76 PROPOSED TENANCY REFORMS 



than Rs. 75. In these cases the out-going tenant would 

 receive Rs. 25 less than the landlord paid. The heavy 

 court-fee on ejectment was prescribed by the law with 

 a view to discouraging ejectments ; but through being 

 limited to Rs. 25 it failed to have this effect. In equity, 

 instead of merely penalizing the landlord, the money 

 should be paid to the outgoing tenant. It may be 

 suggested that the court-fee be reduced to Rs. 5 and that 

 a fixed amount of Rs. 20 be added to the compensation 

 for loss of profits payable to the outgoing tenant. The 

 tenant who had received notice of ejectment should be 

 entitled to retain the last half-yearly instalment of rent 

 due from him, which amount would be credited to the land- 

 lord as part payment of the compensation. This would leave 

 the tenant with a certain amount of money in hand which 

 would be useful in case of any delay which might arise in 

 paying the tenant his compensation as the result of dispute. 

 This would also tend to prevent the landlord from making 

 an application to the court to dispense with the compensation 

 on the ground of the tenant being undesirable. The land- 

 lord ought to make this claim immediately after filing his 

 ejectment notice so that the tenant should receive good notice 

 of the right of withholding the last half-yearly payment of 

 his rent having been lost by an adverse decision of the 

 court. 



I do not claim that the institution of this system of 

 compensation would entirely abolish the nazrana, but it 

 would certainly go a Jong way towards reducing it bv 

 making it less profitable for landlords and it would remove 

 the tenant's sense of grievance. 



A further measure of reform which would tend to 

 reduce the amount of nazrana on certain estates would 

 be a revision of the methods of assessing land revenue, to- 

 gether with a public announcement that such changes would 



