DISTRICT FOREST OFFICER KANYAKUMARI DISTRICT Vs. MUTHUSAMY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE civil revision petition under Article 227 of the Constitution has been filed under the following circumstances: THE respondents hud filed a suit in O.S. No. 419/96 before the District Munsifs Court, Padmanabhapuram, against the petitioner herein for a permanent injunction restraining the petitioner and hiss subordinates from either trespassing into the respective plots of each of the respondents or from disturbing their peaceful enjoyment alleging as follows: THE suit property full of rocks and a waste land was encroached upon more than fifty years back by their ancestors and improvement had been effected by spending huge amount. THEy had also planted valuable trees, like rubber, jack, mango etc. Recognising their possession the Government had also booked land encroachment cases against them and realised prohibitory assessments and fines from them. THE respondents orally partitioned the suit property into five plots as per the rough plan attached to the plaint. Veerapuli Reserved Forest adjoins the plaint properly. THE employees of the Forest Department used to harass the respondent and their men and therefore they filed suits O.S. Nos. 126, 134, 318 and 320 of 1978 against the Government for declaration of their title and possession and for injunction in respect of the plots in then-possession. THE trial Court rejected the plaint for title, but granted a decree declaring then-claim for possession and granted injunction. THE Government preferred four appeals in A.S. Nos. 120, 130, 131 and 132 of 1981 before the Subordinate Judge's Court, Padmanabhapuram. THE appeals were allowed in part setting aside the decree for injunction, but confirming the decree regarding the declaration of respondents' possession over the property. Even after the earlier decrees the employees of the Reserved Forest disturbed the peaceful enjoyment of the suit property on 3-1-1986 compelling the respondents to issue notices to the District Reserved Forest Officer, Nagercoil, on 7-1-1986 which provoked a reply on 30-1-1986 admitting the respondents' possession, but stating that the suit would be filed for recovery of the plaint schedule property. In spite of the reply notice the Reserved Forest Department people started disturbing the peaceful enjoyment of the property by the respondents and were making efforts to evict them by force. THEy had even measured the property on 23-8-1986. THEy had also threatened that they would demolish the respondent's houses. THEy were bound by the decree and judgment when the suits filed by the respondents. It was under those circumstances the suit came to be filed.

(2.) THE revision petitioner filed his written statement denying the various averments in the plaint, in particular stating that mere booking of land encroachment cases would not confer any right or title over the property, that as per the Forest (Conservation) Act, no State Government or any other authority could assign any forest land to an individual without the sanction of the Central Government, that the judgment in A.S. Nos. 120, 130, 131 and 132 of 1981 would operate as res judicata, that it had been held in those cases that the respondents were not entitled to ask for any injunction as prayed for, that it had been held in the earlier suits that the State was the real owner of the property, that it was the sovereign discretion of the owner whether to assign the property to the trespassers or not, that the respondents could not continue to be in possession with the aid of the order passed in the earlier suits and that the State had got every right to evict the encroachers.

(3.) MR. Titus Jesudoss, learned Special Government Pleader (Forests), concentrated more on the maintainability of the suit and submitted that the lower Court was in error in even entertaining the suit that the suit itself was not maintainable.