Judgement

Bose, J. - This is a curious case in which the State Government of Assam having granted the first respondent a lease later cancelled its grant and regranted it to another party and now contends that it is not bound by the laws and regulations which ordinarily govern such transactions.

2. Assam is blest with fisheries which are under the control of and belong to the State Government. Periodically the fishing rights are leased out to licensees and the State derives considerable revenue from this source. So valuable are these rights that as long ago as 1886 it was considered undesirable to leave such a lucrative source of revenue to the unfettered discretion and control of either the provincial Government or a single individual, however eminent. Accordingly, legislation was enacted and Regulation I of 1886 (The Assam Land and Revenue Regulation, 1886) was passed into law. A Register of Fisheries had to be kept and the Deputy Commissioner was empowered, with the previous sanction of the Chief Commissioner (later Provincial Government), to declare any collection of water to be a fishery. Once a fishery was so declared no person could acquire fishing rights in it except as provided by Rules drawn up under S. 155. These Rules, with alterations made from time to time, were still operative at all dates relevant and material to this case.

3. Put shortly, the effect of these Rules at the dates mentioned here was to require the fishing rights to be sold periodically by public auction in accordance with a particular procedure which was prescribed. These sales were called "Settlements".Among the conditions of sale were the following:

(1) The officer conducting the sale does not bind himself to accept the highest bid or any bid.

(2) The purchaser shall immediately after the acceptance of his bid furnish as security etc.

(3) The annual sale of fisheries in a district should be reported to the Commissioner for sanction in Form No. 100.

The Form shows that each individual settlement had to be sanctioned. But the Rules in force at the dates relevant to this case permitted a departure in these words :

"Rule 190-A.--No fishery shall be settled otherwise than by sale as provided in the preceding instructions except with the previous sanction of the Provincial Government."

There is also the following rule:

"191. Fisheries should be settled to the best advantage but, subject to this condition, the agency of middlemen as lessees should be done away with as far as possible. To effect this the fishery area should be broken up into blocks of such size that the actual fishers may be able to take the lease, which should be given, for preference, to the riparian land occupants or to the actual fishermen. The endeavour of the District officer should be to do away with the middlemen by finding out who the sub-lessees are and trying to come to terms with them."

The Rules also made provision for an appeal to the Revenue Tribunal (the High Court acted as such) in the following words:

"190. All orders of a Deputy Commissioner or Sub-Divisional Officer passed under these rules are appealable to the Revenue Tribunal."

4. Respondent 1 held previous leases of the fishery with which we are concerned for a number of years. The last of these was to expire on 31-3-1951. Shortly before its expiry there was agitation by way of petitions and memorials by some of the local fishermen asking in effect that R. 191 be given effect to though the applications do not actually mention the rule. These applications, six in number, range in date from 27-10-1950 to 13-3-1951. They were addressed to various officials ranging from the Chief Minister and the Revenue Minister to the Secretary to Government and the Parliamentary Secretary and the Deputy Commissioner. Government therefore had all the facts fully before it:

5. In view of these applications Government decided to settle the fishery direct and wrote the following letter to the Deputy Commissioner on 1-2-1951:

"Government desire to s