BABU RAM Vs. STATE OF H.P.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners in this writ petition are residents of village Basaral and so is respondent no. 5 Purshotam Chand. They all own lands in the said village. Respondent no. 5 in fact has an orchard on about 70 kanals of land and his remaining land consisting of 46 bighas is under his cultivation. His entire land is said to be situate by the side of a rivulet known as Maan khud. Respondent No. 5 then got a scheme sanctioned for the construction/installation of a tube -well/pump set machine by the side of the said khud for the purposes of irrigating his land and orchard.

(2.) The case of the petitioners is that in order to take electric power for the purpose of running the said tube -well/pump set, the employees of respondent no. 6 (HPSEB) started digging the lands of the petitioners for installing electric poles thereon without the consent or permission of the petitioners. The petitioners then naturally protested against this illegal action on the part of respondent no. 6 and stopped its employees from carrying on any digging operation on their lands. On this, respondent no. 4 (S. D. O. (Civil), Electrical Division, Dhaneta), made a complaint to respondent no. 3 (Station House Officer Police Station, Nadaun), (SHO for short), on June 3, 1986 as a result of which the said S. H. O. initiated proceedings against the petitioners and others consisting of 18 persons including twelve ladies in the Court of respondent no. 2, (Sub -Divisional Magistrate, Hamirpur), under section 107 read with section 150 of the Criminal Procedure Code vide report Annexure R -l which was received in the office of the respondent no. 2 on June 23, 1986.

(3.) Meanwhile, some of the petitioners instituted a Civil Suit on June 13, 1986 (Annexure P -l) in the Court of the Senior Sub -Judge at Hamirpur, seeking the relief to prohibit and restrain respondents nos. 3, 4 and 5 from entering upon their lands for "digging any electric pole thereon and also obtained an ad interim injunction order against the respondents to that effect. The respondents made an appearance in that Civil Suit on June 27, 1986 and gave an undertaking that they would neither enter upon the lands of the petitioners nor would they do any digging work for installation of electric poles and the application for interim injunction order was disposed of on that undertaking being given by the respondents. It is the further case of the petitioners, however, that despite this undertaking, the respondents concerned with the installation of the electric poles again trespassed on the lands of the petitioners on June 30, 1986 and started digging operation upon which the petitioners reported the matter to the Pradhan of the Gram Panchayat, Basaral in writing (Annexure P -6). The Pradhan Madan Lal, Up -Pradhan Hans Raj and Panch Kanshi Ram thereafter visited the spot on July 1, 1986 and vide their report (Annexure P -8) of the same date, found that the employees of respondent no. 6 had kept an electric pole on the lands of Babu Ram and Ram Saran and had also dug one pit each on their lands in the centre of their fields. Thereafter the petitioners filed contempt a petition in the Court of the Senior Sub -Judge, Hamirpur, alleging that the undertaking given by respondent no. 6 on June 27, 1986 had been violated which resulted in the notices being issued to the concerned respondents and the proceedings were still pending in the said Court,