MQM comes up with land reforms bill

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement has submitted to the National Assembly Secretariat a land reforms bill seeking distribution of large landholdings among small and landless farmers in order to end feudalism and hereditary politics in the country.

The MQM succeeded in getting the anti-feudalism resolution passed in the National Assembly. For that purpose it secured the support of the PML-N by backing its pro-democracy resolution during a debate on the flood situation last month.

Dr Sattar, who is also Minister for Overseas Pakistanis, described the submission of the bill as a first step towards empowerment of the 98 per cent people of the country and said it would liberate them from the ‘Jagirdari system’ as had been done in India and other countries.

“The object is to reduce the wide disparity of income and opportunity between rich landlords and poor tillers of the soil and to maximise the output of agricultural produce by intensive cultivation and optimal use of water through cooperative farming without let or hindrance by the government or bureaucracy,” says the “Statement of Object and Reasons” attached to “the Redistributive Land Reforms Bill 2010” submitted by the MQM as a private member’s bill.

The bill suggests constitution of “three-member land commissions” in the four provinces and at the centre to carry out the process of land reform in a judicious and transparent manner. The commissions should be headed by retired judges of the Supreme Court or high courts and comprise provincial ombudsmen and senior members of the provincial boards of revenue as members.

MQM had submitted a land reforms bill in the National Assembly secretariat proposing limits on land holdings.

The bill proposes that each family should be allowed to own a maximum of 30 acres irrigated or 54 acres arid (barani) land. The bill does not apply to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

The MQM said its draft legislation, titled “The Redistributive Land Reforms Bill, 2010,” is aimed at the eradication of hereditary ownership of agricultural land and its redistribution among tillers.

The proposed bill says that land is a free bounty of nature and that the state has been recognised as its owner, both by the Muslim and Hindu jurists.


MQM's Land Reforms Bill un-Islamic: JUP

The Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP) on Wednesday rejected the Land Reforms Bill presented by the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), terming it un-Islamic.

In a statement, JUP Chief Dr Sahibzada Abul Khair Muhammad Zubair said, “Islam has not fixed any limit for holding land as personal property nor does it call for seizing land held by any person.”

The JUP chief said the Land Reforms Bill of the MQM, which suggests landholding limit of 36 acres and 54 acres, was against the Shariah.“The verdicts of Pakistan’s Shariah Court on this issue too are very clear,” he said.

Zubair urged the members of national assembly and the senate not to pass the bill, which according to him, was an attempt to introduce an un-Islamic system in the name of abolishing the feudal system.

“The JUP would not allow to impose any system in the country, which is against the basic principles of Islam,” he vowed.