M. Y. Eqbal, J.-'Whether a person after making an application under Section 5 of the Bihar Saw Mills (Regulation) Act, 1990 (in short the said Act) becomes entitled to operate his Saw Mill or Saw pit after expiry of thirty days in terms of the proviso to Section 5 of the said Act, is a moot question to be decided in this case.

2. Before deciding this question it would be useful to refer some of the relevant facts of this case. The appellant filed an application under Section 5 of the said Act for grant of a licence for operating a Saw Mill. The said application dated 13.7.93 was received in the office of the Divisional Forest Officer, Giridih being the licensing authority on 19.7.93. When the application of the appellant was not disposed of, he filed a fresh application on 11.2.94 for grant of licence which remained pending for consideration. Appellant's further case is that since his application having not disposed of within 30 days he became a 'deemed licensee' and started operating the Saw Mill from 1.4.94. On 14.4.94 a raid was conducted by the respondents in the said Saw Mill and huge quantity of illegally procured wood was found in the premises of the appellant. The r