ABDUL HAI Vs. BAPU RAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE question here is one of general importance, namely, whether the village cattle in this village can graze free in uncultivated khudkhast. I would ask for a Bench to decide it. Opinion.

(2.) WE have no hesitation in answering the reference in the negative. The land in the present case is admittedly recorded as khudkhast, and as such it is within the power of the malguzar to give it out for cultivation, to cultivate it himself or to leave it under grass, and if he likes to do the last, we do not think villagers are entitled to graze their cattle free of charge therein, though they have a right to do so in the fields specified for that purpose in the wajib-ul-arz, or on the waste tracks of the village. The expression "khali pad" does not, in our opinion, apply to land of the nature we are dealing with. Keeping land under grass is "agriculture" within the meaning of that term in the Tenancy Act.