462 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
But how is the existing law of inheritance to be changed ? If it is not to be the law of equal sub-division shall we have the law of primogeniture. [9 ] The Baroda Committee thanks that,—
“It is not necessary that it should be introduced. All that it wanted is, that there should not be sub-divisions of land beyond a certain limit, which may be fixed for the sake of good agriculture. There is no objection to a holding being sub-divided, so long as by so doing each of the parts does not become less than the limit fixed for the subdivision of land. But when a holding reaches a stage to render further sub-division uneconomic, the other members of the family may not be allowed to force further sub-division of the holding. Instead of being sub-divided, it may be either cultivated in common or be given to one of the members of the family as a whole, and that member made to pay amounts equal to the value of their shares as compensation to the other members.” [10]
The principle of not dividing immovable property among the heirs, when division would result in inconveniently small shares, but of giving to the highest bidder among the sharers or in case none of them is willing to have it, to outside bidders, and dividing the money realized in proportion to the recognized shares, has been accepted in the Indian Partition Act, No. 4 of 1893, section 2 of which runs thus :
“Whenever in any suit for partition, in which, if instituted prior to the commencement of this Act, a decree for partition might have been made, it appears to the Court that, by reason of the nature of the property to which the suit relates, or of the number of the shareholders therein or of any other special circumstance, a division of the property cannot reasonably or conveniently be made and that a sale of the property and distribution of proceeds would be more beneficial for all the share-holders, the Court may, if it thinks fit, on the request of any such share-holder interested individually or collectively to the extent of one moiety or upwards direct a sale of the property and a distribution of the proceeds.”
Granting the advisability of thus changing the law of inheritance it only requires to amend the Civil Procedure Code so as to make it obligatory on the Courts to refuse partition whenever it would reduce a field beyond the economic limit fixed in advance.
Besides these two systems of inheritance there is a third which allows a father liberty to do as he likes with a part of his estate provided he leaves sufficient for his heir to constitute what is called pars legitima. Under it the Germans have enacted a permissive law of Anerbenrecht designed to obviate the effects of the law of inheritance in causing unnecessary sub-division of land. In some aspects it anticipates the proposals of the Baroda Committee; in others those of the Hon. Mr. Keatings. For a description of it see Prof. N. G. Pierson’s Principles of Economics, Vol. II, pp. 286-90.
R.B.C., p. 26.