Knowing about Shamilat Land Section 4, Section 5

Village community system was transformed into customary family system meaning the it is owned by the families but still portions were still retained to the community for common use and this land known as village common land and this is called Shamilat Deh. It is not one patch of land but it consists of several chunks of land and has been classified in many land areas. Among them first one is the place in a village where cattle are gathered before going to pasture and is called Gora deh and another is abadi deh means the chunks of land on which houses are constructed or mosque,temple or gurduwara. Another type is Shamilat deh that is those chunks which are used for grazing of cattle and the propriety holders cut grass and includes banjar land of village. Land holders in a village are entitled to get a share of the Shamilat land as per ratio of their holdings means they have proprietary rights in Shamilat land in proportion to the size of their holdings.On 1926 A. D.the Maharaja of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir issued Boon No.4 published in Government Gazette on 14 th Phagan 1982 corresponding to March 1926 where under state land was ordered to bestow upon village community and this land was henceforth ordered to be called Shamilat Deh and the villagers concerned were awarded jointly the same rights there in, which they possess in their individual holdings. It was ordered that the land holder in a particular village would be entitled to have a share in the land that was declared as Shamilat Deh.
As the retrievation from section 4 Shamilat is underway authorities in the revenue department must take this kind of situation seriously and before starting retrievation drive land must be demarcated first as it will also benefit the department in preparing list of Shamilat deh section 4 and section 5 separately.
By Ailan no.4 in 1927 the rule to regulate the mutation of Shamilat deh land in Jammu division. Clause 5 of the rule provided that Shamilat entries made under this rule shall be record in the form of Shamilat Malikan deh and it should be mentioned in tenancy columns of Jamabandi.and same Ailan was announced in 1927 for Kashmir division. Shamilat land was born with two kids section 4 and secton5 and among them first kid is meant for common use by the people of any particular village and the later one is as property land and tax in the form of Malia was levelled on this land.Any land holder that has Shamilat land with section 5 under his possession can sell this land to another person a and proper sale is done in this type of land while as section 4 Shamilat land means grazing land or land meant for common purposes. But many officers and officials in the revenue department are not in a position to decide on which part is section 4 and which is section 5 when such cases they come across and this situation arises when any survey number is for instance 355 kanals and among it 196 kanals are section 5 and the remaining part is section 4.This author found that when these officers go through the contents of order in mutation register they are not in a position to decide the difference resulting they do not decide the cases on merits. Many cases are lingering in revenue and civil courts from many years regarding it but reason is either contents of order in mutation called Tayuini Shamilat are not clearly mentioned or concerned are not in a position to differentiate these two sections. Now as the retrievation from section 4 Shamilat is underway authorities in the revenue department must take this kind of situation seriously and before starting retrievation drive land must be demarcated first as it will also benefit the department in preparing list of Shamilat deh section4 and section 5 separately.
(Author is in charge record room at DC office Anantnag. The views, opinions, facts, assumptions, presumptions and conclusions expressed in this article are those of the authors and aren’t necessarily in accord with the views of “Kashmir Horizon”.)
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