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Showing contexts for: quick sand in Chetlal Sao And Anr. vs State Of Bihar And Ors. on 17 December, 1985Matching Fragments
Relying on the above, the learned counsel for the State had forcefully pointed out that the Government for the purposes of management in this context is entitled to issue directions from time to time, which may be either special or general in nature. Such directions, which rest entirely in the discretion of the Government and which may be varied without notice at any time, would, therefore, hardly have statutory sanction or be of binding nature dependent as they are, on the fiat of the author without any attribute of permanence. The law inevitably rests on a sounder footing than the quick sands of changing orders or directions in the discretion of the State to be issued at any time in this context. This is further buttressed when reference is made to Section 43 of the Act which empowers the State Government to make rules. Even the closest reading of the same would show that apart from the generality of the power, the numerous Clauses (a) to (s) of Section 2 do not provide or envisage any framing of statutory rules for the settlement of sairats. In contradistinction thereto it deserves notice that the rules framed thereunder had earlier, in fact, provided in express terms for the settlement of hat, bazar or mela by virtue of Rules 7(r) to 7(u). These rules in the context of the settlement of a hat, bazar or mela provide for the calling of tenders or their settlement with co-operative societies or Gram Panchayats or by way of public auction, and the fixation of a reserve jama. In sharp contrast thereto, it was pointed out that the State Government had at no stage chosen to bind itself with any statutory rule with regard to the settlement of sairats. It had retained with itself the unfettered power to deal with the same by its own direction given in its discretion from time to time. Our attention was then drawn to notification No. G.S.R. 62 dt. the 19th Sept. 1981 reported in 1981 Bihar Law Times, Part IV, page 233, whereby even the aforesaid Rules 7(r) to 7(u) with regard to the settlement of hat, bazar or mela have also in terms been repealed and the matter has been taken out of any statutory or binding provision. Learned counsel for the respondent State plausibly and convincingly contended that if on the one side the State having itself done so, withdraws these matters (even in the context of the settlement of hat, bazar or mela) from the range binding statutory rules, it would be wholly incongruous and untenable to suggest any statutory or binding force in ephemeral orders and directions issued from time to time as guidelines for its subordinates for the settlement of individual or general sairati rights. It calls for notice that the learned counsel for the petitioners were wholly unable in this context to rebut the stand of the respondent State or to cite either principle or precedent for holding that the guidelines in this regard were statutory or binding. It necessarily follows that the somewhat insignificant field of the settlement of tanks for fishery or other sairati rights has not been covered by any statutory provisions or rules nor can the ephemeral directions issued from time to time in the governmental discretion be given the status of a statute or raised to the pedestal of being binding either on the State or the citizen.