JUDGMENT

S.B. Sinha, J. — Leave granted.

2. The Appellant herein claims herself to be a member of the Okkiam Thoraipakkam Panchayat Union. There exists a temple tank in the said village. The village is located on both sides of the main road connecting Chennai City with Mahabalipuram on the Old Mahabalipuram Road. The said tank admittedly was lying in disuse. It was in fact an abandoned one. The Panchayat took a decision of constructing a shopping complex for the purpose of user thereof for resettlement of those persons who were displaced due to expansion of a highway project. The State of Tamil Nadu also issued a Government Order permitting construction of a shopping complex therein. A writ petition was filed by the Appellant before the High Court of Madras, questioning the said decision. By an order dated 06.12.2005, the High Court, having regard to the stand taken by the Respondents herein in their counter affidavit, appointed the Director, Centre for Water Resources, Guindy, Chennai, as the Commissioner to inspect the tank land and submit a report in regard to the condition thereof. Pursuant to or in furtherance of the said direction, an inspection was carried out at the instance of the Director. A report by the Centre for Water Resources, College of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University Chennai also was filed before the High Court.

3. Relying on or on the basis of the said report, a Division Bench of the Madras High Court by reason of the impugned order dismissed the writ petition filed by the Appellant herein.

4. The Appellant is, thus, before us.

5. Ms. Indu Malhotra, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the Appellant, submitted that keeping in view the water shortage faced by the public in general, the High Court committed a manifest error in permitting construction of a shopping complex on a water body.

6. Drawing our attention to a decision of the Division Bench of the Madras High Court in L. Krishnan v. State of Tamil Nadu [AIR 2005 Madras 311], it was argued that the State Government was enjoined with a duty to preserve the tank by taking all possible steps both by way of preventive measures as well as removal of unlawful encroachments and not to use the same for commercial purpose.

7. Drawing our attention to a report of the Director, the learned counsel urged that the conclusions arrived at therein were not correct as a it was noticed that during rainy season, the tank did not remain dry. Resurrection of the tank, according to the learned counsel, being possible, the High Court should have exercised its extra-ordinary jurisdiction in directing so.

8. Mr. Harish N. Salve, the learned Senior Counsel, appearing on behalf of the Respondent-State of Tamil Nadu, on the other hand, supported the impugned judgment contending that the tank in question being an artificial tank and not a natural water resource, all considerations relevant for passing an appropriate order having been taken note of by the High Court, this Court should not exercise its discretionary jurisdiction.

9. Mr. L. Nageswara Rao, the learned Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of the Gram Panchayat, urged that the Appellant herein is not a member of the Gram Panchayat. It was further submitted that there had been no shortage of water in or around the tank.

10. The tank in question was admittedly a temple tank. It was not a lake. Although it was classified in the revenue records as a tank poramboke, but it had lost its utility a long time back. It was being used as a dumping yard. There was no inlet or outlet facilities. It was also prone to encroachments.

11. In its report the Centre for Water Resources, upon inspection of the tank, drew the following conclusions :

“i)The catchment area available is 26,781 m2. The present capacity of the tank is 1,861 m3. The annual runoff potential is 8,034 m3.

ii)There is no specific inlet or surplus channels for the temple tank.

iii)The water from the tank is not directly being used by the public/cattle or for any other pur