The Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act, 1960 (Act No. 33 of 1960) is a comprehensive legislative Act of the Indian Parliament, enacted on September 13, 1960, to consolidate and amend the law relating to land revenue and implement land reforms in the then Union Territory of Manipur. The Act was created to solve the problem of an unsettled land administration system by establishing a modern framework for land revenue, including a proper land survey, the creation of a record of rights (Section 42), and mutation procedures.
The Act works by establishing a clear administrative structure, defining Revenue Divisions and appointing Revenue Officers (Chapter II, Sections 3-10). Its key mechanism for land reform is the imposition of a Ceiling on Land Holdings (Chapter XI, Sections 134-138), which originally fixed the limit at 25 acres for a family of five. Crucially, it contains provisions for the protection of tenant cultivators, including the transfer of ownership of land to tenant (Section 127) and fixing a maximum rent (Section 112).
A critical feature of the Act, stated in Section 1(2), is that it extends to the whole of Manipur except the hill areas thereof, a distinction that connects to the unique land tenure systems and administrative structures in the hill regions. However, the Manipur Hill Areas (Acquisition of Chiefs' Rights) Act, 1967 partially extended the 1960 Act by making its administrative provisions (Parts I and II) applicable to the hill areas, while maintaining the exclusion of the land reform provisions. The Act has been amended several times, with a recent change being the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms (Seventh Amendment) Act, 2022 (Manipur Act No. 9 of 2022), which, among other things, inserted Section 14A to grant the State Government the power to lease out government land for industry or public utility purposes. The fundamental exclusion of the hill areas from the full scope of the land reform chapters remains a constant and politically significant aspect of the Act.