GRANT OF LOANS AND ADVANCES TO AGRICULTURISTS. 77 



pursued by the Opium Department in the distribution of their 

 advances. We recommend that the experiment be tried in districts 

 in which it may be determined to make large advances in future. 

 There are few provinces in which it would not be possible to select 

 tracts in which very considerable sums might be distributed in this 

 way with the certainty of great benefit to the people and the 

 Government. 



198. Inquiries regarding security. One of the chief reasons for 

 delay in the disposal of applications for takavi has been found in some 

 provinces to arise from the length and complication of inquiries into 

 the sufficiency of the security offered. In most cases the security 

 taken is the land to be benefited. Its value is easy to ascertain 

 sufficiently well for practical purposes. The principal object of the 

 inquiries is generally, therefore, the extent to which the land has been 

 previously encumbered. Now, it was probably the intention of the 

 framers of section 7 (1) (c) of the Land Improvement Loans Act 

 that, the land benefited should be saleable for recovery of takavi 

 arrears, just as it would be for recovery of arrears of land revenue, 

 free of all encumbrances. But doubts have arisen as to the exact legal 

 effect of this provision. These doubts should, in our opinion, be set 

 at rest under competent legal advice, or, if need be, by one or two test 

 cases ; and then, if necessary, the law should be amended so as to give 

 effect, beyond any possible question, to what appears to have been the 

 original intention of the Legislature. Once the land is made saleable 

 free of all encumbrances, elaborate inquiries into their existence will 

 be no longer necessary. The just rights of prior encumbrancers seem 

 to be sufficiently guarded by section 5 of the Act, which provides that 

 officers may, if they think it expedient, publish a notice calling for 

 objections to the grant of the loan, and must consider objections 

 submitted, and make written orders admitting or overruling them. 

 This provision could, if thought necessary, be fortified by making 

 public notice compulsory. 



199. The other remedy against prolonged inquiry into the matter 

 of encumbrances is to prescribe, if necessary by law, that wherever a 

 record-of-rights has been prepared, objections submitted by prior 

 encumbrancers will be recognized only if the encumbrance has been 

 previously entered in the record. This will enable the inquiring 



.officer, by mere inspection of the record, to ascertain all prior 

 encumbrances of which he need take account. The existence of 



