Local Government in Ancient India c13.134

c13.134

Thus newly reclaimed lands, and the lands of which ownership was lost through crime or undischarged liability, were legally vested in the assembly. But they had power to dissolve private proprietorship of land in other ways. They were invested with the power of 'land acquisition' in the modern sense of the expression. Thus no. 84 of 1906 registers the compulsory acquisition by the assembly of the land belonging to a private owner. There were of course the attending conditions justifying such an encroachment upon the rights of private property. The purpose of the acquisition is connected with a public object, in the present case the excavation of a tank for the village, while the dispossessed proprietor was paid by the assembly due compensation in the shape of another plot assigned to him. Land acquisition for constructing a public road is referred to in no. 9 of 1898.