RAJA SRINATH ROY Vs. DINABANDHU SEN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this action the plaintiffs claimed, as proprietors of a several fishery in certain tidal navigable waters in Eastern Bengal, a decree, for possession of an exclusive fishery in a portion of a river channel, of which the principal defendants own both the bed and the banks. They succeeded before the Additional Subordinate Judge of Faridpur and Jailed on appeal to the High Court at Calcutta Hence this appeal to their Lordships Board.

(2.) There is a section of the river system of the Lower Ganges, between Dacca on the left bank and Faridpur on the right, where the great stream divides and for many miles runs in two channels roughly parallel with one another. The general course is to the south-east. The northern of the two channels is much the larger, but the southern, the smaller of the two, is itself wide. Both channels are tidal and navigable.

(3.) The streams in the Gangetic delta are capricious and powerful. In the course of ages the land itself has been depo sited by the river, watch always carries a prodigious quantity of mud in suspension. The river comes down in flood with resistless force, and throughout its various branches is constantly eroding its banks and building them up again. It crawls or races through a shifting network of streams. Sometimes its course changes by imperceptible degrees; sometimes a broad channel will shift, or a new one open in a single night. Slowly or fast it raises islands of a substantial height standing above high water level and many square miles in extent. Lands so thrown up are called "churs," and it is by chur- lands formed at some unknown though probably not remote date that the northern and southern channels in question are at present divided.