In the context of land ceiling laws, a benami transfer means
- A.the sale of land to a cooperative society
- B.the transfer of land in the name of another person to hide real ownership
- C.the lease of land to a sharecropper for a fixed share
- D.the exchange of scattered plots to form a compact field
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B. A benami transfer records land in the name of a relative, a servant or a fictitious person while the real owner keeps control, and it was the commonest device used to stay within the family ceiling on paper while holding far more land in fact, which is one reason so little surplus land ever reached the landless. Option A is wrong because a genuine sale to a cooperative is a lawful transfer and was sometimes even encouraged by state policy. Option C is wrong because leasing to a sharecropper for a share of the crop is tenancy, the subject of a different component of land reform. Option D is wrong because the exchange of scattered plots is consolidation of holdings. Along with wide exemptions and prolonged litigation, benami transfers are the standard explanation for the failure of the ceiling laws.
Read the full article: Land Reforms in India: Tenures, Ceilings and Tenancy
Practice Questions
View allThe Permanent Settlement of 1793 was introduced by which Governor General?
- A.Warren Hastings
- B.Lord Cornwallis
- C.Lord William Bentinck
- D.Lord Dalhousie
Show answer
In 1793 he settled the land revenue of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha permanently with the zamindars, who were recognised as proprietors so long as they paid a demand fixed for ever, and the cultivator was left without any recorded right in the land.
Read the full explanation →The Ryotwari system of land revenue is associated chiefly with which official?
- A.Holt Mackenzie
- B.Thomas Munro
- C.John Shore
- D.Lord Cornwallis
Show answer
Working with Alexander Read in the ceded districts and later as Governor of Madras, Munro settled the revenue directly with each cultivator, the ryot, who was recognised as the owner of his field so long as he paid, with the demand revised every twenty or thirty years.
Read the full explanation →Which amendment of the Constitution added the Ninth Schedule in order to protect land reform laws from challenge?
- A.First Amendment, 1951
- B.Fourth Amendment, 1955
- C.Seventeenth Amendment, 1964
- D.Forty-fourth Amendment, 1978
Show answer
Courts had begun to strike down zamindari abolition laws as a breach of the right to property, so Parliament inserted Articles 31A and 31B and created the Ninth Schedule, in which a law can be placed to put it beyond challenge on the ground that it takes away a fundamental…
Read the full explanation →Operation Barga, the programme to record and protect sharecroppers, was carried out in which state?
- A.Kerala
- B.West Bengal
- C.Bihar
- D.Maharashtra
Show answer
From 1978 the state government ran a campaign to enter the names of sharecroppers, known there as bargadars, in official records, which gave them a permanent and heritable right to cultivate and a legally fixed share of the crop, and it is quoted as the most effective tenancy reform in…
Read the full explanation →The Bhoodan movement was started in 1951 by whom and at which place?
- A.Jayaprakash Narayan at Sitabdiara
- B.Vinoba Bhave at Pochampally
- C.Mahatma Gandhi at Sevagram
- D.N.G. Ranga at Guntur
Show answer
Walking through the villages of the Telangana region in 1951 he asked landowners to treat the landless as their own kin and to gift a share of their land, and the first such gift at Pochampally began the Bhoodan or land gift movement, later extended as Gramdan, the gift of…
Read the full explanation →