P.M. CHINNAYYA KURUMBA GOUNDAR AND ORS. Vs. THE STATE OF MADRAS REPRESENTED BY THE COLLECTOR OF SOUTH ARCOT AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE writ petitions deal with connected matters and therefore they were heard together. The petitioners in these writ petitions seek for relief against the operation of the Madras Preservation of Private Forests Act, 1949 (Madras Act (XXVII of 1949), which has been extended to certain well -known jagirs on the Kalriyan Hills, known as Jadaya Goundar Jagir and Kurumba Goundar Jagir. The South Arcot District Gazetteer refers to a third similar jagir on the same hills called Ariya Goundar Jagir. But we are concerned in these writ petitions only with the first two jagirs. The present proprietor of Kurumba Goundar Jagir is the petitioner in Writ Petition No. 1896 of 1965 and the first petitioner in Writ Petition Nos. 1571 of 1964 and 4622 of 1965, and the present proprietor of Jadaya Goundar Jagir is the petitioner in Writ Petition No. 1828 of 1964. The principal contentions of the petitioners in the writ petitions can be set down briefly as under.

(2.) THE petitioners in Writ Petition No. 1828 of 1964 and 1896 of 1965, who are the proprietors of Jadaya Goundar and Kurumba Gaundar Jagirs respectively urge that from time immemorial a certain form of cultivation had been carried on in the hill tracts of the jagirs described as ponal kadu cultivation, a process which can be succinctly described as shifting cultivation. The hill folks who reside in the hills obtain their food by such cultivation. This is a customary right which they had been enjoying. After the notification of the forest areas in the jagirs as private forests under Section 1(2) of the Madras Preservation of Private Forests Act, 1949 (hereinafter called the Act), the officials in the forest department, under threat of prosecution, have been preventing the petitioners as well as the inhabitants of the hills, from carrying on ponal kadu cultivation, on the plea that such cultivation involve the clearing of shrubs and trees, that for the purpose of cutting trees, prior permission of the District Collector is required under Section 3 (2) of the Act, and that without such permission ponal kadu cultivation cannot be allowed. The petitioners in these two petitions urged that such prevention involves an interference with the customary rights of the petitioner as well as the inhabitants of the hills. The very purpose for which the Act was passed, includes the preservation of customary and prescriptive rights in private forests, besides the prevention of indiscriminate destruction of private forests. It is urged by the petitioners, that arbitrarily putting a stop to ponal kadu cultivation, has interfered seriously with the customary and prescriptive rights mentioned above, and that a writ of mandamus should issue to the respondents, namely, the District Forest Officer, South Arcot at Cuddalore and the State of Madras by the Collector of South Arcot at Cuddalore, forbearing them from interfering with ponal kadu cultivation in the limits of the jagirs above mentioned.

(3.) THE petitioner now urges that the officers of the Forest Department instead of affixing their seal to permit books produced by the petitioner as was the practice at the time when the above judgment of Jagadisan, J., was given, now rely upon an amendment of the relevant Timber Transport Rules, and insists that the petitioner should purchase on every occasion permits issued by the officials of the forest department at 5 nP. for each permit. The petitioner urges that by this insistence, the same difficulties that prevailed at the time when the earlier writ petition came before this Court, have come into existence again and the petitioner is constrained to file this writ of mandamus for directing the respondents to forbear from interfering with his transport of forest material gathered within the limits of his jagir to places outside the jagir.