1948. 76 Madras Town-Planning Act, 1920. 464 Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act, 1960. 266, 278, 286, 292, 356 Madras Irrigation Cess Act, 1865. 92 Madras Revenue Recovery Act, 1864. 92, 373 Mysore Land Reforms Act, 1962. 25 Maharashtra Agricultural Lands (Ceiling on Holdings) Act, 1961. 265, 276, 286, 291, 355, 366 Maharashtra Housing Area Development Act, 1976. 461 Maharashtra Krishna Valley Development Corporation Act, 1996. 461 Maharashtra Municipalities Act, 1965. 463 Maharashtra Private Forests (Acquisition) Act, 1975. 463 Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966. 462 Maharashtra Slum Areas (Improvement, Clearance and Redevelopment) Act, 1971. 463 Malabar Tenancy Act, 1929. 98, 302, 308, 318, 345

470  References Nagarjuna Sagar Project (Acquisition of Land) Act, 1956. 172, 445 National Highways Act, 1956. 443 Orissa Land Reforms Act, 1960. 267, 278, 287, 292, 356, 367 Orissa Tenancy Act, 1913. 298, 303, 308, 321, 347, 366 Orissa Town Planning and Improvement Trust Act, 1956. 464 PEPSU Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955. 87, 298, 303, 308, 348 Permanent Settlement Regulations. 10, 52, 76 PEPSU Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955. 87, 130, 298, 303, 308 Punjab Land Reforms Act, 1972. 87, 267, 279, 287, 292, 356, 368 Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953. 25 Punjab Tenancy Act, 1887. 350, 368 Petroleum and Mineral Pipelines (Acquisition of Rights of Users in Land) Act, 1962. 443 Rajasthan Imposition of Ceilings on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1973. 115, 131 Rajasthan Tenancy Act of 1955. 84 Resumption of Jagir Act of 1952. 84 Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Ordinance of 2015. 159, 169, 173, 177, 216, 219 Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act of 2013. 169, 173, 219 Resumption of Jagir Act of 1952. 84 Resettlement of Displaced Persons (Land Acquisition) Act, 1948. 444 Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act, 1952. 444 Rehabilitation and Resettlement (Amendment) Ordinance of 2015. 173 Rajasthan Imposition of Ceilings on Agricultural Holdings Act, 1973. 115, 267, 279, 287, 292, 356, 369 Rajasthan Tenancy Act, 1955. 75, 84, 299, 303, 308, 322, 352, 369 Special Economic Zones Act of 2005. 180, 181 Sri Malai Mahadeswaraswamy Kshethra Development Authority Act, 2013. 45 State Acquisition of Lands for Union Purposes (Validation) Act, 1954. 441 Tamil Nadu Land Reforms (Fixation of Ceilings on Land) Act, 1961. 110, 268, 280, 288, 293, 357, 370; section 3 (40) (1) 110 – 111 Tamil Nadu Cultivating Tenants (Protection) Act, 1955. 299, 304, 309, 369 Telangana Area Land Census Rules of 1954. 140 Transfer of Property Act, 1882. 34, 398 Tripura Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act, 1960. 274, 284, 290, 294 Telangana Area Land Census Rules of 1954. 140 United Provinces Tenancy Act, 1939. 85 UP Zamindari Abolition Act, 1950. 66 Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition and Land Reforms Act of 1950. 72 Uttar Pradesh Zamindari and Abolition Act, 1950. 92 Uttar Pradesh Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holdings Act, 1960. 269, 281, 288, 293, 357, 372 Visakhapatnam Steel Project (Acquisition of Lands) Act, 1972. 172, 446 West Bengal Estates Acquisition Act of 1953. 77 West Bengal (Development and Planning) Act, 1948. 23 West Bengal Estates Abolition Act of 1953. 47, 77 West Bengal Land Reforms Act, 1955. 47, 84 270, 282, 289, 293, 357 Zamindar and Biswedari Abolition Act, 1959. 74

