IN W: mGH Loam: or Jumczmmv 2w Jm&pm w P No 5Q’13 /2000 Petitioner :km- Jaichmdi. EiahemmGroup through Presidert H iraltl VDheemar Village & Post Kosrangi "RS. Kharora Tahsil Aarang District Raipur‘ (M.P.) V®rSIlS Respondents :- 1. State of M.P. through Secretary State of M.P. ( Panchayat S: Grmin Vikas Vibhag) Bhopal (M.P.) 2. Commissioner Raipur (yr?) ‘3. Upper Collector Raiptmg MP ) ‘41 / Janpld Panchayat Airing through (LE 0 . B lock Aarang Distrlct Raimr (M P ) 5. Assistant Diractor of Raipur (M.P .) 5. D.P.J. (displacod porson) flshennen Co~operat1ve Sociaty through the Presldent V il lage Eisherios . 3’I< 5 g DATEL)” y ' i Ox (Sm' L LLB ) ¥ Kosarangi Post Kosarmgi Tahsil éaarang District Raipur (M.P .) WRIT PETITION UNER ARTICLE 226/227 OE THE: CONSTITUTIOE a. ILaDJA 44*- L ¥ g \x/ HIGH COURT OF CHEATTISGARH! BILASPUR w (SINGLE BENCH: 'HON'BLE THE CHIEF JU t:;ICE w.A.SHISHAK) WRIT PETITION NO. 5673/2000 Jaichandi Fishermen Group Vs State of M.P(now Chhattisgarh)& Ors. shri B.N. Panéey, learned cuunsel for petitioners. Dr. N.K. Shukla, learned Dy.A.G. for respondents nos. 1 to 5. shri Manoj Paranjpe. learned counsel for respon— dent no.6. They are hearde -oOo- O R D E R (Passed on 19th Feb. 2001) After hearing counsel for the parties at some length, I am of the View that in the hast interest of justice the matter shall be finally disposed of now. 2) Brief facts may be stated. Fish ponds/tanks are owned by the State. However, powers are delegated to certain authorities for the purpose of leasing out the fish tanks. Gram Panchayat is authorised for the purpose-of carrying out the lease agreement if the fish tank is below 10 hectares. Any tank above or more than 1Q hectares but less than 100 hectares lease agreement is to be handled by the Janpad Panchayat. The present case relates to the second category of the authority §W W the lease agreement entered into between the "‘ writ petitioner and the‘respondent no.4 — Janad Panchayat which is at issue. 3) The policy of the state 60vernment in the matter of leasing out tanks is as follows: The first preference is to go in favour of p .. 2 Fishermen Co~0perative Society, Eecondly, it wou1& go in favour of the registered Society of Scheduled Caste Community and thirdly the registered Society of Scheduled Tribe Community. In the second éatégory, prererences arekfirstly to the Fishermen Community, secondly the Scheduled Cesste Community and,third1y the Scheduled Tribe Community. Such groups or communities need not be the registered communities. The last category is of individuals of fishermen Community, Scheduled Caste Community & Scheduled Tribe Community. ‘4) It may also be stated at this stage that respondent no.6 is a duly registered society of Fishermen. It may also be stated at the same time that the petitioners are a group of fishermen, but not a registered society. 5) To make the story short, it may be stated that lease was granted in favour of the petitioner and in this regard lease agreement was duly entered into between the writ petitioner and respondent no.4 on 17/12/1§97. Respondent no.6 was aggrieved by the said action of res- pondent no.4. Hence, respondent no.6 approached the Additional Collector on 17/12/1998. The Additional collector was of the view that the respondent no.6 was entitled to get preference in the matter of leasing out the fish tank in question. However, as documents required by the Additional Collector were not made available at the time of hearing, the claim of respondent no.6 was rejected. Being aggrieved by the order of Additional Collector, respondent no.6 approached the Commissioner. After hearing the parties, the Commissioner allowed the Q3? @ appeal by order dated 10/6/1999. The petitioner was aggrieved by the order of CommiSSinaer and hence approached M.P. High Court at Janalpur, vide Writ Petition No.2903/1999. The said petition was disposed of on 16/12/1999. It was held that since the order passed by the Commissioner is revisable under the M.P. Panchayat (Appeals and Revisions) Rules, 1995, the pare; should approach within 4 weeks from that day before the State Government. The revision was duly filed before the State Authority. Parties were heard ' on 12/7/2000. It is stated ag‘éz’ar by Dr. N.x<. Shukla _’\/V‘ today that though hearing was practically completed on 12/7/2000, 20 days were allowed to the counsel repre— senting the petitioner to prove allegation that res- pondent no.6 was a fake sooiety. 0n faibure to do so after 20 days, rinal order was passed by the Revisional Authority, the concerned Minister on 15/9/2000 by which the order passed by the Commiseioner on 10/6/1999 was upheld. uo3.- 5) Unfortunately, the present litigation has been going on for the last more than three years. In the few fadts and circumstances and I have stated above and upon hearing counsel of the parties. there is no scope for this Court to interfere with the final order, passed by the Commissioner which was affirmed by the Minister as afomsaid. While saying so, a peculiar situation has also“ dealt with in the interest of justice. The petitioner cannot be faulted fOr entering into a lease agreement with the respondent no.4 inasmuch as an order in this regard was issued by the Competent Authority i.e., the respondent no.4. The said lease .u4.u agreement, therefore, must be held to be in existence until it came to be set aside by the Commissioner on 10/6/1999. If that be so, I have no reason to doubt that the petitioner had to pgt fish-finge 'n’the tank“ "mereftre, in such a situation “though the petitioner has lost legal battle the fact that the flshes in the tank are his inasmuch as if he had to put fish finger£rb tween Decemh=r, 1997 & Jhne, 1999 he had not committed any wrong 1n d01ng so inasmuch as the lease agreement till then was in favour of the petitioner. If there was no litigation the lease agreement would have remained valid till 30/6/2001 and the petitioner would have been entitled to operate fully for the period from the date of agreement till 30/6/2001. However, because of the’litigation the petitioner and also respondent no.6 have suffered. In order to resolve the issue of collecting fishes from the tank, I direct that the petitioner be allowed to fishand this operation shall be completed latest by 30/6/2001. This shall be subject to payment of annual rent as contemplated in the lease agreement initially entered into between the petitioner and respondent no.4 on 17/12/1997 to be effective from 21/1/1998. Further, in order to make complete justice I would also direct that the lease agreement to be entered into between the respondent no.6 and respondent no.4 be made effective from 1/7/2001 for a period of seven years. It may be said that the terms and conditions shall be the same. 6) With these observations and directions, the petition is disposed of.