A) The terms Shamilat or ShamilatDeh are universally used in Pakistan to denote village common land. The best translation of Shamilat in the English language would be “Common Land” or “Community Land”;
b) Shamilat land is a grant given by the State, out of State land, to the owners of the village to be used for their common purposes and is usually granted at the time of settlement;c)
c) Shamilat land is that land in a village which is jointly owned and possessed by the landowners of that village and is meant to be used for the common purposes of the village community. Such common purposes include grazing grounds, firewood collection, graveyards, community buildings, mosques, schools, dispensaries, play grounds, village ponds, village roads, passages for the movement of cattle etc;
d) All persons recorded as owners of land in a village are also joint owners of Shamilat of the village, their shares being proportionate to the size of their holding vis-à-vis total farm land in the village;
e) When they sell their land, the share of shaamlaat also goes to the new buyer accordingly. Landowners cannot sell their share of Shamilat without selling a part or the whole of their landholding;
f) Similarly, co-owners of land cannot move to encroach upon more Shamilat land than is already allotted to them and encroachers can be ejected by moving an application before the revenue authorities; and
g) There is another category of shamilat in certain areas in Pakistan where no settlement has taken place. Under this category, large tracts of lands are jointly owned by many people and their shares are expressed in terms of fractions of the total area in one Khasra Number, a particular number allotted to that piece of land by the revenue authorities (e.g., Mr. Akram’s share is 1/100 in Khasra Number 42 of revenue estate A).