References 471

Cases Amar Singhji v. The State of Rajasthan AIR 1955 SC 504. 37 Atma Ram v. State of Punjab, AIR 1959, SC 519. 91 Avadh Kishore v. Ram Gopal AIR 1979 SC 861. 147 Arnold Rodricks v. State of Maharashtra, AIR 1966 SC 1988. 183 Bajirao Kote v. State of Maharashtra, 1995 2 SCC 422. 185 Banda Development Authority v. Motilal Agarwal, (2011) 5 SCC 39. 186 Burrakur Coal Co. Ltd. V. Union of India, 1961 AIR 954. 33 Chaitram Verma v. Land Acquisition Officer, AIR 1994 MP 74. 185 Charanjit Lal Chowdhary v. Union of India, 1950 SCR 869. 185 Corporation of the City of Bangalore v. M. Papaiah and Anr. (1989) 3 SCC 612. 131 Daulat Singh Surana v. Collector, 2002 (1) SC 290. 185 Dev Sharan v. State of Uttar Pradesh, (2011) 4 SCC 769. 186 Devinder Singh v. State of Punjab, (2007) 145 PLR 337. 185 Dhampur Sugar (Kashipur) Ltd. V. State of Uttranchal, (2007) 8 SCC. 185 Dwarkadas Shrinivas v. Sholapur Spg & Wvg Co. Ltd, 1954 AIR 119. 33 Dwarkadas Shrinivas v. Sholapur Spinning & Weaving Co. Ltd AIR 1954 SC 119 23. 37 G. Satyanarayana v. Government of Andhra Pradesh, 2014 (4) ALD 358. 131, 141, 147 Gangadhar Rao v. State of Bombay, AIR 1961 SC 288. 91 Gujarat Pottery Works v. B P Sood, 1967 AIR 964. 33 Guru Amarjit Singh v. Rattan Chand and Ors(1993) 4 SCC 349. 131 Himachal Pradesh v. Keshav Ram and Ors. (1996) 11 SCC 27. 131 His Holiness Kesavananda Bharti Sripadagalvaru & Ors. v. the State of Kerala & Ors (1973) 4 SCC 225. 26, 38 I.C. Golakhnath & Ors. V. The State of Punjab & Ors AIR 1967 SC 1643. 25, 38 Indrajit C. Parekh v. State of Gujarat, AIR 1975 SC 1182. 185 Jage Ram v. State of Haryana, 1971 AIR 1033. 183 Jage Ram v. State of Haryana, AIR 1980 SC 2018. 183, 185 K. Kunhi Koman v. State of Kerala, AIR 1962 SC 723. 91 Karimbil Kunhikonam v. the State of Kerala AIR 1962 SC 723. 25, 38 Kasturchand v. Harbilash (2000) 7 SCC 611. 147 Kunhi Koman v. The State of Kerala AIR 1962 SC 723. 37 Md. Ibrahim v. Secretary to the Government of India 1996 (2) ALT 950. 147 Minerva Mills Ltd and Ors. v. Union of India and Ors., AIR 1980 SC 12. 33 Motibhai Vithalbhai Patel v. State of Gujarat, AIR 1961 Guj 93. 185 Myram Lachaiah v. Nafeezunnisa Begum ILR 72 AP 652. 147 Nand Kishore Gupta v. State of Uttar Pradesh (2010) 10 SCC 282. 184 Pratibha Nema v. State of MP, 2003 10 SCC 626. 185 Pandit Jhandu Lal & Other v. State of Punjab & Anr. 166 Rajaswararao v. Naringarao AIR 1952 Hyderabad 75. 147 Romesh Thapar v. The State of Madras, 1950 SCR 594. 37 Sajjan Singh v. the State of Rajasthan AIR 1965 SC 845. 38 Senga Naicken’s case ILR 50 Mad 308. 167, 185 The State of Bihar vs Maharajadhiraja Sir Kameshwar, 1952 1 SCR 889. 33, 36, 215 The State of West Bengal vs Subodh Gopal Bose and Others, 1954 AIR 92. 49, 215 Smt. Somwati v. State of Punjab, 1963 AIR 151, 1963 SCR (3) 774. 183

472  References Sri Shankari Prasad Singh Deo v. Union of India & Ors., AIR 1951 SC 458. 38 State of Bombay v. Ali Gulashan, 1955 AIR 810, 1955 SCR (2) 867. 185 State of Madras v. Srimathi Champakam Dorairajan, 1951 SCR 525. 37 State of Uttar Pradesh v. Anand Brahma Shah, AIR 1967 SC 661. 37 State of West Bengal v. Bela Banerjee AIR 1954 SC 170. 37 Suraram Pratap Reddy & Ors vs District. Collector, Ranga Reddy, (2008) 9 SCC 552. 185

