The aim of The East Bengal State Acquisition and Tenancy Act , 1950 was to abolish the 150-year-old Permanent Settlement and introduce a system of direct payment of land revenue by the actual owners and tellers of the soil, eliminating all intermediary rent-receiving interests.
Background
Floud Commission
In 1938, the Government of Bengal set up a land revenue commission, known as the Floud Commission, with the aim to deal with the question of retention or abolition of the Zamindari system. Sher-e-Bangla AK Fazlul Huq was then the Chief Minister of Bengal. The Floud Commission, named after the Chairman of the commission Sir Francis Floud, submitted its report on March 2, 1940 recommending the abolition of the Zamindari system and the elimination of all grades of rent-receiving interests on payment of a suitable compensation. It also observed that the Permanent Settlement system had lost its utility and viability as the agrarian conditions in Bengal had gone through massive changes since the introduction of the Settlement.
The recommendations of the commission could not be implemented in the subsequent years mainly due to political instability, the Great famine of 1943 and communal unrest. However, a bill titled ‘Bengal State Acquisition and Tenancy Bill’ was introduced in the Bengal Legislative Assembly on April 10, 1947 on the basis of the recommendations of the Floud Commission. But it couldn’t get through due to the Partition of Bengal in August, 1947.
Enactment of the Act
After the Partition, the Bill was again introduced in the East Bengal Legislative Assembly in 1948. It was passed in 1950, assented to by the Governor-General on May 18, 1950, and enacted as East Bengal State Acquisition and Tenancy Act, 1950 (Act XXVIII of 1951).
Salient features of the East Bengal State Acquisition and Tenancy Act, 1950
The salient features of this Act, after various amendments, may be summarised as below:
(a) All rent-receiving interests were to vest in Government from the date of acquisition, as might be notified in the official gazette.
(b) None can retain special classes of khas lands like hats, bazars, forests, fisheries, ferries, and also buildings and structures used as tahsil kutcheries.
(c) Retainable classes of lands are homesteads, buildings and structures other than tahsil kutcheries, agricultural land, hortcultural lands including tanks, vacant non-agricultural lands, and fallow lands which are cultivable or capable of cultivation on reclamation.
(d) The ceiling for quantity of retainable khas lands according to the choice of individuals was 33 acres, later on raised to 124 acres (100 bigha as of 1979 ). But this limit did not apply in cases of mechanised or large scale co-operative farming, and lands for special cultivations like tea, coffee, sugarcane, rubber plantations, orchards, tejpata gardens, dairy farms, land used for large scale industry of raw materials thereof; and also the quantity of lands required to meet the annuity of wakf, debottor [endowed property] or any other religious and charitable trusts.
All excess kahas lands were to vest in Government. The Act deals with the retention or otherwise to khas lands.
(e) There was to be only one class of agricultural tenants under Government, viz., raiyats, later on designated as maliks. None will be allowed to hold land without payment of revenue. All rent-free and service tenures were assessed to rent. Rent will be paid in cash. So, all produce rents were commuted to cash rents. Rents once assessed would not normally be revised during 20 years.
All lands and holdings were liable to assessment of fair and equitable rent under Part V.
(f) Provision was made for assessment of compensation for acquisition of rent-receiving interest, and also for excess or non-retainable khas lands under sections 37 and 39 respectively.
(g) Payment of compensation can be made in cash or a bonds or in both. For ex-rent-receivers resident in Pakistan cash payment is being made in one instalment For non-residents, it is being paid in bonds through State Bank. Payment of compensation has been planned on a five-year basis; section 68 deals with such payments.
(h) Compensation for waqf, debottar and such other exclusively religious and charitable trusts have been assessed as perpetual annuity; and Deputy Commissioners have been made trustees in respect of these trust properties, and Administrator of wakfs in respect of wakf estates.
(i) Tenants or Maliks can use their lands in any manner, subject to payment of rent or revenue.
(j) Sub-letting has been prohibited; and it entails forfeiture to Government of any land sublet without compensation.
(k) Provision has been made for voluntary subdivision or amalgamation of holdings, consolidation of lands, and rationalisation of rent.
(l) Provision has also been made for reduction, enhancement and alteration of rent in certain cases, and also for extinguishment of tenancies on appropriate occasions, and for dealing with arrears or rent.
(m) Provision for maintenance, and revision of the record-of-rights has also been made.
Implementation of the East Bengal State Acquisition and Tenancy Act
After the Act was passed, it was decided that only big estates, with good collection papers, and the estates under the management of Court of Wards, would be acquired by a summary procedure immediately, and that the remaining rent- receiving interests would be acquired after regular revision of the record-of-rights, without which correct preparation of rent-rolls and compensation assessment rolls would not be possible.
Accordingly, a large number of big estates were acquired between 1952 and 1955. A new revenue administrative machinery was set up in the districts at all levels for proper management of the newly acquired estates.
Collection and management were started on the basis of papers furnished by or taken over from the ex-zamindars. While the process of gradual acquisition management and assessment of compensation was still going on, a decision was taken towards the end of 1955 to acquire all grades of rent-receiving interests with effect from the 14th April, 1956, without Revisional Settlement Operation.
Accordingly, an Ordinance was promulgated to give effect to this scheme of wholesale acquisition. The authorities then undertook the preparation of preliminary rent-rolls on the basis of existing record-of-rights within 6 months, to form the basis for collection of rent by Government after wholesale acquisition.
A Settlement organisation was set up in each district under a Settlement Officer; and after fresh recruitment and training of a laige number of field officers and staff, this stupendous task of preparation of preliminary rent rolls was completed in time under the supervision of the Director of Land Records and Survey.
Compensation and annuity rolls were finally prepared in 1962-63 and made over to the Additional Deputy Commissioner (Revenue) who started payment of compensation under a Five-year scheme beginning in 1963. The work of eliminating the chains of intermediate interests from the finally published records were then started. Records were modified accordingly, showing only the ground tenant under the Government. Thus the process of acquisition was legally completed.
Under the State Acquisition and Tenancy Act of 1950, the Government provided for the payment of compensation to the proprietors and tenure-holders whose properties were to be acquired.
Source:
- Bangladesh District Gazetteers: Bogra, edited by KGM Latiful Bari, Bangladesh Government Press, Dhaka, 1979
- Banglapedia