( 1 ) OVER the fast few decades, the Government has been assigning Government lands to landless poor persons, with the object of improving their economic lot. Certain Rules have been framed by the Government from time to time, governing such assignment. It is unnecessary for the present purposes to refer to them in any detail, except to mention that most often these Rules and the pattas granted thereunder contained a condition of non-alienability. While the assigned land was heritable, it was made non-transferable. The idea was to ensure that the assignees continue to derive benefits from the lands assigned to them. If the money lenders or other ryots in the village were allowed to take advantage of the helplessness and misery of these landless poor persons, it was assumed, they would take away the land, thus reducing the assignees to their original status of landless poor. But, the Government appears to have found in practice that the said condition of non-alienability has been honoured more in breach. A large extent of land assigned to the landless poor found its way into possession of better placed ryots and money-lenders, thus defeating the very object behind t