BHAGWAN DASS Vs. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Certain lands situated in Usmanpur and Dariyabad in the district of Allahabad are in the possession of the appellant, some as a Bhumidhar, some as a Sirdar and some as a hereditary tenant. The lands abut on the Jamuna river and are submerged by the river water when the river is in flood. When the flood recedes large quantities of stand, gravel, boulders and bajris are deposited on the surface of the lands. The appellant lays claim to the deposits left behind by fluvial action of the river contending that since he is the owner of the lands or is otherwise entitled to an unrestricted user of the lands, he would be entitled to appropriate the deposits to the exclusion of all others.

(2.) The Mines and Minerals Department, Government of Uttar Pradesh, took steps in about 1970 to sell by auction the right to remove the sand, gravel and bajris deposited on the appellant's lands. On October 13, 1970 the appellant made an application to the Officer-in-charge, Mines, Allahabad, objecting to the proposed auction on the ground that the Government had no right to deal with this property in a manner detrimental to his title. On February 18, 1971 the Department of Mines passed an order directing the disposal of the deposits by an auction-sale.

(3.) In October, 1971 the appellant filed a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution in the Allahabad High Court asking that the aforesaid order of the State Government be quashed and that the State Government be restrained from bringing the fluvial deposits to sale by auction or otherwise. On behalf of the respondents, the Naib Tehsildar (Mines), Allahabad, filed a counter-affidavit stating that the appellant had no right of any kind to utilise the deposits left by the flood waters on his lands, that the State Government had sold the deposits by auction from 1965 to 1969 to which the appellant had raised no objection, that the deposits of sand, garvel, bajris etc. were Rs. minor minerals' to which the title vested in the State Government and that the only right of the appellant was to receive damages which the State Government always awarded under Rule 67 of the Uttar Pradesh Minor Minerals (Concession) Rules, 1963.