RESTRICTIONS ON THE ALIENATION OF LANDS. 207 



allow a third form of mortgage, whereby the mortgagor will retain 

 an inalienable right of cultivating occupancy of the mortgaged land 

 as the mortgagee's tenant, on payment of a fair rent which will be 

 determined, in case of dispute, by a Revenue Court under the provi- 

 sions of the Punjab Tenancy Act. A mortgage in this form may be 

 made for any such term as may be agreed on, but the mortgagor will 

 only be liable to ejectment from his cultivating occupancy if he uses 

 the land in an improper manner, or, if his rent is payable in kind, if 

 he wilfully fails to cultivate the land, or if a decree for an arrear of 

 rent has been passed against him and remains unsatisfied ; but, even 

 if so ejected from his cultivating occupancy as a tenant, the mort- 

 gagor will retain the equity of redemption of his proprietary right 

 on payment at any time of the original mortgage-debt. We also 

 propose to give power to the Local Government to allow other forms 

 of mortgage, at its discretion, in addition to the three forms just 

 specified, so as to permit the use of any existing local kinds of 

 mortgage which are of an unobjectionable nature. As regards condi- 

 tional sales, we propose, as I have already mentioned, to absolutely 

 prohibit the future use of this kind of mortgage in respect of land 

 owned by any class of persons, and, as regards existing mortgages 

 of this kind which have been made by any member of an agricul- 

 tural tribe, we propose, in modification of the provision in this respect 

 of the Bill as introduced, to allow the mortgagee to elect either to 

 keep his present mortgage with this particular condition struck out, 

 or to apply to the Revenue-officer to give him instead a usufructuary 

 or collateral mortgage in one of the forms to be hereafter allowed by 

 the Bill, on such conditions as to the amount of mortgage-debt and 

 period of mortgage as the Revenue-officer may consider reasonable. 

 Except in the cases which I have just specified, no existing mortgages 

 will be interfered with in any respect. 



As regards mortgages, therefore, the scheme embodied in the Bill, 

 as amended by the Select Committee, stands thus : 



Any member of a non-agricultural tribe may mortgage his land 

 in any form and on any conditions he pleases except by way of con- 

 ditional sale. So may a member of an agricultural tribe when the 

 mortgage is to a member of the same tribe, or of a tribe in the same 

 group. But in all other cases a mortgage by a member of an agri- 

 cultural tribe will have to be in one of the three forms which I have 

 explained, or in some other form permitted by the Local Government, 



