NARENDRA PROSAD SINGH Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BETWEEN Malda in West Bengal and Rajmahal in Bihar, the river Ganga is crossed by a ferry which has come to be known as the Rajmahal Manikchowk Ferry, on more popularly the Rajmahal Ferry. It is called an inter-State ferry, because the two ends of it lie in two different States, but there was a time when both the ends lay within the area of the then Province of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. In those times, the Bengal Ferries Act, 1885, which is an Act passed by the Bengal Legislature, applied to the ferry by its own terms. The Rajmahal end is now outside West Bengal. Indeed, it went out of even undivided Bengal when Bihar was constituted into a separate Province, but it appears that the Bengal Ferries Act continued to be applied to the whole of the territories to which it was previously applicable. Such continuance was the effect of section 2 of the Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and Assam Laws Act (VII of 1912) which provided that the constitution of a separate Province of Bihar and a Chief Commissioner ship of Assam would not cause any change in the territorial application of any enactment, notwithstanding that such enactment might have been expressed to apply or extend to the territories for the time being under a particular administration. Indeed, section 2 of the Bengal Ferries Act has now been amended so as to provide expressly that the Act shall extend to the States of West Bengal and Bihar and to that part of the State of Orissa which on the first day of August, 1885, was subject to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. The Act therefore applies to the inter-State ferry before us, although it is a Bengal Act and although one end of the ferry lies outside what is now West Bengal.

(2.) IT appears to have beer contended before the learned trial judge that the provisions of the Act did not apply to this particular ferry at all. it being an inter-State ferry. The contention was advanced in aid of the submission that the provisions of the Act could not be invoked to make out that they did not contemplate any interference by the Government with the administration of ferries and, therefore, the Act being out of the way, such intervention by Government as had taken place in the present case was not statutorily barred. I shall have occasion to deal with the argument that Government had no authority to give any direction regarding the settlement of any ferry governed by the Act, but at the present stage would only point out that the contention that the Act was not applicable to the present ferry, was entirely mistaken. Sinha, J. , seems to have thought that if the Act did not apply to the ferry, there might be same difficulty about his exercising jurisdiction with respect to the whole of it and he solved that difficulty by observing that whatever decision he gave, would only affect the ferry so far as it lay within his jurisdiction. With respect, J do not think that this was a very satisfactory way of disposing of the matter. The question in the present case is in what manner the ferry can be legally farmed out. On such a question there cannot obviously be a decision which will affect only a part of the ferry, because it is plainly inconceivable that, as to its letting one end or one part of the ferry will be governed by one law and another part by another. In reality, there is no difficulty about jurisdiction at all. It appears that although the two Governments of Bihar and West Bengal are both interested in the ferry, they agreed some time ago that the administration of the ferry would lie vested entirely in the District Magistrate of Malda who would necessarily act under the direction of his Divisional Commissioner, as the Act provided. The orders in the present case were made by the District Magistrate of Malda and the Commissioner of the Presidency Division, both of whom are subject to the jurisdiction of this Court and if the Act applies to the whole of the ferry, as I have shown it to do, this Court obviously can, by its' orders, control the settlement of the ferry by the West Bengal authorities and direct the settlement to be made in accordance with the provisions of the Act.

(3.) THE appellant is trying in these proceedings to enforce his alleged right to obtain a lease of the ferry for the period 1st of April, 1956 to the 31st of March, 1959, on an annual rental of Rs. 61,000!- as offered by him. The authorities are not conceding his claim and have directed the ferry to be leased by public auction, as required by section 9 of the Act. The appellant challenges the direction on various grounds, but in order that those grounds may he understood, a brief recital of the facts is necessary.