RAM DASS Vs. SECRETARY OF STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This case is of considerable importance both to Government and owners or licensees of property in cantonment areas, as in many eases concerning rights in property in cantonment or civil station areas the documentary evidence as to the nature of the rights of the parties concerned is very scanty. Within the limits of the present bazaar area of Meerut Cantonment, there is a plot of land which has been known since 1870 as "Ehata Mandi." Along portions of its sides are a number of shops which together with some boundary walls make the area practically into an enclosure with open gate-ways. The plaintiffs are admittedly the owners of the shops and receive rents from their tenants. The cantonment authorities, in the two or three years immediately preceding the institution of this suit, had commenced letting out portions of the open space in the centre of the enclosure to various persons. The leases for these areas they auctioned and in view of the circumscribed nature of the spaces in dispute, it was to be expected, as proved to be the case, that the only persons willing to rent the land were apparently those who were already tenants of the shops. It is difficult indeed to see, in view of the existence of the shops, how anybody else could have made use of any portion of the area otherwise than by merely passing to and fro without prejudice to the rights of the tenants of the shops.

(2.) The plaintiffs apparently at first endeavoured to maintain their rights by negotiation with the cantonment authorities, for on 25 May 1923 they wrote a letter to the cantonment authorities claiming rights for themselves in the whole enclosure, including the area not built over and inviting the cantonment authorities to inspect their records, in which event, as the plaintiffs suggested, the justice of the plaintiffs claim would become apparent. We are not informed what answer the cantonment authorities sent, if any. But the fact that this suit has been filed indicates sufficiently clearly that no result was arrived at by negotiation.

(3.) In their plaint, the plaintiffs claimed to be the proprietors or owners of the whole Ehata. Later, they conceded that when the cantonment was established Government acquired ownership in the whole of the land within the cantonment area, and the plaintiffs do not now claim to be more than licensees of the whole area. The case for the Secretary of State, who is represented by the cantonment authorities, is that the plaintiffs are licensees of so much of the area as is covered by their shops and that they have no right of any sort or description over land which is not actually covered by the shops. It is claimed for the Secretary of State that the whole area is owned by Government, that no license was ever granted to the plaintiffs in respect of the open area, that they were permitted to build the existing shops and thereby became licensees as to so much of the area only as is actually covered by the shops. We may say parenthetically that in any event, the claim of the cantonment authorities as stated, could not be supported. The plaintiffs must at least have the necessary easements of access, light and air in respect of the open area. But in view of the opinion at which we have arrived, this need not be considered further.