Government Tenants (North-West Frontier) Act, 1893

This 1893 Act (originally covering Punjab, later restricted to the North-West Frontier) provides a framework for the government to grant special tenancies on government-owned land. Section 2 defines "Deputy Commissioner" to include any officer appointed by the Provincial Government to perform Deputy Commissioner functions under the Act. Section 3 lets the Provincial Government apply the Act's provisions, by official notification, to any tract of land that is government property.

Once applied to a tract, Section 4 lets the Provincial Government issue a statement of the conditions on which it's willing to grant tenancies on land in that tract. Section 5 then requires the Deputy Commissioner to open and maintain a register of tenancies granted on those conditions, with each register including a copy of the conditions statement and containing particulars the Provincial Government prescribes.

Section 6 requires that before any tenancy is granted, the prescribed details of the proposed grant be entered in the register and signed by both the proposed tenant and the Deputy Commissioner. Section 7 gives legal effect to that signed entry: the signing tenant and their successors are deemed to have accepted and to hold the described land as a tenant of the Government on the conditions in the register's prefixed statement -- overriding any prior agreement or other tenancy law like the Punjab Tenancy Act, 1887 or Hazara Tenancy Regulation, 1887.

Section 8 restricts the tenant's rights: they cannot be attached or sold under a court decree or insolvency proceeding, and cannot be transferred, charged, sold, gifted or mortgaged without the prior written consent of the Financial Commissioner. Section 9 makes any sums owed to the Government under such a tenancy recoverable as if they were arrears of land revenue.

This is an old, geographically narrow 1893 law specific to certain government lands in what is now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; given its age and narrow historical scope, its current practical relevance should be checked against present-day land administration practice.