'THE LEGACY': 28: SANTHAL PARGANAS TENANCY ACT, 1949, HON'BLE SHRIMATI DROUPADI MURMU & KRISHNA BALLABH SAHAY (24/07/2022)

 Santhal Parganas Tenancy Act 1949, 

Hon’ble Srimati Draupadi Murmu and Krishna Ballabh Sahay

PRESIDENT-ELECT SRIMATI DROUPADI MURMU

KRISHNA BALLABH SAHAY 

'LOST CASES LAWYER VS SINHA' (THE TELEGRAPH)

Today, on the eve of the swearing-in ceremony of the fifteenth President of the Republic of India, the attention shifts to the political turmoil in the state of Jharkhand six years ago. Then the Bharatiya Janata Party's Raghubir Das's government was in power in the State when in 2016, an ordinance was brought by the government amending the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act 1908 and the Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act 1949, which were proved to be an 'obstacle' in the all-round 'development' of the state. The entire Santhal Parganas and Chotanagpur went up in flares in protest of the proposed ordinance.

Before coming to the main issue, let us look at the history of these two Acts. After the Hul rebellion in 1876, the British government passed the Santhal Parganas Tenancy Act in 1885. This law was brought by a foreign ruler with the aim of ruling the 'subject'. Therefore, when the country became independent, this law was amended to protect the interests of the tribal citizens of Indian Republic. Thus the Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act, 1949 became the first codified law of tenancy in the Santhal Pargana division of Jharkhand. This law was conceptualized by Krishna Ballabh Sahay, who was then the Revenue Minister of Bihar. In a special session, K. B. Sahay presented proposals related to amendments in various sections of the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act, 1908 and the Santhal Parganas Tenancy Act, 1949. The first amendment was made in Section 20 of the Santhal Parganas Tenancy Act 1949, which held any transfer of land made by a raiyat to any other person by way of sale, gift, mortgage, bequest, lease or contract to be void. All transfers of tribal land were banned by this amendment, except in a few instances. Often such transfers were in the name of Diku i.e. non-tribals. Similarly, by amending Section 42 of this Act, the Deputy Commissioner (Collector of the district) was empowered to pass an order to evict any person at any time either on his own motion or on an application made to him, who had encroached upon the tribal land. The Act also provisioned for the appointment of hereditary village headmen (pradhan/mulrayat) in all villages. It should be noted that even in 1949, this law faced heavy opposition from the treasury bench. Justifying the amendment, K. B. Sahay maintained that the amendment would mitigate the sufferings and oppressions of the tenants to a considerable extent. Opposition to the Amendment came from some of the public men of state, who did not want occupancy rights should accrue to raiyats on such lands which were within the ceiling area (The Searchlight, 12.12.1954)

The ordinance brought by the Raghubar Das government in 2016 proposed to amend these Sections to remove both the restrictions related to –(i) non-agricultural use of agricultural land and (ii) sale of tribal land to non-tribals. There was strong opposition to these amendments all over Jharkhand. Ignoring these protests, the Government introduced a Bill in the House, based on this ordinance, when the session was convened and got it passed within three minutes without any debate. The government publicized this as a significant achievement because after getting it passed in the House, it was now just a constitutional formality to get the assent of the Governor on these Bills. But it was here that the Raghuvar Das government suffered a rude shock when unexpectedly the then Governor Srimati Draupadi Murmu refused to give her assent to the Bill related to these amendments. The decision taken by Her Excellency the Governor at her discretion made her a 'People’s Governor'. It appeared the Hon’ble Governor had assented to the 'Vision' of Krishna Ballabh Babu, in rejecting these amendments. The sympathy that Babu Krishna Ballabh Babu had for the tribals was reflected in this decision of Srimati Draupadi Murmu. Our best wishes to her on becoming the 15th President of the Republic of India.

Lastly, a few words for Sri Yashwant Sinha- the other candidate in this Presidential election. In the Nineties, Yashwant Sinha used to be the Bharatiya Janata Party's candidate from the Hazaribagh Parliamentary constituency where he was always suspicious of Krishna Ballabh Babu's grandson, the deceased Prashant Sahay. Prashant Sahay was a rising youth leader and a successful criminal lawyer. During the election campaign, while appealing to the voters, he used to raise a single issue- 'Choose you may any candidate but not Yashwant Sinha'. More of this tussle in some other episode!