LONG-TERM LEASES 79 



rights, what the law of 1901 declared was in effect 

 this : That the right of occupancy should in future be 

 acquired by the existence of the relation of landlord 

 and tenant between the parties for twelve continuous 

 years, although the land held may have been different 

 at different times. This provision was intended to 

 neutralize the practice of shifting the tenant's holding 

 from one part of a big estate to another. 



As the general object of the Government was to 

 induce the landlords to give their cultivators some 

 fixity of tenure, another means for compassing that 

 end was also attempted in the Act. If the landlords 

 did not wish that their tenants should acquire any 

 rights, they were, at least, to grant them long-term 

 leases, and for this end it was enacted that 'no tenant 

 shall acquire a right of occupancy in any land which 

 he holds as a lessee, under a registered lease for a 

 term of not less than seven years.' It was hoped that 

 the landlord, who realized how easily occupancy rights 

 could be acquired under this Act, and who still wished 

 to prevent their accrual, would consent to give his 

 tenants long-term leases, as no lease of less than seven 

 years operates as a bar to the accrual of occupancy 

 rights.* The law of 1881 had been that occupation 

 under a written lease did not count towards the 

 acquisition of these rights of prescription, and the 

 landlords could thus bar the accrual of rights by 

 short-term leases for a term of one year or upward. 



The other change of capital importance introduced 

 by the Act of 1901 related to the ejectment of non- 

 occupancy tenants ; in substance the Act provides as 

 follows : The non-occupancy tenant on first admission 



* So far the landlords have not availed themselves of this 

 provision. In the last Moral and Material Progress Report, I find 

 the following : ' At present the number of seven-year leases has 

 been small, and amounted to 8,517 only in 1902-03, of which 5,093 

 were in the Meerut division, where the provisions of the Act appear 

 to be best understood.' 



