Land Acquisition (Mines) Act, 1885

The Land Acquisition (Mines) Act, 1885 fills a gap in the main land acquisition law by dealing specifically with cases where the government wants to acquire land that has mines or minerals underneath it. Section 3 lets the Provincial Government, when declaring land needed for a public purpose or for a company, state that the coal, ironstone, slate, or other minerals beneath the land are not needed - meaning those minerals do not automatically pass to the government along with the surface land.

If the mine owner then wants to work those minerals, Section 4 requires them to give the government sixty days' written notice before starting. Section 5 lets the government inspect the mine during or after that notice period, and if working the mine could damage the surface land or anything built on it, the government can either pay compensation and stop the mining entirely, or pay compensation while allowing mining to continue under specified restrictions. Section 6 says compensation and the people entitled to it are worked out using the same procedure as the main Land Acquisition Act, 1894. If the government does not respond within the sixty days, Section 7 lets the mine owner work the mine normally, but they must repair, at their own cost, any damage this causes to the surface - and if they don't, the government can do the repairs itself and bill the owner.

Section 8 allows neighbouring mine owners to cut connecting passages for ventilation and drainage, capped by law at eight feet wide and eight feet high unless the government sets a different limit. Sections 9 and 10 require the government to compensate mine and surface owners for extra costs or losses caused by these restrictions. Section 11 gives a government-appointed officer the right to enter and inspect the mines after giving 24 hours' notice, and Section 12 makes refusing to allow that inspection punishable by a fine of up to two hundred rupees. Section 13 lets the government require a mine owner to carry out safety works if the mine has been worked in breach of the Act, with the government able to do the work itself and recover the cost if the owner does not comply.

This is a narrow, technical, and very old law (1885), heavily amended over the decades (for example by the 1981 Federal Laws (Revision and Declaration) Ordinance). The two-hundred-rupee fine and the specific notice periods reflect the historical text; anyone relying on the current figures should check the up-to-date official version.