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476  References ———. “Land Reform and Agrarian Change in India and Pakistan since 1947: II.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 1, no. 3 (1974): 326–362. “Karachi Resolution.” Indian National Congress, 1931. Kershnar, Stephen. “Private Property Rights and Autonomy.” Public Affairs Quarterly (2002): 231–258. Khan, Mahmood Hasan, M. Ghaffar Chaudhry, and Sarfraz Khan Qureshi. “Landlessness and Rural Poverty in Underdeveloped Countries [with Comments].” The Pakistan Development Review 25, no. 3 (1986): 371–402. www.jstor.org/ stable/41258769. Knetsch, Jack L., and Thomas E. Borcherding. “Expropriation of Private Property and the Basis for Compensation.” University of Toronto Law Journal 29 (1979): 237. Kothari, Smitu. “Whose Nation? The Displaced as Victims of Development.” Economic and Political Weekly (1996): 1476–1485. Krishna, Raj. “Agrarian Reform in India: The Debate on Ceilings.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 7, no. 3 (1959): 302–317. Krishnaji, N. “Agrarian Relations and the Left Movement in Kerala A Note on Recent Trends.” Economic and Political Weekly (1979): 515–521. Ladejinsky, Wolf. “Agrarian Reform in India.” The Selected Papers of Wolf Ladejinsky: Agrarian Reform as Unfinished Business, Sous La Direction, 1977. ———. “Land Ceilings and Land Reform.” Economic and Political Weekly 7, no. 5/7 (1972): 401–408. www.jstor.org/stable/4361018. “Landlessness True Index of Poverty.” The Hindu, December 9, 2007, sec. NATIONAL. www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/ldquoLandlessnesstrue-index-of-povertyrdquo/article14891155.ece. Large, Donald W. “This Land Is Whose Land-Changing Concepts of Land as Property.” Wisconsin Law Review (1973); 1039. http://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/ get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/wlr1973§ion=60. Laski, Harold J. “The Purpose of Social Organization.” In A Grammar of Politics, 5th ed., edited by Harold J. Laski, 15–44. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985. Lenhoff, Arthur. “Development of the Concept of Eminent Domain.” Columbia Law Review 42, no. 4 (1942): 596–638. Lentz, Carola. “Land and the Politics of Belonging in Africa.” In African Alternatives, ed. Patrick Chabal, Ulf Engel, and Leo de Haan, 37–58. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Levien, Michael. “From Primitive Accumulation to Regimes of Dispossession: Six Theses on India’s Land Question.” Economic & Political Weekly 30 (2015): 146–157. Lipton, Michael. “Goals: Output, Efficiency, Growth Beyond the Inverse Relationship.” In Land Reform in Developing Countries Property Rights and Property Wrongs, edited by Michael Lipton, 65–123. Oxford: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2009. ———. Land Reform in Developing Countries: Property Rights and Property Wrongs. London: Routledge, 2009. https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=-eWJ AgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=michael+lipton+land+reform&ots=6vJ6IPip Rw&sig=U1F0YhdESTAY8W5XCXTuHxHefv4. Maitra, Sreya. “Development Induced Displacement: Issues of Compensation and Resettlement – Experiences from the Narmada Valley and Sardar Sarovar Project.” Japanese Journal of Political Science 10, no. 02 (2009): 191–211.

