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1966 Supreme(Raj) 104

Rajasthan High Court
Shinghal, J.
Ladhuram - Appellant
Versus
Municipal Board, Ganganagar - Respondents
S.B. Civil Regular Second Appeal No. 341 of 1959
Decided On : April 18, 1966

Advocates Appeared:
C.L. Agrawal, for Appellants in cases Nos. 1and 2 and for Respondents Nos. 1 to 4 in Case No. 7; M.M. Vyas and H.N. Kalla, for Respondent No. 1 in Cases Nos. 1 and 2 and for Appellants in Cases No. 4, 5 and 7;D.S. Sisodiya, for Respondent Mo. 1 in Cases N

Headnote:(a) Highway—Public Road—Though a highway or road may be dedicated subject to obstacles, such obstructions to be coeval — Subsequent obstructions not justifiable.(b) Highway—Public Road—Public entitled to use of whole width.(c) Highway — Public Road—Bikaner Municipal Act, 1923, Sec. 51(f) and Rajasthan Town Municipalities Act, 1951, Secs. 48(2), 99 and 100 and Rajasthan Municipalities Act, 1959, Secs. 92 and 161 —Municipality not empowered to place obstruction on road.(d) Civil P.C., Sec. 91(2)—Infringement of right of easy access to public road being infringement of private right, person entitled to sue without consent of Advocate General.(e) Civil P. C, Sec. 91(2)—Waiver—Where defendant knew all facts, failure to take plea of lack of consent amounts to waiver.(f) Limitation Act, Sec. 23— Infringement of right of full use of public road by allowing stalls is a continuous wrong.

       

SHINGHAL, J.—These nine second appeals arise out of suits Nos. 75 of 1957, 94 and 157 of 1960 and 20 and 200 of 1962. The first of these suits stands dismissed by the impugned judgment and decrees of the learned District Judge of Ganganagar, dated March 2, 1959, and the first two appeals of the plaintiffs have arisen for that reason. The remaining suits have been decreed and this is why the defendants have preferred the other seven second appeals. There is not much difference in the basic facts of the five suits and the nature of the dispute is quite similar. They can be disposed of on the basis of the admitted facts, as common questions of law and facts arise in all of them. This is why they have been argued together, virtually as companion appeals, and I propose to dispose them of by this single judgment.

2. The parties to the suits are no doubt different, except that the Municipal Council of Ganganagar, which shall hereafter be referred to as the Municipality, is a defendant in all of them. The common admitted facts are like this : In the Dhan Mandi area of Shri Ganganagar town there is a road leading from the Kotwali to the Lakhar Mandi (which shall hereafter be referred to as the Kotwali road). On its western junction there is a road known as the Dharamshala road. Both these are public roads or highways. The plaintiffs in four of the suits own shops and/or nohras abutting on the Kotwali road, while the plaintiff in the remaining suit (No. 200 of 1962) owns a shop abutting on the Dharamshala road. From these ends or extremities of the plaintiffs shops or nohras which abut on the aforesaid roads, the opposite line of private properties is situated at a distance of 50 feet. Some 25 or 30 years ago, the Municipality let out substantial portions of these public roads on what is locally known as tehbazari basis, to various persons, for putting up temporary wooden stalls for the purpose of using them as shops or other business premises. The stalls have been set up by the persons who have been joined as defendants in the suits and who shall hereafter be referred to as the stall holders. In between the stalls and the properties of the plaintiffs, there are narrow strips of land or lanes which are no more than 2 to 3 feet wide ; otherwise the tehbazari stalls virtually cover up the properties of the plaintiffs abutting on the two public roads. A considerable part of the two public roads has therefore been obstructed by the tehbazari stalls and their original width of 50 feet has been substantially reduced. The actual position of the roads, the properties of the plaintiffs and the stalls has been brought out in a map which has been placed on the record by Mr. M.M. Vyas, The correctness of the map has been admitted by all the other learned counsel. The Rajasthan Government conveyed an order to the Municipality on September 11, 1952, for the restoration of the entire width of the Kotwali road by removing the stalls, but that order was not carried out. The stall holders themselves raised a suit for the issue of an injunction against their impending eviction from the tehbazari premises, but it was dismissed on July, 17, 1956. All these facts are admitted in this Court. The plaintiffs therefore challenged the legality of the obstructions on the public ways, and prayed for the issue of a perpetual injunction directing the Municipality to refrain from letting out any portion of the public roads on tehbazari in future, and also for the issue of a mandatory injunction for the removal of the obstructions. Alleging that the obstructions continuously interfered with their rights, the plaintiffs pleaded that they gave rise to a continuous cause of action and that the suits were within limitation for that reason.

3. Various pleas were taken in defence, but I shall refer only to these which have a bearing on the controversy in this Court and which are sufficient for deciding these cases. It was pleaded that the Municipality had the right, under the








































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