Land Act, 1933

Powers of the Minister in relation to the Land Commission and the Lay Commissioners.

6.—(1) The following matters shall be excepted matters for the purposes of this section and the expression “excepted matters” shall in this section be construed accordingly, that is to say:—

(a) the determination of the persons from whom land is to be acquired or resumed;

(b) the determination of the actual lands to be acquired or resumed;

(c) the determination of the price to be paid for land so acquired or resumed;

(d) the determination of the persons to be selected as allottees of untenanted land;

(e) the determination of the price at which land is to be sold to any such allottee;

(f) the determination of the new holding which is to be provided for a tenant or proprietor whose holding has been acquired by the Land Commission;

(g) the determination whether or not a holding has been used by the tenant thereof as an ordinary farm in accordance with proper methods of husbandry.

(2) On and after the appointed day, the Land Commission, in the exercise and performance of the powers and duties for the time being vested in it by law (including this Act), and the Lay Commissioners, in the exercise and performance of the powers and duties for the time being specifically vested in them by law (including this Act), shall, save in relation to excepted matters, act under and in accordance with the directions, whether general or particular, of the Minister, and the Minister shall have and may exercise, if and so far as he shall think proper, full and unrestricted power of regulating and controlling every and any exercise or performance by the Land Commission or the Lay Commissioners (as the case may be) of any such power or duty not relating to an excepted matter and also power of reserving to himself rights of approval and disapproval or of reconsideration, revision and confirmation of every or any act of the Land Commission or the Lay Commissioners not relating to an excepted matter.

(3) All powers and duties for the time being vested by law (including this Act) in the Land Commission or the Lay Commissioners in relation to an excepted matter shall, on and after the appointed day be exercised and performed in all respects as if this section had not been enacted, save that—

(a) any appeal which may lie by law (including this Act) from the determination of an excepted matter shall lie to the Appeal Tribunal, and

(b) the Minister may, if and so far as he thinks proper, arrange by reference to the class or classes of case or the county or counties in which the land concerned is situate the distribution amongst the Lay Commissioners of their work in relation to the excepted matters, but not so as to allocate any particular case or land to any particular Lay Commissioner.

(4) Nothing in this section shall apply to the Judicial Commissioner or to the Appeal Tribunal or operate to give the Minister any power or control of any kind over or in relation to the exercise of his functions by the Judicial Commissioner or their functions by the Appeal Tribunal.