References 477 Malaviya, Harsh Dev. Land Reforms in India. New Delhi: All India Congress Committee, 1954. Mehta, Pooja. “Internally Displaced Persons and the Sardar Sarovar Project: A Case for Rehabilitative Reform in Rural India.” American University International Law Review 20 (2004): 613. Mencher, Joan P. “Land Ceilings in Tamil Nadu: Facts and Fictions.” Economic and Political Weekly 10, no. 5/7 (1975): 241–254. www.jstor.org/stable/4536857. Mendelsohn, Oliver. “The Pathology of the Indian Legal System.” Modern Asian Studies 15, no. 4 (1981): 823–863. Merillat, H. C. L. “25_Compensation for the Taking of Property-A Historical Footnote to Bela Banerjee’s Case,” 2016. http://14.139.60.114:8080/jspui/ handle/123456789/15254. Merrill, Thomas W. “Formalization, Possession, and Ownership The Role of Property in Secure Societies: Panel 1: Land Titling, Inclusion, and the Role of Property Rights in Secure Societies.” Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference Journal 6 (2017): 113–128. Metcalf, Thomas R. “Landlords without Land: The UP Zamindars Today.” Pacific Affairs 40, no. 1/2 (1967): 5–18. Miller, Richard W. “Economic Inequality and Political Oppression.” Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, no. 85 (1995): 1–15. www.jstor.org/ stable/41802015. Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, Government of India. “Agrarian Reforms: Report of the National Commission on Agriculture.” Report of the National Commission on Agriculture. New Delhi: Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, Government of India, 1949. Mukherjee, Ramkrishna. “Realities of Agrarian Relations in India.” Economic and Political Weekly 16, no. 4 (1981): 109–116. www.jstor.org/stable/4369463. Murickan, Jose. Development-Induced Displacement: Case of Kerela. International Specialized Book Service Incorporated, 2003. Murphy, John. “Insulating Land Reform from Constitutional Impugnment: An Indian Case Study.” The Comparative and International Law Journal of Southern Africa 25, no. 2 (1992): 129–155. Nathan, Dev. “Social Security, Compensation and Reconstruction of Livelihoods.” Economic and Political Weekly (2009): 22–26. “National Congress Election Manifesto,” n.d. Neale, Walter C. Economic Change in Rural India. Land Tenure and Reform in Uttar Pradesh, 1800–1955. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962. Omvedt, Gail. “Caste, Agrarian Relations and Agrarian Conflicts.” Sociological Bulletin 29, no. 2 (1980): 142–170. Pandey, Prashant. “Land Acquisition and Protests, Power and Politics in Jharkhand’s Coal Belt,” October 6, 2016. http://indianexpress.com/article/ explained/jharkhand-­hazaribagh-deaths-in-police-firing-mining-site-violence-landacquisition-3067366/. Patil, R. V. “ ‘All Land to the Tiller’: The Problem of Land Reform in India.” Economic Development and Cultural Change (1955): 374–380. Patnaik, Prabhat. “Economic Liberalisation and the Working Poor.” Economic & Political Weekly 51, no. 29 (July 16, 2016). Penner, James E. “Bundle of Rights Picture of Property.” UCLA Law Review 43 (1995): 711.

478  References Pipes, Richard. Property and Freedom. New York: Vintage, 2007. Planning Commission. “Third Five-Year Plan.” New Delhi: Planning Commission, Government of India, 66 1961. http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/ fiveyr/3rd/welcome.html. Platt, Rutherford H. Land Use and Society, Revised Edition: Geography, Law, and Public Policy. Revised Edition. Washington, Covelo, London: Island Press, 2004. https://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=QhG8BwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&p g=PT5&dq=land+use+and+society&ots=2LP9F33def&sig=Z3jT0orGjfngdXKhz bbxAYGpF5Y#v=onepage&q=land%20use%20and%20society&f=false. Ramachandraiah, C. “Making of Amaravati.” Economic & Political Weekly 51, no. 17 (2016): 69. Ramanathan, Usha. “A Word on Eminent Domain.” Displaced by Development: Confronting Marginalization and Gender Injustice, 2009, 133–145. ———. “Displacement and the Law.” Economic and Political Weekly, 1996, 1486–1491. Ranganathan, V. “Eminent Domain or Eminent Thievery? Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor.” Economic and Political Weekly (2006): 2697–2700. Reporter, Staff. “ ‘Digitisation of Land Records Almost Complete.’ ” The Hindu, July 12, 2017, sec. Andhra Pradesh. www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhrapradesh/digitisation-of-land-records-almost-complete/article19260335.ece. Robertson, Edward Stanley. “Land Revenue and Tenures of India.” Hermathena 6, no. 14 (1888): 368–383. Robinson, W. Courtland. “Risks and Rights: The Causes, Consequences, and Challenges of Development-Induced Displacement.” Occasional Paper, The Brookings Institution-SAIS Project on Internal Displacement. May 2003. http://brook.edu/ fp/projects/idp/articles/didreport.pdf. Roopal Suhag, and Prachee Mishra. “Land Records and Title in India.” PRS, September 2017. www.prsindia.org/uploads/media/Analytical%20Report/Land%20 Records%20and%20Titles%20in%20India.pdf. Roshan Kishore. “How Many Indians Are Landless?” May 4, 2015. www.livem int.com/Opinion/PUzqHSs3xejXk4hm2djTPM/How-many-Indians-are-landless. html. “Rural Development Report: Fostering Inclusive Rural Transformation.” International Fund for Agricultural Development, September 2016. www.ifad.org/ documents/30600024/e8e9e986-2fd9-4ec4-8fe3-77e99af934c4. Ryan, Cheyney C. “Yours, Mine, and Ours: Property Rights and Individual Liberty.” Ethics 87, no. 2 (1977): 126–141. Salve, Prachi. “Tribals Account for a Third of Communities Displaced by Large Projects.” IndiaSpend, June 17, 2014. http://archive.indiaspend.com/cover-story/ tribals-account-for-a-third-of-communities-displaced-by-large-projects-11821. Sarkar, Amitabha. “A Brief Review of Land Tenure System and Its Effect on Agricultural Labourer.” Indian Anthropologist 9, no. 2 (1979): 93–98. Sarkar, Swagato. “The Impossibility of Just Land Acquisition.” Economic and Political Weekly (2011): 35–38. Saxena, Naresh C. “Updating Land Records: Is Computerisation Sufficient?” Economic and Political Weekly 40, no. 4 (2005): 313–321. www.jstor.org/ stable/4416106. Schein, Richard H. “Belonging through Land/Scape.” Environment and Planning A 41, no. 4 (2009): 811–826.

