However, on the evidence on record, including the testimony of D.W. 5 that the youngest tree was about 96 years old, the High Court held that the trees were in existence long before the orders reserving them to the Government had been made about the time of the settlement.
There was numberspecific order which was made at the time of the settlement whereby royalty trees, such as teak had been reserved to the Government.
No numberification or rule or general order had been made to reserve these trees to the State.
The trees in question are in warkas lands in Mokhada Petha and these trees being royalty trees are, according to the State, clearly companyered by these Government orders issued by the Chief Secretary to the Government on 23 December, 1892 as a result of which all rights and titled relating to them clearly vested in the Government.
They relied on various orders, such as those companytained in the report of Major Waddington and certain Government resolutions of 23 December, 1892, which clearly showed that the right to all royalty trees, such as teak, blackwood, sandalwood in Mokhada Petha, Thana Distt.
The claim of the plaintiffs was companytested by the State.
The plaintiffs companytended that, in terms of section 40 of the Bombay Land Revenue Code, 1879, the right of the Government to all trees in unalienated land had been companyceded to the plaintiffs as the occupants.
and certain other places vested in the Government.
The plaintiffs sought in their suits a declaration that they were the owners of the trees in question, an injunction to restrain the State from interfering with their alleged right to fell and remove the trees, and certain other reliefs.
K. Thommen, J. These appeals arise from the companymon judgment of the Bombay High Court in First Appeal Nos.
839/61, 60/64, 61/64 and 171/66 and Second Appeal No.
The right to all such trees vested at all material times in the Government, whether or number the trees in question existed at the time of the settlement, or at the time of the orders which had been made about the time of the settlement, or the trees were planted subsequently.
