Persons liable to pay charges

(1) Betterment charges shall be recoverable from the person or persons recorded as the occupancy tenants or service tenants of the land : Provided that where such tenant pays produce rent to his immediate landlord, recorded as such a portion of the betterment charges equivalent to the fraction which the produce rent taken by the landlord bears to the total produce each year shall be recoverable from such landlord : Provided further that a service tenant shall pay only 75 per cent of the charges on the land, the other 25 per cent being payable by the person to whom the lands will revert on abolition of the service : Provided also that, a person in actual cultivation of the land on the date of the award under section 6 as a tenant or sub-tenant under an occupancy tenant or service tenant on payment of produce rent and protected against eviction under any general or special law for the time being in force or any practice, custom or usage having the force of law, shall be liable to pay a part of the betterment charges in such proportion as the produce taken by such tenant or sub-tenant bears to the total produce of the land during the year last preceding the date of the award. "Recorded" in this section shall mean "recorded on the land records of the Collector of the district on the date of the award under section 6" or where an application for change of record is pending on that date in the proper court the record as corrected in the final orders on the application ; (2) For the purposes of this section persons who are recorded as tenants and whose rights are the same as those of occupancy tenants or service tenants shall be deemed to be occupancy tenants or service tenants as the case may be. (3) Notwithstanding anything in sub-section (1) and subject to any contract to the contrary where a tenant holding any land on produce rent is evicted by his immediate landlord in pursuance of any law relating to land reforms or under any other law for the time being in force such landlord shall be liable, in addition to such other payment he may have to make for such eviction, to pay to such tenant the portion of the betterment charges paid by him prior to the date of his eviction : Provided that nothing in this sub-section shall apply if the eviction of the tenant has taken place on account of any default on the part of the tenant in complying with the provisions of any such law as aforesaid.