Rao Rishta

Land held jointly, and how a share is taken out of it

On a page where agriculture is the first occupation listed, the sentence that does the most damage is the family owns land. It is usually true and it usually means less than it sounds.

Owning and holding are not the same thing

Most agricultural land in these districts stands in a joint holding with several co-sharers, each owning an undivided share rather than a particular field. Nobody can point at a boundary and say that part is his, nobody can sell without the others, and the income is divided by agreement rather than by right. Families describing a holding of two hundred acres are often describing a joint holding in which the household in question has a share of a fraction of it.

Agricultural land goes to the revenue officer, not the court

This surprises people. Partition of agricultural land is done by a revenue officer under the Land Revenue Act 1967. The Punjab Partition of Immovable Property Act 2012 governs jointly owned immovable property that is not agricultural land, and that goes to a civil court. Where a single joint holding contains both kinds of property, the High Courts have held that the civil court is the only forum. So the first question in any partition is which of the two you are actually dealing with, and a family that has been told different things by different people has usually been told both halves of this.

What the 2012 Act put in place

It replaced the Partition Act of 1893, which had become a byword for delay. The plaint must describe the property and bring in every co-owner; the defendant has thirty days from first appearance to file a written statement or the defence is struck off; the court can require the co-owner in possession to deposit the profits he has been taking; and the suit is to be decided within six months of institution, extendable by the District Judge. A decision on title and shares is itself a decree.

Three ways it ends, in that order

First a referee, appointed by written agreement of all the co-owners, who share his fee in proportion to their shares; he proposes a plan and the court affirms it unless it breaks the law. If that fails, an internal auction among the co-owners against a reserve price, the successful bidder depositing the price less his own share within fifteen days. If the co-owners will not take part, an open auction by a court auctioneer, a fifth down and the balance within a week. Where an equal division is impossible, whoever takes the better share pays the difference to even it up.

The one thing the record does not show

Who is actually cultivating the land and taking the income from it. The record shows shares; it does not show possession. One co-sharer farming the whole holding while the others take nothing is an extremely common arrangement and a perfectly lawful one until somebody objects, which is why the 2012 Act lets a court order the co-owner in possession to deposit the profits he has been taking. For a bride this is the practical question behind all of it: not what the family owns on paper, but what reaches this particular household each year, and from whom.

The three questions this turns into

Is the holding partitioned. How many co-sharers are on it. Has anybody ever applied. An unpartitioned holding with eleven co-sharers and a cousin in possession is not a liquid asset and should not be read as one, and a family that answers all three without hesitating is telling you something useful about itself. The answers also tell you where the household would actually be living in ten years, which is usually the question underneath the question. None of this is an accusation; both sides are entitled to understand what is actually being described, in the same plain terms either of them would use about a salary.