STATE Vs. MUN COM DAMOH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This judgment will also govern L. P. A. No. 32 of 1961.

(2.) These two Letters Patent appeals against a decision of Tare J. arise out of a suit filed by the Municipal Committee. Damoh, for recovery of possession from the Agricultural Association Ltd., Damoh, of certain land, known as Mawganj Grain Market, on which a market declared under the Central Provinces and Berar Agricultural Produce Market Act. 1935, and managed by the Agricultural Association Ltd., is located.

(3.) The case of the Municipal Committee was that the land in suit belonged to the Committee and was being used until 1st July 1956 as a grain market that on 8th June 1956 the Government issued a notification under Section 3 of the C. P. and Berar Agricultural Produce Act (hereinafter referred to as the Act) declaring the site as a market for the sale and purchase of agricultural produce, and on the same day by another notification the Government entrusted the management of the market to the Agricultural Association Ltd.; that thus the Committee was divested of the land belonging to it; and that the transfer of the land belonging to the Municipal Committee by the Government to the Agricultural Association was void and inoperative and the use of the land by the Association as a market area was unauthorized. It was admitted by the Committee that it was consulted by the Government before the area, known as Mawganj Grain Market, was declared to be a market under the Act. The Committee, however, averred that the resolution passed by the Committee on 1st December 1955 giving its approval to this proposal of the Government was passed without understanding the implications of it and was, therefore, ineffective, and that at no time the Municipal Committee passed any resolution sanctioning the transfer of the land to the Agricultural Association or the transfer of the management of the market from the Committee to the Association. On these allegations, the Plaintiff-Committee claimed the relief's of possession of the market area and an account of the mesne profits realised by the Defendant-State and the Agricultural Association Ltd. from 1st July 1956 till the date of the decree.