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KARACHI, Aug 3: The Sindh Assembly’s Select Committee currently reviewing the Sindh Tenancy Act for amendments aimed at ensuring better landlord-tenant relations on Friday undertook clause by clause consideration of the various proposed changes to the law.
Chaired by Anwar Mahar, the committee spent much of its time in scrutinising Chapter-I of the Sind Tenancy Act-1950 pertaining to the definitions of ‘tenant’ and ‘landlord’.
The contours of the law appeared not very clear because the committee has not yet finalised its proposals on the issue of Taqawi loans that has complicated the relationship landlord-tenant relationship.
The committee would hear experts on crucial matters when it meets on Aug 13 and 15 for finalising the amendments.
Suggestions were advanced for amending the Act vis-a-vis the future use of agricultural land for supportive activities towards improving the output and profit to be shared by the two sides.
In this context, clause 2 (2) of the Act was cited, according to which a tenant (hari) means a person who personally cultivates the land of another person (landlord) but does not include a person who acquires land from government on a lease of unoccupied land. In this context, it was stated that those landless people who were given 16 acres of agriculture land were not regarded as tenant or hari. It was also suggested that nomenclature of ‘landlord’ should be changed to ‘zameendar’ (landowner).
Clause-5 of the Act also came under scrutiny as it dealt with ‘tenancy rights’, meaning the permanent right of cultivation under a landlord acquired by a tenant under the provision of this Act.
The meeting was told that the concept of agriculture and agricultural land-use stood transformed the world over and there was a need to look into this aspect as well. It was pointed out that a grower, whether a hari or a landlord, might find it prudent and profitable to initiate an activity other than agricultural activity on the same piece of land. There were two views on the issue besides the question of onus and ownership of such assets. The dominating view was that such assets were not needed and if it was undertaken then it should remain the property of the landlord.
Under the Act, a tenant “shall be responsible for the provision of requisite animal labour, manual labour and the implements of husbandry to enable the crops grown by him to be efficiently cultivated; he shall be responsible for the proper weeding of all the crops grown by him and for the cost of such weeding; he shall be responsible for the necessary construction and proper maintenance of irrigation bunds and water-courses within the land allotted to him and for the cost of such construction and maintenance; a tenant shall not cultivate the land of any other landlord, if he has been allotted a family holding; he shall be responsible for the seed required for sowing, but where a landlord supplies any seed to his tenant, he shall be entitled to recover from the tenant only the quantity of seed actually supplied and nothing in excess thereof; further, when the landlord gets remission of land revenue assessment in respect of any survey number, the amount of seed which the tenant shall be required to return shall be proportionate to the amount of remission of land revenue assessment obtained by the landlord in respect of that survey number; etc.”
The existing law also makes the landlord responsible for the proper maintenance of the main water-courses leading from the canal-modules to the land, and for the cost of such maintenance provided that the tenant was bound to give his labour for the silt-clearance of such water-courses during the irrigation season and in return, therefore, the landlord would be bound to feed the tenant at his own cost.
The Act says that landlord would be responsible for ensuring the supply of proper share of available irrigation water to the land allotted to his tenant; he shall be responsible for lending seed for sowing to the tenant if the tenant so demands. Any advance of food-grains by the landlord to a tenant for domestic needs will be repaid in cash at the market rate at the time it was lent or in kind, according to the relevant clause of the Act.
The meeting took serious exception to the absence of representatives from the revenue department, noting that this had forced adjournment of the meeting to Aug 13.
