MUHAMMAD KHALILUR HASAN Vs. JANARDAN PRASAD SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiffs are the proprietors of Buzrug Doar village on the north bank of the Bur Gandak. The defendants are the proprietors of a village on the opposite bank named Belsandi. From time immemorial there has been a ferry between the two villages, with landing places on each bank, which in 1897 or at some time before that was made fit to carry loaded carts by the proprietors on the northern side, who had established a market in their village. A market was subsequently opened in Belsandi village; and the competition between the two markets led to ill feeling between the two sets of proprietors, who apparently had hitherto worked the ferry jointly and without friction.

(2.) The proprietors of Belsandi then attempted to assert exclusive right in the ferry which was contested by the proprietors of Buzrug Doar who in or about 1920 established by suit their right to share in the profits of the ferry. Early in 1926 the proprietors of Belsandi opened a new ferry about six hundred yards lower down the stream than the former ferry, having its landing place on the north in another village in which the proprietors of Belsandi have a share. The suit out of which this appeal arises was instituted by the landlords of Buzrug Doar on the allegations that the landlords of Belsandi had intentionally obstructed the road leading to the old ferry, so that the landing place could no longer be reached by carts, and that they had taken the boats of the old ferry to make their new ferry.

(3.) The plaintiffs prayed for a declaration that the defendants had no right to establish a new ferry in such a way as to injure them; and for an order for the removal of the new ferry. They prayed also that the defendants might be required to destroy the embankment which according to the plaintiffs obstructed the route to the landing place of the older ferry; for a permanent injunction restraining the defendants from closing any portion of their road; and for a decree for one-half of the net income of the ferry from 2 January, 1926 until the date of suit. The Munsif found that the old ferry had ceased to exist not on account of any act of the defendants but because the course of the river had by erosion made the former route impracticable. The defendants had not by their embankment obstructed the route to the former landing place. They had not taken for their new ferry the old boats which belonged partly or wholly to the plaintiffs.