Riparian owners have a natural right to use water for ordinary and primary purposes, such as domestic use and irrigation of riparian lands, but they do not have a natural right to store water by constructing a bandhara across the stream, especially if it obstructs the flow of water to downstream riparian owners and violates their mutual rights and liabilities.

FACTS :- A certain stream which had its source in the village of Kharale passed northward through the village of Dhekwad Digar and then through the village of Narayanpur Digar on the side of the village Girasgaon and the villages Fulsar, Nimboni and other villages, ultimately meeting the river Tapi. The plaintiffs filed the present suit against the defendants on 13-10-1944, for a declaration that they had got a right, many years old, of taking water of the suit stream which passed by their village of Girasgaon by constructing a dam within the limits of the village, of Girasgaon with a view to store the water in order to raise garden crops and also for an injunction to restrain the defendants from doing any act, such as the construction of a dam within the limits of Dhekwad village or digging of. water channels for irrigating lands in Narayanpur Digar, to obstruct the suit stream and thereby disturb the right of the plaintiffs to take water from that stream, for growing garden crops. Defendants 2 and 3 contended (1) that they were the owners of that much, portion of the stream which passed by or through their villages on the ground that they were the inamdars of the soil which included the portion of the bed of the stream situated within their villages; (2) that they had been using the water of this stream by constructing dams themselves since many years and those were the dams at Dhekwad Digar and Narayanpur Digar; (3) that they denied the right claimed by the plaintiffs, namely, the right to use the water of this stream after first storing it by building a dam or bandhara across the stream in the village of Girasgaon, and (4) that the plaintiffs as the lower riparian owners had a natural right to the use of the water of this stream which remained in the stream, after flowing through the villages of Dhekwad Digar and Narayanpur Digar. The trial Judge accordingly decreed the plaintiffs suit. On appeal the lower appellate Judge substantially confirmed the decree of the trial Court. (Defendants 2 and 3 appealed to the High Court.)

. VYAS,J. :- (His Lordship after narrating facts and dealing with a point not mateiial to the report continued) : The next point which is pressed by Mr. Gokhale for the appellants is an important point which goes to the root of the case and that point is: Even assuming that the plaintiffs as lower riparian owners have got a natural right to the use of the water of this stream, are they entitled to construct a bandhara across the stream in their own village of Girasgaon? What the plaintiffs are obviously wanting to do in this case is to build a bandhara across the stream in Girasgaon, store the water by that contrivance and use that water for their own domestic requirements and agricultural purposes and also permit that water to be used by several of them who are not riparian owners in so far as their own lands are not abutting on the stream itself. I have already pointed out above that plaintiffs 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15 and 16 are not riparian owners at all; and yet the plaintiffs are seeking to build a bandhara and store water of this stream so that the water may be made available even to such of them who are not riparian owners for their agricultural operations. The question before us thus is: Whether the plaintiffs are entitled to store or collect the water for the: abovementioned purposes by the construction of a dam?

2. Now, a riparian owner is a person whose land actually abuts on a stream and there is no doubt that be has got a natural right to use the water of that stream primarily for domestic purposes and also for carrying out agricultural operations upon the lands abutting on the stream. Now, the contention of Mr. Gokhale, which, in my opinion, is a perfectly correct contention, is that it is not a natural right of a riparian owner to put an obstruction across the path of a flowing stream, and collect water by that artificial means. The point which is sought to be made by M