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The officer addressed was requested to look into the matter and to pay reasonable price fdr the timber already used for such construction.

9. The next letter from the plaintiff is dated 9-11-1942 addressed to the C.R.E. through the Deputy Commissioner, Cachar Division. The material portion of it reads as follows:

"I have now noticed that your Officer at Panchgram has been using pipes and scrap iron etc., for road construction at Panchgram. These pipes the scrap iron, etc., were purchased by me when Badarpur Oil Field was abandoned and are intended for sale at market rate". By letter dated 10-1-1943 (P. D. No. 22) the Officer Commanding, Silchar, replied to the plaintiff's predecessor's letters as follows:
"Re. Your claim to the owners of timber and iron at Panchgram forwarded to me by D. C. Silchar on 12-12-42. My information is that you have no claim on either wood or iron found on the premises of the Badarpur Tea Estate. Both wood or iron were property of Badarpur Tea Estate. If you have a claim it should be established in a civil Court".

The next document is plaintiff's document No. 23 being a letter dated 11-2-1943 addressed to the Officer Commanding, Silchar, through R. M. Ad-amson, late agent of the Burmah Oil Company at Badarpur. The relevant paragraphs of this letter run as follows:

"Recently the military at Silchar has taken a huge quantity of timber from my stock that was bought by me from you while you were agent at Badarpur in 1933.....I am very pleased that the timber which I purchased has been utilised thus in making bridges, shelters, etc., at Panchgram and other places in Cachar district.
"Now as the military pays for everything that they take I approached the authority who by letter under date 10-1-1943 advised that the timber is not mine and that I should establish my claim in the law Court. While I am not unwilling to adopt this course I still prefer to have things done peacefuly and I, therefore, beg to approach your mighty self to write a line to the Military authority vouching the correctness of my statement".
".....With regard to scrap iron I think we sold him a few hundred-weight from Badarpur but this was taken away by him. The balance of scrap iron remaining on the Badarpur field after our evacuation was sold to a Calcutta firm and was extracted by them. I am afraid I do not recollect the name of the firm but I do not think Deb Burman had any connexion with it". On 19-4-1943 the original plaintiff addressed another letter to the officer-commanding, Silchar, referring to the previous correspondence and in particular to the letter of Mr. B. W. Adamson stating that it would be clear from a perusal of that letter that all the timber lying on well sites was sold to him and that there could not be any doubt as to the ownership of the wood under claim. This was replied to on 15-5-1943. This is plaintiff's document No. 28 and reads as follows: "In reply to your letter dated 19-4-1943 you appear to have gone to a lot or trouble to no good purpose. As far as I am aware there is no contention that the timber was not originally sold to you. The present owners of the land, however, claim that by neglecting to remove the timber within the time stipulated you have forfeited all title to it and I see no reason for my intervention in the matter.