Lawyers and peasant rights activists have urged the government to ensure registration of peasant workers through revenue officials under the Sindh Tenancy Act to avoid controversy between the peasants and land owners. They realised the fact that flawed distribution mechanism of the share from agriculture crops usually cause problems for peasants.
They expressed these views during an interaction with lawyers of District Bar Association Sanghar organised by Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) at Sanghar to discuss the functioning of Tenancy Act and flaws in the law to protect the rights of rural workers.
Sain Bakhsh Nizamani, a member of the Sindh Bar Council (SBC), and a member of SBC laws reforms committee presided over the meeting, while senior lawyers of the DBA with selective members of the civil society including peasant rights activists took part in the discussion.
Nizamani claimed to have fought the cases under the Tenancy Act earlier and said he understood the issues between the shareholders of agriculture sector. He said Haris did not know how to approach tenancy tribunals to get their rights. He said revenue officials like Tapedars did not register haris. There were titles for landlords and farmers as per laws, he said. Like this, he said Khasro was a proof for a Hari’s registration. But the matter was not being followed according to the law, he added.
He said if the Tenancy Act was implemented in its letter and spirit, the haris could get their rights properly. He said the Sindh Tenancy Act existed for many decades and it should be implemented properly. A landlord could not dare to deprive haris of their rights if this law was properly followed, he further averred.
Ameer Hussain Panhwar Advocate said the Tenancy Act was formed in 1950 to strengthen the relations between landlords and farmers. The revenue officials should maintain the record of haris and landlords to avoid any controversy over the share. He alleged that the revenue department officials presently could not exercise their powers of magistrates like past which was the reason that haris were under pressure and mostly deprived of their share at the hands of landlords.
He said now it seemed that landlords themselves run the affairs of revenue officials and put pressure on haris. He said peasants should be educated that how they could move complaints with the tenancy tribunals and secure their rights. He suggested that after separation of judiciary, now the tenancy tribunal should come under judiciary.
Earlier, Shujauddin Qureshi of PILER briefed the lawyers about the objectives of the meeting and the overall contribution of PILER for labour rights. He said since industrial laws were functioning, the workers associated with agriculture and fishermen do not have access to such laws to protect their rights.
He claimed that tenancy tribunals were ineffective to protect the rights of farmers because these tribunals were either non-functional or under pressure of the local influential landlords. There were several cases presently registered with tenancy tribunals but they could not protect the rights of sharecroppers in the province, he added. The senior lawyers discussed on the law and underlined the need for amendments through parliament.