References 479 “Second Five Year Plan.” New Delhi: Planning Commission, Government of India, 61 1956. http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/planrel/fiveyr/index2.html. Singh, K. Suresh. “Transformation of Tribal Society: Integration vs Assimilation.” Economic and Political Weekly (1982): 1376–1384. Sir Francis Floud, K. C. B., and K. C. M. G. Report of the Land Revenue Commission. Bengal: Bengal Government Press, Alipore, Bengal, 1940. https://archive.org/ stream/reportofthelandr032033mbp/reportofthelandr032033mbp_djvu.txt. Srikantiah, L. “Property Rights under the Constitution.” Social Scientist (1975): 65–71. Susan Francis Grey, Kevin Grey. “The Idea of Property in Land.” In Land Law: Themes and Perspectives, edited by Susan Bright and John K Dewar, 15–51. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. https://trin-hosts.trin.cam.ac.uk/fellows/ kevingray/870.pdf. Swain, Tanmaya. “Development and Displacement in Odisha: A Study of AntiPOSCO Movement in Jagatsinghpur District.” Economic and Political Weekly 38, no. 09 (2003): 907. Tai, Hung-Chao. “Initiation of Reform and Political Legitimacy, The Political Process of Land Reform.” In Land Reform and Politics: A Comparative Analysis, edited by Hung-Chao Tai, 51–88. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1974. ———. “The Political Process of Land Reform: A Comparative Study’.” Civilisations 1 (1968): 61–77. www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/41231087.pdf. Teubner, Gunther. “Substantive and Reflexive Elements in Modern Law.” Law and Society Review (1983): 239–285. “The State as a Real Estate Agent for Corporate India.” Rediff. Accessed January  13, 2017. http://business.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/oct/15/slide-show-1-willthe-cry-of-the-farmers-ever-be-heard.htm. Thorner, Daniel. “Agrarian Prospect in India,” 1976. http://agris.fao.org/agrissearch/search.do?recordID=US201300553111. Thorner, Daniel. “Land Reforms in India: Some Speculations.” In The Shaping of Modern India, edited by Daniel Thorner. Bombay: Allied Publishers, 1953. ———. The Shaping of Modern India. New Delhi: R N Sachdev & Allied Publishers, 1980, 151–159. Timothy Besely, and Maitreesh Ghatak. “Property Rights and Economic Development.” In Handbook of Development Economics, vol. 5, edited by Dani Rodrik and Mark R. Rosenzweig. New York: Elsevier, 2010, 4524–4595. http://personal. lse.ac.uk/ghatak/handbook.pdf. Trebilcock, Michael, and Paul-Erik Veel. “Property Rights and Development: The Contingent Case for Formalization.” University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law 30 (2008/2009): 397–482. Tushnet, Mark. “Civil Rights and Social Rights: The Future of the Reconstruction Amendments,” n.d., 16. Vakulabharanam, Vamsi. “Does Class Matter? Class Structure and Worsening Inequality in India.” Economic and Political Weekly (2010): 67–76. Venkateswaran, Shankar. “Industrial Displacement.” Economic and Political Weekly 44, no. 46 (2007): 2050–2051. Wadhwa, D. C. “Guaranteeing Title to Land.” Economic and Political Weekly 37, no. 47 (2002): 4699–4722. www.jstor.org/stable/4412872. ———. “Transferability of Raiyati Holdings in Bihar: A Long Journey, 1793–1950.” Economic and Political Weekly 16, no. 38 (1981): 1532–1544. www.jstor.org/ stable/4370246.

