# STATE OF MYSORE v. SWAMY SATYANAND SARASWATI, RELIGIOUS PREACHER,RAICHUR

- **Citation:** [1971] Supp. 1 S.C.R. 284
- **Court:** Supreme Court of India
- **Decided:** 1971-03-31
- **Bench:** G. K. Mitter, K. S. Hegde, P. Jaganmohan Reddy
- **Source:** https://unisonlegal.in/judgment/supreme-court-of-india/state-of-mysore-v-swamy-satyanand-saraswati-religious-preacher-raichur-5243
- **Pages:** 10

## Headnote

Grant by Jagirdar-1/ includes right to minerals in favour of grante11
-Burden of proof.
The Nizam of Hyderabad granted a jagir to his prime minister. The
successor of the jagirdar granted an island in one of the villages, comprising a hillock of granite, to the predecessor-in~interest of the respondent.
The area covered by the grant was acquired by the State Government for
purposes of an irrigation project.
On the question whether the respondent was entitled to sub-soil rights,
and as a consequence, became entitled to compensation for the granitt:'
and quarries as minerals,
HELD: It was for the respondent to establish his claim to minerals
or quarry rights by putting forward proof of the grant thereof by the
Nizam to the jagirdar and by the jagirdar to his predecessor. But ~ssum
ing that the Nizam conferred the right on the jagirdar, the patta granted
by the jagirdar and the connected documents showed that what was in con·
templation of the jagirdar and his grantee at the time of the grant. was
either the cultivation of the land or the grazing of cattle on it.
Nobody
at that time had any thought or idea of the land being put to any other
use or any mining or quarrying rights being exercised therein. When the
granter was careful to exclude even the fruit bearing trees, it would be
wrong to hold that he must have parted with the sub-soil rights by implication. Therefore, the right to minerals was not granted to the respondent'i predecessor. [287B-C ; 289B; 2920-E]
What has to be considered in each case is the purpose for which the
lands are leased or an interest created therein with all the clauses which
throw any light on the question as to whether the granter pur?l"lrted to
include his rights to the sub-soil in the grant when there was no express
mention of it.
If the grant shows that the purpose of the grant y.-a5 tu
allow the user of the surface only it would be wrong to presume that subsoil rights were also covered thereby.
[292C-D]
The test of what is a mineral is, what at the date of the instrument,
the word n1eant in the vernacular of the mining world, the commercial
world. and among landowners: and in case of conflict that meaning mu~t
prevail over the purely scientific meaning. Since granite is a mineral according to this test the respondent had no right to the granite or qu1rries.
[:.93B-CJ
State of Andhra Pradesh v. Duvvuru Balara1ni Reddy, [1963] 1 S.C.K.
173, followed.
Hari Narayan Singh v. Sriram Chakravarti, 37 I.A. 136, Durga Prasad
Singh v. Braja Nath Bose, 39 I.A. 133, Girdhari Singh v. Megh Lal Pandey.
44 I.A. 246. Sashi Bhusan Misra v. Jyoti Prasad Singh Dea, 44 I.A. '16,
Govinda Narayan Singh v. Sham Lal Singh, 58 I.A. 125, Bejoy Singh
Dudhoria v. Surendra Narayan Singh, l.L.R. 61 Cal. I (P.C.) and Attorney
General v. Welsh Granite Co. I The Law Times Reports 549, applied.
MYSORE v. SWAMY SATYANAND (Mitter,].)
285
GVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Civil Appeal No. 496 of
A
1966.
Appeal by special leave from the judgment. and order dated
August 10, 1964 of the Mysore High Court in Regular Appeal (fl)
No. 75 of 1956.
S. T. Desai, B. D. Sharma, Shyama/a Pappu and S. P. Nayar,
for the appellant.
M. Natesan, B. Parthasarathy, /. B. Dadachanji, 0. C. Mathur
and Ravinder Narain, for respondent Nos. 1 and 3.

