Document Fragment View

Matching Fragments

28 Pepsu Act (Patiala and East Punjab States Union).
17

powerful and greedy inhabitants in villages became grabbers of Village common lands depriving their use to the village community. Some of the States which were enabled by the Constitution of India to organise village Panchayats as units of Self Government and encourage growth of agriculture and animal husbandry in villages by suitable legislative measures took prompt steps to legislate on common lands of the village, so as to restore such lands for communal use and common benefit of all the inhabitants of the villages by vesting them in their respective Panchayats. Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1953 and Pepsu Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1954 are two legislative measures enacted by the respective States of Punjab and Pepsu to vest the common lands of villages in their Panchayats for common benefit and advantage of the whole community of the village concerned. When under the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 Pepsu State merged in Punjab State, the said Pepsu Act continued to operate in the area of erstwhile Pepsu. When the operation of two legislative measures in the new Punjab State, which were in some respects not common, was found to be undesirable, the State of Punjab enacted the Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1961 referred to by us already as 'principal Act' and made it operative in the whole territory of Punjab State, with effect from 4th day of May, 1961. By the principal Act the two earlier Acts which had covered the field till then were repealed, as well. The principal Act, as stated in its preamble, sought by its provisions to consolidate and amend the law regulating the rights in village common lands popularly and colloquially known as 'shamilat deh' and 'abadi- deh'. As 'shamilat deh' was not defined in the repealed Acts adverted to and there prevailed uncertainty as to its nature, the principal Act defined 'shamilat deh' in Section 2(g) thereof in an endeavour to achieve certainty, …..”

23. The nature of shamilat deh lands or village common lands was examined by a Constitution Bench in Gram Panchayat of Village Jamalpur v. Malwinder Singh,29. It was observed that prior to the partition of India, shamilat deh lands in Punjab were owned by proprietors of other lands in the village, "Hasab Rasad Khewat", that is to say, in the same proportion in which 29 (1985) 3 SCC 661 they owned other lands. Therefore, a person who did not own any land in the village could have no proprietary rights or interest in the shamilat deh lands. But since the interest of the proprietors of other lands in shamilat deh lands was incidental to their proprietary interests in those other lands, such interest in the shamilat was not a mere appendage to their interest in the other lands. A reference was made to Chapter X (Village Common Land) of Rattigan's Digest, which is to the effect that within the territorial limits of every village, some portion of the uncultivated wastelands was reserved 'for purposes of common pasture, assemblies of people, the tethering of the village cattle, and the possible extension of the village dwellings'. The lands so reserved were zealously guarded as the common property of the original body of settlers who founded the village or their descendants, and occasionally also those who assisted the settlers in clearing the waste and bringing it under cultivation were recognized as having a share in these reserved plots. It was further noticed, ‘even in villages which have adopted separate ownership as to the cultivated area, some of such plots are usually reserved as village common, and in pattidar villages, it is not unusual to find certain portions of the waste reserved for the common use of the proprietors of each patti, and other portions for common village purposes. The former is designated as Shamlat-patti and the latter Shamlat deh’. It was said, ‘as a general rule, only proprietors of the village (malikan-deh) as distinguished from proprietors of their own holdings ( malikan makbuza khud) are entitled to share in the “shamilat deh"’. This Court held that Punjab Act was a measure of agrarian reforms protected by Article 31A of the Constitution, holding as under:

24. The shamilat land in terms of Section 4 of the 1961 Act vested in the Gram Panchayat of the village. The vesting of shamilat land in a village panchayat brought about a paradigm shift in the ownership of rights in 'shamilat deh'. The proprietary rights of the proprietary body of the village in shamilat land were extinguished by a statutory declaration. The proprietary and possessory rights of proprietors and non-proprietors in shamilat deh were to henceforth vest in a Gram Panchayat and used for common purposes of the entire village community, under the aegis of the Gram Panchayat. The shamilat deh lands as defined under Section 2 (g) of the 1961 Act now vest completely, that is, with ownership and title, in the Panchayat of the village concerned. The vesting of the shamilat deh lands or the village common lands in the Panchayat has been for agrarian reforms and such vesting is protected by Article 31A of the Constitution.
Provided further that where there are two or more shamilat tikkas in a village the shamilat tikka shall be utilised and disposed of by the panchayat for the benefit of the inhabitants of that tikka:
Provided further that where the area of land in shamilat deh of any village so vested or deemed to have been vested in a Panchayat is in excess of twenty-five per cent of the total area of that village (excluding abadi deh), then twenty-five per cent of such total area shall be left to the Panchayat and out of the remaining area of shamilat deh an area up to the extent of twenty-five per cent of such total area shall be utilized for the settlement of landless tenants and other tenants ejected or to be ejected of that village and the remaining area of shamilat deh, if any, shall be utilised for distribution to the small landowners of that village subject to the provisions relating to permissible area and permissible limit of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953, and the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955, as the case may be by the Collector in consultation with the Panchayat in such manner as may be prescribed.