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6. Judicial precedents, however, oblivious perhaps of the material available in the Punjab Settlement Manual, appear to have taken a course of their own. In Sewa Ram v. Udegir AIR 1922 Lah 126, a Division Bench consisting of Shadi Lal, C. J. and Harrison, J. spelled out the term dohli tenure in these terms :--

"The dohli tenure is a peculiar kind of tenure to be found in the South-Eastern districts of Punjab. It is a rent free grant of a small plot of land by the village community for the benefit of a temple, mosque or shrine, or to a person for a religious purpose. In the revenue records the proprietary body are recorded as the owners of the property, and the grantee is recorded as a tenant in the column of cultivation. So long as the purpose, for which the grant is made, is carried out, it cannot be resumed, but should the holder fail to carry out the duties of his office, the proprietors can eject him and put in some one else under a like tenure.

9. In Trikha v. Dwarka Parshad, 1972 Rev LR 563, a single Bench of this Court relying on Sewa Ram's case (AIR 1922 Lah 126) (supra) held that any alienation by a dohlidar would be void ab initio. It was held to be non est. The latter paragraph of the judgment in Sewa Ram's case, as extracted above, was quoted in the judgment to draw sustenance for the view taken. The view taken in Trikha's case was relied upon in Dharma v. Smt. Harbi, 1976 Rev LR 641, to hold that an alienation of a dohli was void ab initio. The Bench further went on to say that dohli was not a permanent tenure, and the moment the dohlidar fails to render the requisite services for which the dohli was created, the dohli rights are extinguished and the property reverts to the original proprietors. In Bharat Dass v. Gram Sabha Village Jahajgarh, 1973 Rev LR 280, the tenure in that case was spelled out to be a dohli. The former paragraph, as extracted above from Sewa Ram's case, was quoted in the judgment at two places to draw sustenance for the view taken.

14. In Baba Nand Ram's case (1976 Pun LJ 586) (supra) the special contract conceived of by A. D. Koshal, J. in which the dohlidar undertakes not to pay any rent to the landowner but binds himself to perform certain other obligations to others, as it appears to us, is not 'a special contract' but for which he would be liable to pay rent for that land to 'that other person'. It appears to us that the service rendered by a dohlidar to institutions or persons other than the creator of the dohli, strictly speaking does not fall either within the concept of rent or within that of a tenant. The liability to pay rent to the creator of the dohli, or the latter's right to claim rent in the event of the terms of dohli not being faithfully observed, is altogether missing in the nature of the creation of the tenure. It is equally inconceivable how a validly created trust in the event of the trustee or his successors-in-interest failing or refusing to perform their duties could warrant the abolition of the trust causing extinguishment of dohli rights or that the property reverts to the original proprietors. The observations of the Bench in Dharma's case (1976 Rev LR 641) (supra) are in the nature of obiter dicta and do not seem to have arisen on the facts of that case. We, therefore, hold that though a dohlidar is not an owner of the land as the term is well understood yet he is otherwise a landowner for the purposes of the Act. The other questions whether he is trustee or that his alienation are void ab initio do not arise in the present case, though we have our doubts about the correctness of the view in that regard taken by the Lahore High Court in Sewa Ram's case (AIR 1922 Lah 126) (supra)

16. The concept of perpetual tenancy as conceived of in S. 8 of the Punjab Tenancy Act in the light of Ss. 5, 6 and 7 has also become non-existent on account of the Punjab Occupancy Tenants (Vesting of Proprietary Rights) Act, 1952. Occupancy or perpetual tenants have been made owners of the land. This Act came about to carry out agrarian reforms and to remove the intermediaries. And if the dohlidar is a perpetual tenant as conceived of in Sewa Ram's (AIR 1922 Lah 126) and Khema Nand's cases (AIR 1937 Lah 805) (supra) of the Lahore High Court followed in the cases of Bharat Dass (1973 Rev LR 280) and Baba Nand Ram (1976 Pun LJ 586) by this Court, then there is no reason why such like tenure should be allowed to exist in the fact of the aforementioned statute. The reason is obvious. The succession to occupancy tenancy was governed by S. 59 of the Punjab Tenancy Act, whereas succession to the dohli tenure is either natural or traditional. The occupancy tenure is capable of sale carrying with it a peremptory obligation to offer it in the first instance to the land-owner. There is no such obligation in the dohli tenure treating it for the moment, though no holding, that it is transferable. The occupancy tenancy rights are capable of being sold in execution of a decree against the occupancy tenant but the rights of a dohlidar are not subject to such permissible process of Court under the law as understood. Alienations made by occupancy tenants are voidable at the instances of the landowner. For these reasons, which are only some of them, we differ from the view that the dohli tenure is of a perpetual tenancy or is ever covered by the concept of tenancy at all. The view to the contrary taken by above referred to two decisions of the Lahore High Court does not appear to us to be correct. We do not expressly follow the decisions of the Lahore High Court in Sewa Ram's case (AIR 1922 Lah 126) and Khema Nand's case (AIR 1937 Lah 805) and overrule the single Bench decisions afore-quoted taking the view based thereon on this aspect.