The main legal point established in the judgment is the obligation of the State to protect and conserve forests as per the Constitutional scheme, emphasizing the importance of pleadings, the disqualification of parties guilty of perjury, and the discouragement of granting injunctions to forest encroachers.

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 missed by the courts below).

4. On the side of the plaintiff, four witnesses including tote plaintiff were examined. An advocate commissioner appointed in that behalf, submitted a report and plan. Exts. A1 and A2 are judgments of the Additional First Class Magistrate's Court, Moovattuptizha, the former dated 16-4-1970 in C.C.130/1969 and the latter dated 29-6-1972 in C.C.193/1970. They evidence infructuous exercise of the forest officials to prosecute the encroachers. The plaintiffs had approached this Court by filing O.P. 787 of 1973 seeking to prevent the forest officials from taking steps against them. This court disposed of that writ petition by Ext. A3 judgment dated 25-3-1975, directing the Conservator of Forest to consider the nature of the land and enquire into the entitlement of the petitioners to the benefits of G.O.(P) 289 Agri. dated 7-6-1968. The plaintiffs apparently were pessimistic about the result of the enquiry.' They filed the suit. In the plaint, .they referred to an order of the. Conservator passed on 10-5-1976, and alleged that, based on such a report, the forest officials were likely to take action against the plaintiff.

5. Defendants contended that in pursuance of the directions of this Court, an enquiry had been conducted by the Conservator of Forest and that the plaintiffs were found liable to be evicted. It was also claimed that on 7-6-1976, the plaintiffs were actually evicted and that a mahazar in that behalf had been prepared by the forest officials. The suit for injunction was of no avail in the above circumstance, was the further contention of the defendants.

6. The plaintiffs gave up their case about the area being revenue puramboke. It was later contended that the area encroached upon was a part of the reserve forest area. Even when the substratum of the plaint had thus been demolished by the stand of the plaintiffs, the trial court granted an injunction. It held that relief could be granted on a different plea. Reliance was placed on a decision of this Court in Lakshmikutty Amma v. Narayana Filial Velayudha Filial, A.I.R.1968 Kerala 57 and the decision in Bidernial V. Ramprasad, AIR 1970 M.P. 40.

7. The trial court further held that the defendants were entitled to protection of G. O. (P) 289 Agri. dated 7-6-1968, though that document was not before that court, and though the plaint did not contain any relief based thereon. That Court 'noted a mahazar filed before the court indicating the eviction of the defendants in 1976; but it refused to act on it on the ground that the mahazar had not been proved. (Its existence had been admitted by the plaintiffs themselves).

8. The appellate court endorsed that view.

9. It is under the above auspices that the State Government has come up in second appeal before this Court.

10. The qu