RADHAKRISHNA AGARWAL Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These appeals are before us after certification of the cases, raising identical questions of law as fit for appeal to this Court, dealt with by one judgment and orders of a Division Bench of the Patna High Court on two writ petitions. The petitions were directed against orders of the State Government passed in 1974 revising the rate of royalty payable by the petitioners appellants under a lease of 1970, and, after that, cancelling the lease by a letter of 15th March, 1975. The petitioners case was that the revision of the rate of royaalty payable by the petitioners for the lease to collect and exploit sal seeds from forest area was illegal during the subsistence of the lease, and, thereafter, cancellation of the lease itself was illegal for various reasons.

(2.) Primarily, the case of the petitioners is that of a brach of contract for which the State would be liable ordinarily to pay damages if it had broken it. If the petitioners could establish some right, either contractual or equitable, to continue in possession, the State could be prevented by appropriate proceedings, from ousting the petitioners from the forest land from which the petitioners have been gathering sal seeds. The petitioners had also set up male fides on the part of the Conservator of Forests, in enhancing the royalty unreasonably and then canceling the lease, allegally acting under the influence of friends and associates of the Forest Ministry of Bihar.

(3.) The relevant clause relating to revision of royalty in the written contract reads as follows:-