J. N. PATEL, J.

( 1 ) THESE petitions can be disposed of by common judgment and order, as the question relates to the property of the petitioner M. P. Women's Hockey Association - in Writ Petition No. 2510 of 1985.

( 2 ) THE background facts, which led to the filing of these petitions, can be summed up as under :

(A) By letter dated 20th November, 1985, addressed to Hon'ble Shri justice B. A. Masodkar, the then Senior Judge of Nagpur Bench of the High court of Bombay, the petitioner - M. P. Women's Hockey Association sought assistance of the Court for removal of encroachments from their playfield. In sum and substance, it was their grievance that after their Founder President, Advocate avi J. Cama died in 1979, the encroachments on the land allotted to their association begun and in spite of the petitioner Association having approached various Authorities, they could not prevent the land from being encroached. The petitioner has also annexed various communications made to the Authorities including the then Hon'ble Minister of State for Sports, Government of maharashtra, the District Collector, Nagpur, the Municipal Administrator, nagpur Municipal Corporation, Nagpur, and so on. This Court treated the said letter as a suo motu writ petition and directed the President of the M. P. Women's hockey Association to file an affidavit in support of their allegations. It also directed that the Authorities like the Collector, Nagpur, the Municipal administrator, Nagpur Municipal Corporation, Nagpur, the State of Maharashtra through its Revenue Department, and the Chairman, Nagpur Improvement Trust were also required to be heard in the matter and that is how the respondents - state of Maharashtra, Commissioner of Police, Nagpur, N. I. T. , N. M. C. , M. S. E. B. and one Dilip Chaudhary, the then Corporator, were included as respondents. (B) In the course of hearing, by order dated 12th March, 1986, this Court appointed Shri Marpakwar, Advocate, as the Commissioner of the Court and asked him to submit his report in the matter with a direction to the Authorities to give all reasonable assistance to the Commissioner of the Court in preparation of the report. It was also ordered that in case any new encroachment is made and the petitioner reports to the Commissioner of Police for help in removing the encroachment, the said assistance shall be rendered without any unreasonable delay to see that at least no further encroachments should take place. It appears that thereafter the matter was pending. (C) According to the petitioner Association, by lease-deed dated 30th november, 1936 between the Government of Bombay State and the petitioner association, the State granted a plot of nazul land admeasuring 1,80,000 sq. ft. or 4. 13 acres thereabout out of Khasara No. 8-9/mouza Sitabuldi (Nagpur ). A plan also came to be annexed to the lease-deed. This fact is not disputed by the respondents. (D) Insofar as the stand taken by the Authorities, like the Commissioner of police, it is specifically stated that the Commissioner of Police is not the authority to remove encroachment and it is the duty of other Government agency. It is also stated that whenever the encroachments are required to be removed by the N. I. T. , N. M. C. or P. W. D. , the police assistance is provided, on assessment that there is a likelihood of obstruction to removal of encroachment and to ensure smooth operation of removal of encroachment. (E) The N. I. T. took the stand that as the land allotted to the petitioner association is not the property of the N. I. T. , nor it was acquired by the N. I. T. and they being not the lessee of the N. I. T. and the said land being outside the improvement schemes of the N. I. T. , they have nothing to do in the matter. They have stated that the land is belonging to the Nazul Department, which has allotted it to the petitioner Association, and they only expressed their ignorance in the matter. They not only are ignorant of the fact when t