Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955
No: 13 Dated: Apr, 03 1955
The Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955
Act No. 13 of 1955
An Act to amend and consolidate the law, relating to tenancies of agricultural lands and to provide for certain measures of land reforms.
It is hereby enacted in the Sixth Year of the Republic of India as follows :-
Chapter I
Preliminary
1. Short title, commencement and duration. - (1) This Act may be called the PEPSU Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1955.
(2) The provisions section 7-A and Chapters IV, IV-A and IV-B shall save as otherwise provided in those provisions, come into force on the date of commencement of the Pepsu Tenancy and Agricultural Lands (Second Amendment) Act, 1956, but the remaining provisions shall come into force on the sixth day of March, 1955.
2. Definitions. - In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, -
(a) 'allottee' means a displaced person or a group of such persons to whom land is allotted in pursuance of the scheme contained in the notification of the Department of Rehabilitation No. 9R, dated the 23rd July, 1949, or in pursuance of any other scheme for allotment of evacuee land to displaced persons which the State Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, specify for the purpose of this Act, and includes -
(i) the legal representatives of such displaced persons; and
(ii) in the case of an allotment to a group of displaced persons, each such person and his legal representatives;
(b) 'banjar land' means land which has remained uncultivated for a continuous period of not less than four years immediately preceding the date on which the question whether such land is banjar or not arises;
(bb) "Collector" has the meaning assigned to it in the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 (Punjab Act XVII of 1887), and includes any officer not below the rank of an Assistant Collector specially empowered by the State Government to perform all or any of the functions assigned to the Collector under this Act.
(c) "Commissioner" has the meaning assigned to it in the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 (Punjab Act XVII of 1887), and includes any other officer specially empowered by the State Government to perform all or any of the functions assigned to the Commissioner under this Act;
(d) "evacuee land" means land which is or which is deemed to be evacuee property under the Administration of Evacuee Property Act, 1950 (XXXI of 1950);
(e) "khana damad" means a person who having married the daughter of a landowner having no male issue lives along with his wife in the house of his father-in-law and who according to the custom is treated by him as his son;
(f) "landowner" has the meaning assigned to it in the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 (Punjab Act XVII of 1887), and includes an allottee;
Explanation. - In respect of land mortgaged with possession, the mortgagee shall be deemed to be the landowner.
(ff) "Non-Resident Indian" means a person of Indian origin who is either permanently or temporarily settled outside India, in either case -
(a) for or on taking up employment outside Indian; or
(b) for carrying on a business of vocation outside India; or
(c) for any other purpose, in such circumstances as would indicate his intention to stay outside India for an uncertain period.
(g) the expression "to cultivate personally" with its grammatical variations and cognate expressions means to cultivate on one's own account -
(i) by one's own labour, or
(ii) by the labour of such of one's relatives, as may be prescribed, or
(iii) by servants or hired labour;
(h) "prescribed" means prescribed by rules made under this Act;
(i) "standard acre" is a measure of land convertible with reference to the yield form, and the quality of, the soil, into an ordinary acre according to the prescribed scale;
(j) "State" means the territories of the State of Punjab which, immediately before the Ist November, 1956, formed part of the State of Patiala and East Punjab States Union.
(k) "tenant" has the meaning assigned to it in the Punjab Tenancy Act, 1887 (Punjab Act XVI of 1887), but does not include a person -
(i) who holds a right of occupancy, or
(ii) who is relative of the tenant within the meaning of sub-clause (2) of clause (g);
(l) "the President's Act" means the Patiala and East Punjab States Union Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act, 1953 (President's Act 8 of 1953);
(m) all other words and expressions used herein and not defined but defined in the Punjab Tenancy Act, 1887 (Punjab Act XVI of 1887), or the Punjab Land Revenue Act, 1887 (Punjab Act XVII of 1887), shall have the meanings assigned to them in either of those Acts.