Village Commons: The Pond That Was Filled In

In one line

Three judgments on village ponds: one restored, one refused, and one that ordered every State in India to clear its commons.

The pond allotted as house sites

Hinch Lal Tiwari v. Kamala Devi, AIR 2001 SC 3215; (2001) 6 SCC 496, decided 25 July 2001 by Syed Shah Mohammed Quadri and S.N. Phukan JJ.

Facts. Fifteen biswas of a village pond in Village Ugapur, District Sant Ravidas Nagar, Uttar Pradesh, were allotted by the Sub-Divisional Officer to ten respondents of one family as house sites. The Additional Collector cancelled the allotment and the Commissioner dismissed the revision, but the Allahabad High Court partly allowed the writ petition, confirming the allotment as to ten biswas and cancelling it as to five.

Held. The Court set aside the High Court's order and restored the Additional Collector's, holding that material resources of the community such as forests, tanks, ponds, hillocks and mountains are nature's bounty, which maintain a delicate ecological balance and need to be protected for a proper and healthy environment, enabling people to enjoy a quality of life which is the essence of the right guaranteed by Article 21. The respondents were ordered to vacate within six months with liberty to remove their building material, failing which the authorities were to demolish; and the State was directed to restore the pond and maintain it as a recreational spot.

Why it matters. It is the first of the three, and it states the ecological reason a village pond may not be allotted away, tying the commons to Article 21.

The tank the Court would not resurrect

Susetha v. State of Tamil Nadu, AIR 2006 SC 2893; (2006) 6 SCC 543, decided 8 August 2006 by S.B. Sinha and Dalveer Bhandari JJ.

Facts. A village tank in Tamil Nadu, long disused and used as a dumping ground and a sewage collection pond, was levelled so that a shopping complex could be built on it to rehabilitate shopkeepers displaced by the widening of a highway. The Madras High Court dismissed a challenge and the matter came up on appeal.

Held. The Court accepted that the State holds natural resources in public trust and that the doctrine imposes a high degree of judicial scrutiny on any action restricting the free public use of a resource, but held on the facts that the tank was not a natural tank, had been in a dilapidated condition for a long time, was used as a dumping yard, and that there was no acute water shortage in the village, so that this was not a case in which it should direct its resurrection. It directed the State and the gram panchayat to see that the other tanks in and around the village were properly maintained.