480  References Wahi, Namita, Ankita Bhatia, Pallav Shukla, Dhruv Gandhi, Shubham Jain, and Upasna Chauhan. Land Acquisition in India: A Review of Supreme Court Cases 1950–2016. New Delhi: Centre for Policy Research, 2017. Waldron, Jeremy. The Right to Private Property. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. http://philpapers.org/rec/WALTRT-6. ———. “What Is Private Property?” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 5, no. 3 (1985): 313–349. www.jstor.org/stable/764513. Walinsky, Louis J., Wolf Ladejinsky, and others. “Agrarian Reform as Unfinished Business; the Selected Papers of Wolf Ladejinsky,” 1977. http://agris.fao.org/agrissearch/search.do?recordID=XF2015039807. Warriner, Doreen, and others. Land Reform in Principle and Practice. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969. Washbrook, David. “Economic Depression and the Making of ‘Traditional’ Society in Colonial India 1820–1855.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 3 (1993): 237–263. Whitt, Laurie Anne, Mere Roberts, Waerete Norman, and Vicki Grieves. “Belonging to Land: Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the Natural World.” Oklahoma City University Law Review 26 (2001): 701. Wilson, Horace Hayman. A Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms: And of Useful Words Occurring in Official Documents Relating to the Administration of the Government of British India, from the Arabic, Persian, Hindustání, Sanskrit, Hindí, Bengálí, Uriya, Maráthi, Guazráthí, Telugu, Karnáta, Tamil, Malayálam, and Other Languages. WH Allen and Company, 1855. https://books.google.co.in/ books?hl=en&lr=&id=tgxRAAAAcAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=glossary+of+Jud icial+and+Revenue+Terms&ots=oEDHmd9aL9&sig=QMs5mje1P09J-zvDXUuq aE4Ax6c.

Index

Note: Page numbers in bold denote tables abolition of zamindari 53 absentee landlordism 82 agrarian economy 3 agrarian land structure 3, 13, 15, 57, 69, 98 agrarian reforms 46, 47 agrarian society 99, 113 agrarian-land hierarchy 47 agricultural holdings, altered land tenure 101, 107 agricultural labourers 13 agricultural productivity 57, 99, 136 altering landownership patterns 44, 52, 69 – 71, 98 – 101, 136, 156 – 157 Amravati 176 – 177 Baisakh 79 bargardars 47, 85 basic holding 107 – 109 basic holding, land tenure 107, 108 bhoomidar, sirdhar, asami, grove 72 – 73, 117 bundle of rights 10, 136 capitalist landlords 70 ceiling limit 112 – 116 ceilings, law of ceilings 43, 100 – 127 class war 5, 16, 20, 58 classification of tenants 82 – 85, 311 – 322 collection of land 106 – 107, 275 – 284 collection of surplus 106 – 107, 264 – 275 compensation 106 – 107, 116 – 118, 275 – 284 compensation clause 8, 72, 191; fundamental right to property

194 – 197; landowners and displaced 193 – 194; purpose and adequacy of 197 – 202; reasonable amount 200; statutory principles, amount computation 202 – 209 compensation computation, land redistribution 116 – 118; section 10 (4) 117; section 15 (4) 117 – 118 Congress Socialist Party 58 consent 169 core revenue records 141 debts 52 determination of ceiling limit 106 – 107, 109 – 113, 264 – 275 development, national development 151 – 152, 157, 164, 168 – 169, 187, 196, 210, 221 – 222 development–displacement duo 189 – 190 development-induced displacement 189 digitization of land records 222 displaced, displacement, dispossessed 161 – 164, 169 – 170, 173, 175, 190 – 192 displacement concept 187 – 189; as side effect 189; understanding 190 – 192 economic holding 107 – 109 eminent domain 4, 8, 15, 15, 157, 160, 170 –1   78 encroachment 142 – 145 excess land law 42 – 44 ex-intermediary landowners 100 ex-proprietary tenants 84 family holding 86, 108 – 109 First Report on Landholdings of 1958 52

