(9 IN THE HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR (CHHATTISGARtI) WRITAPPEAL No. 93 mag? i PETITIONER'- Sheshmal Surana aged 67 years s/o Late Narsinghmal surana resident of village Gumra ,P.S.Gidam,distt. Dantewara B“astar(C.G.) VERSUS RESPONDENTS:- 1. The sate of Chhattisgarh through the secretary,forest department, K’aipur 2.The competent authority/Subdivisional A officer,Gidam District Dantewara bastar (C.G.) 3. The conservator of forest,Jagdalpur circle,Ja’gdalpur Bastar (C.G.)N WRIT APPEAL UNDER ARTICLE g OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA AGAINST THE ORDER DATED 23.332006 PASSED BY THE HON’BLE CHIEF‘ JUSTICE OF i-IICH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR lN WRIT PETITION NO.1391. t HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH ‘: BILASPUR Division Bench I g Coram z Hon’-b-ie Shri H.L. Dattu,CJ& ‘ Hon‘ble Shri V.K. Shrivastava, J WRIT APPEAL NO. 28 OF 2007 Present i ‘ Shri Anand Kumar Tiwari, counsel for the appellant. Shri N;K. Agrawal, Dy. Advocate Genera! for thé state! respondents. ‘ 7‘ _ ORAL ORDER (Passed on 23'“ February, 2007) The following oral order of the Court rwas passed by H.L. Dattu, C.J. Appellant before us is the owner of the Tractor and Treilor‘ No.CG~O5-9312. The forest authorities had seized the §ehicle on the ground that the vehicle was used in contravention of the provisions of the Indian Forest Act, 1927 (“the Act” for short). The competent authority/Sub Divisional Officer (Forest), after hearing the appellant had passed a contiscation order in exercise of his power under section 52 (3) of the Act. 2) Aggrieved by the said order, petitioner had unsuccessfuiiy tiled the tirst appeal and also the revision petition before the Conservator of Forest and the District & $essions Judge. 5 ?A EN APPELLANT sheshma! Surana K ‘ Ver’sus RESPONDENTS The Smte of Chhattisgarh and others. 3) ‘ It is those orders, which were subject matter of writ petition before this Court in W.P.No.1391l2006. The teamed single Judge‘xof this Court after‘anaiyzing‘ the provisions of Section 52(5) of the Act, had rejected the writ petition and thereby had conmmed the order passed by the authorities under the Act, as well as the order passed by the revisional authority namely District & Sessions Judge. It is the correctness or otherwise of the order passed by the learned Single Judge is the subject matter of this appeal. 4) Learned counsel appearing for the appellant would contend that the appellant did not have the knowledge of the vehicle being used by his driver for committing the offence under the provisions of the Act and, therefore, the orders passed by the authorities_under the Act as well as by the learned District & Sessions‘Judge require to be interfered with. 5) _Learned Deputy Advocate- General appearing for the respondents ably justifies the orders passed by the authorities. 6) I ln order to answer the contention canvassed by the learned counsel for the appellant, the provisions of Section 52(5) of the Act requires to be noted. which reads as under : "(5) No order of contiscaticn under sub-section (3) of any tools, vehicles, boats, ropes, chains or any other article (other than timber or forest-produce seized) shall be made if any person referred to in clause (b) of sub-section (4) proves to the satisfaction of authorized ofticer that any such tools, vehicles, boats, ropes, chains or other articles were used without his knowledge or connivance or, as the case may be, without the knowledge or connivance of his servant or agent and that all reasonable and necessary precautions had been taken against use of objects aforesaid for commission of forest-offence." r x e s Section 52 of the Act finds place in Chapter IX of the Act. Section 52 of the Act speaks of seizure of propetty liable to cantiscatioh and i procedure thereof. 7) v A reading of Section 52(5) of the Act sugesis that the competent authority shail not paes ‘an order of confrscation under sub- section (3) of Section 52 of the Act, if he is satisfied that the vehicle was used without the knowledge of the owner of thevehicle and further u- had taken all reasonable and necessary precautions against the use of the vehicle for commission of the\forest offence. Both the conditions ~ a require to be satisfied by the owner of the vehicle before the competent authority in order to take benefit under this sub-section. 8) ln the present case, no doubt, the owner of the vehicle had proved that he did not have the knowledge about the vehicle being used by his driver for the purpose other than it was meant fm. But the finding of the authorities under the Act is, that the owner had not taken reasonable and necessary precaution against the use of the vehicle for commission of forestoffence. 9) As we have already noticed both the aforesaid’conditions requirey’to be asserted and proved by the owner of thevehicle before the Forest Ofhcer. ln the present case the owner of the vehicle could prove, only, that he did not have the knowledge of the vehicle being used for the purpose other than of it was meant for. But he failed to prove before the authorities that he had taken all reasonable and necessary precautions against the use of the vehicle for commission of forest offence. 10) Keeping all these aspects, the authorities have rejected the appeal filed by the petitioner and the learned Single Judge has seu i .4.,1, conmmed the said order. Having gone through the order passed by the learhed Single Judge carefuHy, we are of the opinion that there is no errer committed by learned Singie Judge, which may can for inteifeience, and therefore, the appeal requiresito be rejected and accordingly it is rejected. i 11)‘ Ordered accordingly. r Cble 11$UCEC ‘ V.K. Shrivastava Judge /