194 RESTRICTIONS ON THE ALIENATION OF LANDS. 



or tribes. ' While this case was under consideration, a special 

 enquiry, the results of which were highly interesting and 

 instructive, had been made by MR. THORBURN, the Commissioner of 

 the Rawalpindi Division, regarding the indebtedness of the agricultural 

 classes and the amount of land alienations in four assessment circles 

 of that portion of the Punjab ; and SIR DENNIS FITZPATRICK came 

 to the conclusion that in one at least of these circles a case for legis- 

 lation had been made out. He was, however, strongly opposed to a 

 law of general application to the whole Province, and did not pro- 

 pose to go further than to take power by law to apply restrictions 

 on transfer to any particular tract in which a full enquiry might 

 show that they were required. 



Both the Financial Commissioners of the Punjab, on the 

 other hand, expressed a decided opinion in favour of restrictive 

 measures of general application, and suggested that all permanent 

 transfers of ancestral land ought to be prohibited unless sanctioned 

 by the Revenue Officers, while temporary transfers ought to be 

 limited to 15 years, the land reverting to the alienor at the end of 

 this period free of all encumbrances. A majority of the Judges of 

 the Chief Court were also in favour of imposing direct restrictions 

 on alienations. My Hon'ble friend MR. JUSTICE CHATTERJEE, after 

 discussing the question in an able pa/per and pointing out that the 

 customary law of the Punjab enables heirs to set aside many aliena- 

 tions, went on to say that he considered that the great recommenda- 

 tion of a measure directly restricting alienations would be that it 

 would exactly define the limits of the land-holders' power of alienation 

 and would thus have a beneficial effect in checking litigation. He 

 thought that the restriction to life or to 15 years of a land-owner's 

 power of alienating his ancestral lands would be regarded by the bulk 

 of the land-holding class as consistent with the traditions of the 

 Province, and would be agreeable to them. It is not clear, however, 

 whether the Judges advocated a general enactment on these lines, 

 or merely an enabling one, as recommended by SIR DENNIS 

 FITZPATRICK. 



The Government of India, in communicating to the Punjab 

 Government the opinion which they had formed on the evidence and 

 recommendations contained in SIR DENNIS FITZPATRICK'S minutes 

 and in the reports of the Judicial and Revenue Officers of the Punjab, 

 expressed their belief that partial legislation would fail in its object, 



