Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

(a) all rights, title and interest vesting in the proprietor or any person having interest in such proprietary right through the proprietor in such area including land (cultivable or barren), grass land, scrub jungle, forest, trees, . shall cease and be vested in the State for' purposes of the State free of all encumbrances;

The relevant provisions of the Sale of Goods Act may also be noticed. Section 2(7) of the Sale of Goods Act defines "goods" as meaning "every kind of movable property other than actionable claims and money; and includes stock and shares, growing crops, grass, and things attached_ to or forming part of the land which are agreed to be severed before sale or under the contract of sale". Trees from which logs of timber were agreed to be cut and sold are things attached to or forming part of the land. The trees were agreed to be severed under the contract of sale. A contract for sale of logs is doubtless a contract for sale of goods. But in view of the terms of the deed the contract was not for sale of ascertained goods. Only logs with a girth not less than 2' were to be supplied after the trees were cut by the Jagirdar. This is not a contract under which the trees of the entire forest in a particular village were agreed to be sold. Goods to be sold were, therefore, unascertained, and it is well settled that a contract for unascertained goods is not a complete sale, but only a promise to sell: Badische Anilin Fabrik v. Hicksan(1) :' it was said in that case:

Where a thing is attached to, or forms part of, land at the time of the contract and which is to be severed by the buyer, the property in the thing passes in the absence of a contract to the contrary to the buyer on the severance of the thing from the land. This is clearly the effect of s. 18 of the Sale of Goods Act. For property to pass, the identity of the thing intended to be delivered must be ascertained, and unless the parties are agreed as to what goods are to pass under the terms of the contract, the property will not pass. It is essential that the thing should be specific and ascertained in the manner binding upon the parties: unless that be so, the contract cannot be construed as a contract for sale of movable property. Again under s. 21 of the Sale of Goods Act even if there be a contract for the sale of specific goods, but the seller is obliged under the terms of the contract to do something to the goods for the purpose of putting them into a deliverable state, the property passes only when the thing agreed to be done is done and the buyer is informed thereof. Granting that the contract was for sale of specific goods, that is, it was a contract for Sale of logs out of trees in the forest with a girth of two feet or more, the timber had to be cut and had to be put in a deliverable state. The Jagirdar did not by the deed sell the trees of his forests. The plaintiff had no right even to cut the trees. The logs of timber agreed to be supplied had no existence as individual chattel, until the trees were cut and severed ,from the land, 'and logs of the specifications were separated. But before the trees were cut and the logs appropriated to the contract, the estate of the Jagirdar vested in the State of Madhya Pradesh. It is true that the provisions of the Sale of Goods Act, (1) [1906] A.C. 419 at p. 421.

especially ss. 18 to 44 are rules of construction of contracts for determining the interest of the parties. If there be a contract that the property is to pass even before the property is put into a deliverable state, the property may pass. But in the contract executed by the Jagirdar no such intention appears.

It is not necessary to refer to the large number of cases cited at the Bar..except a few. In Kutsell v. Timber Operators and Contractors Ltd. (1) under a contract the vendors agreed to Sell and the purchasers agreed to purchase all the merchantable timber growing in a forest in the Republic of Latvia. Merchantable timber was therein defined to be "all trunks and branches of trees but not seedlings and young trees of less than six inches in diameter at a height of four feet from the ground". Timber was to be' cut subject to certain conditions. After the contract was entered into the Latvian Assembly passed a law by which the forest became the property of the Latvian State and the contract stood annulled and all property and rights of vendors and purchasers in the forest were confiscated. It was held by the Court of Appeal that the contract was not a contract for the Sale of specific goods in a deliverable state within the meaning of s. 18 r. 1 of the Sale of .Goods Act, 1893; that the goods in question were neither identified nor agreed upon; that it was not every tree in the forest which passed, but only those complying with certain measurements not then made; that the timber was not in a deliverable state until the purchasers had severed it and that they could not under the definition in the rule be bound to take delivery of an undetermined part of a tree not yet identified, and accordingly the property in the timber had not passed under s. 18 r. 1.

The present case arises. out of a suit instituted for recovery of compensation by a contractor who was prevented from enforcing his claim in respect of the forest trees under the terms of the contract entered into with the Jagirdar. The contract was one relating to sale of future goods, but it was not a contract for sale of specific property in a deliverable state. Title to the logs which the plaintiff had agreed to purchase did not vest in him at the date on which the estate vested in the State of Madhya Pradesh. On that ground the plaintiff's claim to cut standing trees in the forests of Sonpur Jagir after they vested in the State was rightly negatived. The appeal fails and is dismissed with costs. R.K.P.S. Appeal dismissed.