482 Index functional revenue collection system 14 fundamental right to property 8, 9, 16 194 – 197 hak-malikana 46 hereditary tenants 84 identification unit 106 – 107, 109, 113 – 116, 264 – 275 impoverishment 192, 200 Indian land structure 51 – 53 Indian National Congress 53 Indian utterances 12, 17 intermediaries, abolition of 44, 69 – 97; classes holding estates 70 – 72; exclusions, tenancy law 82 – 85; law reforming tenancies 80 – 81; laws 70 – 72; legal provisions 72 – 80; statutory provisions, tenancies reform 81 – 82intermediaries, zamindars, zamindari system abolition of intermediaries 10, 11, 19, 17, 43, 44, 58 – 60, 69 – 90, 154, 195 intermediarylandlord-tenant relationships 219 Jagirs 46 Joint Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform, 1934 17 jotedar 47 just compensation 15, 17, 23, 26, 158, 193 – 194, 197 – 209, 437 – 441 Kanungo Ranga Rao Committee 140 Karachi Resolution of 1931 58 Khasra Pahani 141 khatedar tenants 74 khudkasht 74 kisan 162 Kisan Sabha 53 land acquisition law 3, 41, 45, 48, 137, 192; alternated choices 175 – 178; concepts and concerns 156 – 161; equitable utilization, land resources 153; inherent inequity 151 – 186; land reform and 151 – 186; land structure 156 – 161; legal choices and procedures for acquisition 170 – 175; legal construction of public purpose 161 – 170; legal regulation of 151 – 156; monetary compensation 178; public purpose 152, 160

land acquisition, types of acquisition, process of acquisition 4, 17, 151 – 178, 187 – 213, 426 – 441 land administration 136 – 145 land assignment 124 – 127 land ceiling programme 57, 60 land disposal, vesting 285 – 290 land grants and land pooling 175 – 178 land pooling 176 land records 43, 80 – 83, 112, 136 – 145, 154 land records law 136 – 138 land redistribution law 98 – 135; agricultural holdings, law imposing ceilings 101 – 102; ceiling limit, determination and extent 107 – 109; ceiling statutes 105 – 106; collection of surplus 106; compensation computation 116 – 118; general procedure 106 – 107; land assignment law 124 – 127; land ceiling, policy of 102 – 105; landowners holdings purchase 123 – 124; law conferring rights, tenants 123 – 124; need for 98 – 101; programme 55; redistribution scheme, ceiling law 118 – 122; redistribution strategy 107; statutory provisions, ceilings 109 – 113; statutory unit, identification 113 – 116; vesting of surplus 107, 118 land reform, land reform law 8, 1, 12, 16, 20 – 22, 26 – 28, 41, 44, 50 – 51, 54 – 58, 69, 151 – 156, 196, 198 land reforms 20 – 22, 45, 46, 137, 139; components, impact on tenure 58 – 60; concept of 50 – 51, 54 – 56; fundamental concepts of 69 – 70; ideology 55 – 57; Indian land structure 51 – 53; interpretations 22 – 26; and land tenure system 50 – 66; laws 12, 16 – 20, 41, 48, 55, 58; programme 55 – 58; social aspect of 53 – 54 land relationships, land hierarchy 5, 6, 14, 55, 98, 136, 157, 162, 175, 218 – 225 land revenue 41, 136 – 141 land structure 70, 155, 156 – 161 land tenure system, Indian land structure 51 – 53, 58 – 60, 69 – 70, 98 – 101, 152

Index  483 land titling 138, 144, 145 land to the tiller 53, 54, 60, 100, 151 land vs. property 4 – 8 landholders 44; Ryotwari Patta 77 – 78 landlessness 52, 58 – 60, 69, 98, 151 – 156, 218, 220, 222 landlordism, absentee landlordism 52, 69 – 71, 82 – 98, 151 – 152, 154 landowning class 16, 20 land–people disassociation 219 law of ceiling 45 law of land: classification 40 – 42 legal construction of public purpose 161 – 170; public in public purpose 161 – 164 legal regulation of land 15 legislative enthusiasm 140 liberalism, post liberalism, neo liberalism, globalization 154 – 155, 188 limitation on rights of beneficiaries 119 Mahalwari 69 malik 162 mazdoor 162 monetary compensation 15, 178, 199, 201; landowners and displaced 193 money lending 52 Mukkarraarree 46 non-occupancy tenants 84 obfuscation, of land law 221 occupancy tenants 84 occupancy tenants protected tenants, upper class tenants, ex-proprietary tenants, hereditary tenants, non occupancy tenants 80 – 83, 311 – 322 Operation Barga 47 operational unit of family 113 optimal holding 107 – 109 optimum holding 107, 108 ownership of land and possession of land 10, 11, 14, 51, 119, 136 – 137, 154 patta 112, 140 – 145 patta numbers 112 patterned inequality 157 permanent settlement 10, 19, 52, 76 personal cultivation or khudkasht 43, 71, 75 – 77, 80 – 81, 85 – 90, 109, 121, 122, 306 – 301

