If this second appeal is illustrative of the general pattern of the conduct of litigation relating to forest areas, it should cause much anxiety and concern for all connected with conservation of the forests obligated by the Constitutional scheme. The facts speak for themselves.

2. The State has filed this second appeal. It arises out of a suit for injunction in. which it and its officials were defendants. The respondents-plaintiffs, three in number, are encroachers in about six acres of forest area, quite close to a timber depot of the Forest Department. Their suit for injunction restraining the State Government and its officials from acting against them has-been decreed by the courts below. The State Government has therefore come up in second appeal.

3. The suit was filed with a specific allegation that the area encroached upon was revenue puramboke and not reserve forest area. Encroachment was equated with possession; and possession should be protected by courts. That appears to be the pattern of the plea in this and other cases, 'in the written statement, it was contended that the area was a reserve forest. (The statutory consequences of that plea appear to have been