SUMAN K. SHRIVASTAVA
Ranchi, December 18: In a quiet neighbourhood of Ranchi, a tribal family lived for years in a mud house with a tin roof, even though the land beneath it was worth far more than the house itself. The family owned the land. Their name was in the records. The law recognised their title.
What the law did not allow them was a loan.
When the family approached a bank to build a brick house, they were turned away. Their land, they were told, could not be mortgaged. When another family sought an education loan to send a child to medical college, the answer was the same. Ownership existed, but the right to use the ownership did not.
Across Jharkhand’s towns, this paradox played out quietly. Tribal families were land-rich but credit-poor, protected by a law that had begun to deny them the very tools needed for education, housing, and dignity.
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The law was the Chhotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908—a statute created to save tribal land from exploitation. Over time, however, its protective purpose hardened into an administrative barrier. What was meant as a shield slowly became a wall.
It would take a judgment of the Jharkhand High Court, authored by Justice M.Y. Eqbal, to remind the State that protecting land could not mean freezing lives—and that the right to land must also include the right to learn, to build, and to live with dignity.
Why the CNT Act Was Enacted
To understand how a routine bank loan became a constitutional issue, one must return to the late nineteenth century, when tribal land in Chhotanagpur began to slip—quietly but steadily—from its original owners.
Colonial administrators observed a repeated pattern. Tribal cultivators, unfamiliar with formal contracts and already burdened by poverty, lost their land to moneylenders, traders, and landlords through debt, deception, and manipulation of revenue records. Within a generation, entire villages were reduced from landowners to labourers.
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The Chhotanagpur Tenancy Act, 1908, was enacted in response to this dispossession. It was not an act of colonial generosity but the product of resistance—uprisings, petitions, and administrative anxiety following movements such as the Birsa Munda rebellion. The law sought to prevent permanent alienation of tribal land by restricting sale, gift, and long-term transfer.
At the same time, the Act did not intend to freeze tribal life in time. Its framers recognised that land could not be separated from economic reality. The law, therefore, permitted limited and regulated mortgages, particularly in favour of cooperative societies and banks. These provisions were meant to help cultivators survive bad harvests, invest in agriculture, and repay debts without losing ownership.
The law was protective—but it was never meant to be paralysing.
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Statehood and the Politics of Absolute Protection
When Jharkhand became a separate State in 2000, the CNT Act acquired a new political life. It became more than a statute; it became a symbol.
In political rhetoric, protest movements, and administrative practice, protection of tribal land increasingly came to mean total prohibition. Every proposal involving land was viewed through the lens of historical betrayal. Nuance disappeared. Temporary use was treated as permanent loss. Credit was confused with alienation.
It was in this atmosphere of fear-driven governance that a restrictive interpretation of the CNT Act began to dominate official thinking.
The Circular That Froze Credit
In July 2007, the Government of Jharkhand formalised this exclusion through an executive circular. It categorically declared that members of the Scheduled Tribe community could not obtain housing or education loans by mortgaging their raiyati land. The directive applied to all banks, including nationalised banks.
The circular relied on Mandu Prakhand Sahakari Grih Nirman Sahyog Samiti Ltd. v. State of Bihar (2004). That judgment, however, dealt with permanent transfer of tribal land to a cooperative housing society, not temporary mortgages for loans. Nevertheless, it was treated as laying down an absolute prohibition.
The impact was immediate. Banks stopped lending. Ironically, some institutions continued to extend such facilities to their own tribal employees, while ordinary tribal citizens were excluded.
This contradiction led to the filing of a public interest litigation (Felix Tamba vs State of Jharkhand 2008) before the Jharkhand High Court.
Justice M.Y. Eqbal: Reading the Law With Purpose
The case came before a Bench led by Justice M.Y. Eqbal, a jurist deeply familiar with land laws under the CNT Act. Over the years, he had seen how protective statutes could be distorted through excessive caution and misinterpretation.
