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" Before I proceed further, I may quote here a passage from the District Gazette, Volume IV A of Gurgaon District compiled and published in 1910 under the authority of the Punjab Government. That passage will illustrate as to what in Bhonda tenure and in what respect it differs from the 'Dohli tenure. At page 177 it is remarked:
It is very common for an individual proprietor, and still more so for a whole village community to set apart a small piece of lane, usually two or three Bighas, to be held rent, free from the benefit of some temple, mosque or shrine, or to give a piece of land, on similar favourable terms to a pandit or other person for a religious order. Such a grant is called a dohli, and the holder a dohlidar. So long as the purpose for which the grant was made are carried out, it cannot be resumed, but should the holder grossly fail to carry out of the duties of his office, the proprietors can eject him and put in some one else under a like tenure.
The bhonda is like the dohli a grant of a few Bighas of land rent-free. The principal difference is that, while a service for which the dohli is granted is something directly connected with religion, the bhonda is given for some secular service, the such as the duties of the village watchman (chaukidar) or messenger (bulahar). The Bhondedar may be ejected on failure to fulfill the conditions of his tenure and perhaps in some cases at the will of the proprietors. It is simply an old fashioned made of paying for service."
13. In Baba Nand Ram's case (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 I to institutions or persons other than the creator of the dohli, strictly speaking does snot fall either within the concept of rent or within that of a tenant. The liability 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 successor-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 (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 terms is well understood yet is otherwise a landowner for the purposes of the Act. The other questions whether he is a trustee or that his alienations 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 (supra).
15. The concept of perpetual tenancy as conceived of in section 8 of the Punjab Tenancy Act in the light of sections 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 and Khema Nand's cases (supra) of the Lahore High Court followed in the case of Barat Dass and Baba Nand, Ram by this court, then there is no reason why such like tenure should be allowed to exist in the face of the aforementioned statue. The reason is obvious. The succession to occupancy tenancy was governed by section 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 pre-emptory obligation to offer it in the first instance to the landowner. There is no such obligation in the dohli tenure treating it for the moment, though not holding that it is transferable. The occupancy 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. Alienation made by occupancy tenants are voidable at the instance 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 of the contrary taken by above referred to tow 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 and Khema Nand's case I and overrule the Single Bench decisions afore-qu9ted taking the view based thereon on the aspect.