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A case very much in point laying down a number of principles in this connection is that decided by the Supreme Court in the Municipal Board, Mangalur v. Mahadeoji Maharaj, . That was a case under the Uttar Pradesh Municipalities Act. There was a metalled road running through a plot of land belonging to the plaintiff and on either side of the metalled road there was open space, on either side of which there was a municipal drain. The public had been using the road for decades and the Municipality had been maintaining the road and the drains. The Municipality was seeking to erect a structure on the vacant site lying between the drains and the road. The plaintiff having brought a suit for permanent injunction against the Municipality restraining it from putting up the structure, the Supreme Court held that - (1) inference of dedication of a highway to the public way may be drawn from a long user of the highway by the public; (2) the fact that only a part of the pathway is metalled does not necessarily limit the width of the pathyway; (3) the Municipality has the exclusive right to maintain and control the surface of the soil and so much of the soil below and the space above the surface as is necessary to enable it to adequately maintain the street as a street. It has also certain property in the soil of the street which would enable it to adequately maintain the street as a street. It has also certain property in the soil of the street which would enable it as owner to bring a possessory action against trespassers; (4) the Municipality could not put up the structures which it intended to erect on the vacant site for that was not necessary for the maintenance or user of the road as a public highway. It is true that in that case the plaintiff was also held to be the owner of the soil in general subject to the rights of the Municipality and the public to pass and re-pass on the highway, but the principles enunciated by their Lordships of the Supreme Court are equally applicable to the facts of the present case. In the instant case, the findings of the lower Appellate Court based on the evidence on record are that the plaintiffs have their houses abutting the Bye-Lane in question. They have been using the same for long time past and even the other members of the public used the same. The sale of the disputed portion of land substantially reduced the width of the path in front of the houses of the plaintiffs and that the fact that even after the sale of the disputed portion some width of the Bye-Lane was still left for use of the plaintiffs does not in law make any difference. In such circumstances, it must be held that the plaintiffs had succeeded in establishing their right apart from the rights that the public in general may have had in this public Bye-Lane, and that, as such, even if special damage need be proved, it had been proved. The question, therefore, raised by learned Counsel for the appellants remains academic in nature. Be that as it may, the case of Chandrawati, (supra) strongly relied upon by learned Counsel may be referred to in this connection. In that case the plaintiffs were the Central Bank of India and its employees and one member of the public. Originally the plaintiffs had instituted that suit on behalf of the public under Order 1, Rule 8 of the Code as also in their individual capacities on the ground that they suffered special damages. After the decision of the Trial Court the Bank vacated the holding No. 94 where its office was situate at the time of the institution of the suit, namely, by the side of the Halliday Road in the town of Gaya and during the pendency of the appeal before the first Appellate Court the seventh plaintiff, who alone had originally joined as a member of the public as one of the plaintiffs filed a petition alleging that he had never felt any inconvenience on account of the settlement of the suit land with the defendants of that suit yet he had joined the Bank and its employees as a plaintiff under the pressure of the Manager of the Bank. The original Defendant No. 1 of that suit, who had supported the original plaintiff's case was subsequently transposed to the category of a plaintiff as Plaintiff No. 8 by orders of the High Court. Taking into consideration the subsequent event which had happened since after the institution of the suit, namely, that the original plaintiffs had moved away from the area in question and had no special injury affecting the plaintiffs individually or damage peculiar to any one of them this Court held that in the absence of proof of special damage the suit could not be decreed, as it was a case of allegation of encroachment upon a public road in the full sense of term as distinguished from a quasi public road. The distinction was focused by one of the learned Judge Ramratna Singh, J., in Paragraph 21 of the judgment at Page 431 where it was said that where the privilege to use a road is enjoyed only by one particular section of the community or by inhabitants of two or three villages and not by others, the road is not a public road. Such private ways generally have their origin in custom, but such ways can be converted into a public highway after user by the general public sufficient to raise the presumption of dedication. The contention which was negatived in that case was that irrespective of the fact whether a person of Gaya Town lived by the side of the Halliday Road every person of the town would be deemed to suffer particular inconvenience justifying the inference of special damage. While overruling this argument, it was held that unless the plaintiffs prove that they had frequently to pass through the footpath of which the suit land formed a part they could not succeed without proving special damage. It will thus be seen that even on the authority of Chandrawati's case , the plaintiffs-respondents first party had sufficiently proved their special rights and the special injury caused to them apart from any injury that may be caused to the public of Bhagalpur Municipality in general."