LODNA COLLIERY CO 1920 LTD Vs. BHOLANATH RAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiffs respondents filed the suit out of which this appeal arises for damages for coal wrongfully taken away by the defendant company from underneath the lands belonging to the plaintiffs and for coal rendered unworkable and for other reliefs. The plaintiffs claim that they are the owners of certain plots which form Touzi No. 2597 of the Burdwan Collectorate. These plots are situate within Lot Sripur within which lands of different Touzis are included.

(2.) Lands covering an area of 6000 bighas appertaining to touzi No. 12 of the Burdwan Collectorate and situate within Lot Sripur were taken in Patni right in 1907 by one Pran Krishna Chatterjee. In 1911 Pran Krishna gave a prospecting lease in favour of the Lodna Colliery Co., Ltd., the predecessors of the present defendant the Lodna Colliery Co. (1920) Ltd. Shortly thereafter Pran Krishna also obtained from the Zemindar, the Maharaja of Burdwan, rights to the minerals under the same property. Thus Frankrishna became the undisputed owner of the underground right in 6000 bighas in Lot Sripur appertaining to touzi No. 12. Pran Krishna subsequently leased out the underground rights to the defendant company an additional area of 541 bighas. Under subsequent transactions Pran Krishna sold his underground rights to the defendant company in respect of the entire 6541 bighas. The defendant company began working the mines in Lot Sripur.

(3.) The plaintiffs alleged that the different plots appertaining to touzi No. 2597 of which they were the owners had been trespassed upon by the defendant company without the knowledge of the plaintiffs by running the gallaries from the defendants' lands into those owned by the plaintiffs. It was in the month of Sraban 1348 B. S., i. e. July-August 1941 that the plaintiffs came to know for the first time of such wrongful acts on the part of the defendants. Their attention was drawn by subsidences on the surface of their own land. Hence they claim damages for coal wrongfully taken away by the defendants from underneath the plaintiffs' plot and for having rendered unworkable a quantity of coal which had been left and for compensation under other heads. The suit was filed on the 22-7-1943 within three years of the alleged date of knowledge.