BOGARAM DAS Vs. THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE MEMBER, COUNCIL COURT AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Petitioner is a forest contractor and he has been operating in the Khasi Hills for quite some time. He entered into an agreement on 23.12.77 with the owners of a private forest called Mayang, who allowed the Petitioner to operate the said forest for a period of 10 years. The Chief Forest Officer of Khasi Hills District Council also granted the prayer for extension by his order dated 23.2.79 upto July, 1981. By a letter dated 25.6.80 the Petitioner was however stopped from operating the forest. This letter was issued by the Chief Forest Officer who also ordered that the newly felled trees may be seized. Feeling aggrieved at this order, the Petitioner filed a suit in the Court of learned Assistant to the Deputy Commissioner being title suit No. 27(T) 80 in which a prayer for injunction was also made and an ad -interim order was initially issued. In the reply to the show cause notice, an objection was taken about the jurisdiction of the Court to entertain the matter. The teamed trial Court overruled the objection. On an appeal being preferred before the learned Additional Deputy Commissioner, it has been held that the suit was barred in view of the provisions in the United Khasi -Jaintia Hills Autonomous District (Management and Control of Forests) Act, 1958, brovi -manu the Act, and more particularly by its Section 35 which reads as below:

(2.) THE submission of learned Advocate General, Meghalaya who has appeared for the Petitioner is that none of the provision of the Act, nor even Section 35 has barred the jurisdiction of the civil Court. It is stated that the provision of Section 35 is a kind of immunity section, and not a debarring section. It is contended that in fact the District Council who is the frames of the Act could not have ousted the civil Court's jurisdiction as that would have been beyond the legislative competence of the District Council. It is brought to our notice that the Act had not received the assent of the President and as such it cannot over ride the right made available by Code of Civil Procedure.

(3.) THIS section bad come up for interpretation before a Division Bench of the Madras High Court in South Madras Electric Supply Corporation Ltd. v. Industrial Tribunal, (1950) 2 IFJ 97. To appreciate what was stated therein we may note the section: