BHARAT COKING GOAL LIMITED Vs. PARMESHWAR KUMAR AGARWALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The short question that falls for decision is as to whether a coke oven which is the subject-matter of this case is a 'coke oven plant' as defined in S. 3 (b) of the Conking Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Act, 1972 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). There is also another question as to whether the plaintiff-respondent 1 has retained with himself the ownership of the coke oven by reserving its ownership in him in sale deed executed by them in favour of defendant-respondent 2.

(2.) We are not going into the details of the facts because at the end of the arguments we have found a broad consensus between the parties to dispose of the matter by a short order.

(3.) The crucial facts, necessary for appreciation of the order we make, are : the plaintiff was once the owner of a coal mine and also of a coal coke oven. He transferred the coal mine to another company and granted a lease of the coke oven to the same vend. All this took place in 1967. Years later, under the Act above referred to, coal mines were nationalised and there was a separate provision therein for nationalisation of coke ovenplants. While the colliery was nationalised by the central government by inclusion in the schedule to the Act, nothing was done under S. 5 of the Act to nationalise the coke oven plant. The plaintiff, upon nationalisation of the coal mine by the Parliament, demanded rent from the central government in whom the colliery had vested on the footing that the coke oven had not vested in the central government and it was, therefore, bound to pay rent for its use. The central government as defendant resisted the claim on the score (a) that the coke oven plant had also been transferred by the plaintiff along with the colliery and, therefore, he had no surviving title to it; and (b) in any case by virtue of the nationalisation of the mine, the coke oven also had passed and vested in the central government.