The court refused to treat the CNT Act either as a sacred relic or a technical obstacle. For him, statutory interpretation had to be grounded in purpose, history, and lived reality.
Re-Examining the CNT Act
The Court undertook a careful examination of Section 46 of the Act. While acknowledging its restrictions on sale and permanent alienation, Justice Eqbal highlighted its provisos, which expressly permit temporary mortgages, particularly in favour of cooperative societies and banks.
Tracing the legislative history—including the 1920 amendment and the Select Committee Report—the Court showed that institutional credit was consciously built into the law. The fear animating the Act was of private moneylenders, not regulated banking institutions.
The Court then examined Section 47, addressing the State’s concern about permanent loss. Even in cases of loan default, the Act contains safeguards to ensure that tribal land does not pass into non-tribal hands. The fear of permanent alienation, the Court held, was legally unfounded.
Earlier decisions of the Patna High Court were analysed in detail, all of which consistently upheld the permissibility of temporary alienation under the Act. The Court firmly rejected reliance on Mandu Prakhand, holding that it had no application to bank mortgages for housing or education.
The law already had safeguards.
The circular added nothing—it only imposed fear.
Constitutional Reasoning: Law in the Service of Life
What elevated the judgment beyond statutory interpretation was its constitutional vision.
Justice Eqbal located the issue within Article 21, interpreting the right to life as the right to live with dignity. Housing, education, and economic security were treated as essential conditions of meaningful citizenship.
Article 46 was invoked to remind the State of its duty to promote the educational and economic interests of Scheduled Tribes. Denying access to institutional credit, the Court observed, achieved precisely the opposite.
Drawing from welfare-state principles and international human rights norms, the judgment affirmed a simple truth: development that excludes the protected is not development.
The Court relied upon earlier precedents, including:
Somra Uraon v. Mostt. Somari Urain (1964 BLJR 227),
Ramdayal Sahu v. Hari Shankar Lal Sahu (AIR 1968 Pat 310), and
Sasthi Pado Sekhar v. Anandi Chaudhary (AIR 1967 Pat 25),
all of which recognised the legality of temporary alienation under the CNT Act.
The Decision: Restoring the Bridge Between Land and Opportunity
The Jharkhand High Court struck down the 2007 circular in its entirety. It held that:
The CNT Act does not prohibit Scheduled Tribe members from mortgaging land for housing or education loans.
The circular was arbitrary, unlawful, and beyond executive authority.
Denial of institutional finance violated constitutional values of dignity and equality.
In doing so, the Court restored a vital bridge between land and opportunity.
A Living Legacy
In the years that followed, the impact was quiet but deep. Tribal families in urban Jharkhand began building brick houses on ancestral land. Students accessed higher education through bank loans. Administrators were reminded that protection cannot justify paralysis.
The judgment has since been cited whenever attempts are made to impose blanket prohibitions under the CNT Act. Its enduring legacy lies in restoring confidence that the law can protect without imprisoning—and empower without erasing history.
Justice M.Y. Eqbal and the CNT Act
Justice Eqbal authored several significant judgments involving the CNT Act, consistently balancing protection with constitutional values. In cases dealing with restoration of tribal land, misuse of surrender provisions, and illegal transfers disguised as development projects, he emphasised that CNT Act protections cannot be diluted—but also cannot be distorted into instruments of oppression.
His jurisprudence rejected both extremes: unregulated alienation and absolute prohibition.
Justice Eqbal later retired as a Judge of the Supreme Court of India, leaving behind a legacy of socially conscious land jurisprudence.
Saving Land by Saving Lives
The Chhotanagpur Tenancy Act was enacted to save tribal land from dispossession.
This judgment ensured that its future would not be defined by deprivation.
By reading the law as a living instrument, Justice M.Y. Eqbal reaffirmed that justice is not achieved by freezing people in history, but by enabling them to move forward with dignity.
The land remained protected.
At last, it could also build homes, educate children, and sustain lives.
And in that balance, the law finally fulfilled its promise.
