DATTATRAYA BALWANT CHITNIS Vs. MUNICIPAL COMMISSIONER OF BOMBAY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This suit was filed by the trustees of a temple at Walkeshwar against the Municipal Commissioner of Bombay and others.

(2.) It appears that the Municipality of Bombay in carrying out some important drainage operations at Malabar Hill had erected what are known as septic tanks on the foreshore close by the Bank of Bombay Bungalow on the Lands End Road, the object being to drain the Southern portion of Malabar Hill down to those septic tanks; and the suit arises out of a certain drain, which has been made by the defendants and is delineated on Plan D1 (which has been put in) a distance of about 1,500 ft. more or less North and South, the object being to allow the sewage which goes from the Southern portion of Malabar Hill and Walkeshwar to run into these septic tanks. The object of the septic tanks is to have one tank above another and the sewage by force of gravitation goes into the first tank and from there by a process of percolation and gravitation the sewage goes into the second tank and then again into the third and finally goes out from this process in the form of a colourless liquid, which has no smell, and, I am told, has no taste. On the only occasion on which I saw the operation, I was asked to taste the liquid, but I declined to do so.

(3.) I may mention that it is important to bear in mind, as the defendants say, that it would be impossible to construct this drain so as to flow into these septic tanks, if the drain had been laid on the ordinary level of the foreshore. I call it foreshore for the purposes of this judgment only. The foreshore and high water mark are shown on Laughton's Plan.