personal labour 89 political mobilization 47 political–legal controversy 16 political–legal system 8 Poonch territory 46 preferred public concept 191 prescribed/permissible limit 75, 85 – 87 principles of equality 4 private corporate landlordism 152 private ownership 5, 15 private power 27 private property rights 8, 12, 18, 157 privatization 188 property rights 6, 8, 11; harmonious interpretation for right to property 20 – 22 property, property relations 4, 5, 6, 100, 136, 154, 188, 199 property: Indian interpretation of 8 – 9; land, law, and distinction 13 – 15; construction of an Indian right to property 194 – 197 proprietors, ownership rights of 79 public necessity 163 – 164 public purpose 24, 116, 126, 152, 156, 160 – 170, 187 – 189, 198, 219 raiyats 47, 85 real property 15 reasonable compensation 116 redistribution 4, 8, 15, 22 – 28, 44, 98 – 127, 118 – 122, 136 – 141, 198 registration-land records management 84 rent regulation, security of tenure, occupancy rights, eviction, registration of tenure 82 – 83, 87 – 88 resettlement and rehabilitation 209 – 213 resource allocation systems 4 revenue collection system 10, 198 right of intermediaries 78 – 79 right of resumption 86 – 87, 89 right to land, land title 6, 9, 27, 98, 136, 136 – 137, 161 – 162 right to ownership 9, 8, 101 right to private property 6, 8, 10, 15, 17 – 20, 26, 100 right to property 3 – 39 rights of tenants and owners 300 – 305 rule of law 26 – 28 rural indebtedness 52 rural landlordism 152 ryotwari system 71, 76 – 77

484 Index sajhis 85 Second Planning Commission report 88 Sethwar Register 141 settlement 140 – 142 sharecropping 52, 84 – 85 small-scale farmers 104, 182, 190, 220 smart city 176 – 178, 188 social impact assessment 169 socialistic developmental ideology 100 societal–political–economical dynamics 3 socio-economic entity 4 sociology of land 3, 53 – 54, 157, 163 – 164 socio-political power 5 special economic zones 156, 188 standard acre 43, 87, 109 – 111, t264 – 275 standard holding 109 state models of land laws 46 – 48: Jammu and Kashmir 46; Kerala 47 – 48; West Bengal 47 status quo 22, 136, 138, 198 statutory principles, compensational amount 202 – 209 structural inequality 52, 98, 151, 154, 157 substantive equality 6, 13, 26 – 28, 50 – 51, 98, 151 surplus of land 44 surrender of landholdings 106 – 107, 264 – 275 tables, land law 44 – 46 taluqdari, thekedari, biswedari, inamdari, jagirdari 71 – 72 tebhaga movement 47 tenancy reform 45, 69 – 97; legislations 43; statutes 82

tenancy registration programme 47 tenancy tenure, insecurity 85 – 90 tenancy, tenancy reform 69 – 70, 80 – 90, 123 – 124, 297 – 354 tenants: bargaining power of 323 – 353; categories of 84; classes of 83, 311 – 322; classification of 82 – 85; occupancy and protected 83; preferential treatment for 123; protected 84; status, ceiling legislations 354 – 357; upper class 83 tenure, security 81 thekedars 74 Thorner, Daniel 162 tiller of soil, land to the tiller 9, 16, 54,79, 86, 100, 151 title scrutiny, land 43 traditional intermediaries 10 traditional land structure, peasantry 13 under-raiyats 47, 85 unfinished agenda 139 vesting of surplus 106 – 107, 118, 275 – 284 voluntary surrender 43, 71, 89 – 90, 306 – 310 Wasool Baqui Register 141 wasteland 175 willing seller 200 – 201, 205 Yamuna expressway 163 zamindari system 69 zamindars 18 – 21, 47, 52, 70, 195