## Text

284
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STATE OF MYSORE
v.
SWAMY SATYANAND SARASWATI, RELIGIOUS
PREACHER,RAICHUR
March 31, 1971
(G. K. MITTER, K. S. HEGDE AND P. JAGANMOHAN REDDY, JJ.J
Grant by Jagirdar-1/ includes right to minerals in favour of grante11
-Burden of proof.
The Nizam of Hyderabad granted a jagir to his prime minister. The
successor of the jagirdar granted an island in one of the villages, comprising a hillock of granite, to the predecessor-in~interest of the respondent.
The area covered by the grant was acquired by the State Government for
purposes of an irrigation project.
On the question whether the respondent was entitled to sub-soil rights,
and as a consequence, became entitled to compensation for the granitt:'
and quarries as minerals,
HELD: It was for the respondent to establish his claim to minerals
or quarry rights by putting forward proof of the grant thereof by the
Nizam to the jagirdar and by the jagirdar to his predecessor. But ~ssum
ing that the Nizam conferred the right on the jagirdar, the patta granted
by the jagirdar and the connected documents showed that what was in con·
templation of the jagirdar and his grantee at the time of the grant. was
either the cultivation of the land or the grazing of cattle on it.
Nobody
at that time had any thought or idea of the land being put to any other
use or any mining or quarrying rights being exercised therein. When the
granter was careful to exclude even the fruit bearing trees, it would be
wrong to hold that he must have parted with the sub-soil rights by implication. Therefore, the right to minerals was not granted to the respondent'i predecessor. [287B-C ; 289B; 2920-E]
What has to be considered in each case is the purpose for which the
lands are leased or an interest created therein with all the clauses which
throw any light on the question as to whether the granter pur?l"lrted to
include his rights to the sub-soil in the grant when there was no express
mention of it.
If the grant shows that the purpose of the grant y.-a5 tu
allow the user of the surface only it would be wrong to presume that subsoil rights were also covered thereby.
[292C-D]
The test of what is a mineral is, what at the date of the instrument,
the word n1eant in the vernacular of the mining world, the commercial
world. and among landowners: and in case of conflict that meaning mu~t
prevail over the purely scientific meaning. Since granite is a mineral according to this test the respondent had no right to the granite or qu1rries.
[:.93B-CJ
State of Andhra Pradesh v. Duvvuru Balara1ni Reddy, [1963] 1 S.C.K.
173, followed.
Hari Narayan Singh v. Sriram Chakravarti, 37 I.A. 136, Durga Prasad
Singh v. Braja Nath Bose, 39 I.A. 133, Girdhari Singh v. Megh Lal Pandey.
44 I.A. 246. Sashi Bhusan Misra v. Jyoti Prasad Singh Dea, 44 I.A. '16,
Govinda Narayan Singh v. Sham Lal Singh, 58 I.A. 125, Bejoy Singh
Dudhoria v. Surendra Narayan Singh, l.L.R. 61 Cal. I (P.C.) and Attorney
General v. Welsh Granite Co. I The Law Times Reports 549, applied.
MYSORE v. SWAMY SATYANAND (Mitter,].)
285
GVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Civil Appeal No. 496 of
A
1966.
Appeal by special leave from the judgment. and order dated
August 10, 1964 of the Mysore High Court in Regular Appeal (fl)
No. 75 of 1956.
S. T. Desai, B. D. Sharma, Shyama/a Pappu and S. P. Nayar,
for the appellant.
M. Natesan, B. Parthasarathy, /. B. Dadachanji, 0. C. Mathur
and Ravinder Narain, for respondent Nos. 1 and 3.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
Mitter, J.-The main question involved in this appeal is,
whether the respondent was entitled to sub-soil rights by virtue of
the pattas granted.in favour of his predecessor-in-interest by Nawab
Salar Jung III of Hyderabad and as a consequence thereof became
entitled to compensation claimed by him for acquisition of a large
block of land containing a hillock of granite which was required
for the Tungabhadra Project and was notified for acquisition under
the Hyderabad Land Acquisition Act on February 3, 1946.
The relevant facts are as follows. In 1820 the Nizam of Hyderabad granted a jagir, the terms whereof do not appear from the
record before us, to bis Prime Minister known as Nawab Salar
Jung r. This jagir consisted of many villages in the district of
Raichur one of them being Madlapur on the bank of the river
Tungabhadra.
In the year 1930 the successor of the original
grantee of the jagir, Nawab Salar Jung III made a grant of an
island in that village comprising S. Nos. 154, 312 and 313 with a
hillock rising to a height of 250 ft. and measuring Ac.
290-00
in favour of one Swami Nijananda, the predecessor-in-interest of
the respondent.
In February 1946 the entire area covered by the
grant to Swami Nijananda was proposed to be acquired for an
irrigation and hydroelectric project known as the Tungabhadra
Project which had been embarked upon by the Governments of
Hyderabad and Madras States.
The purpose of acquisition was
the gathering of granite stone .for the construction of a dam across
the river Tungabhadra. The acquisition proceedings were completed
pursuant to a final notification made on June 16, 1947 followed
by an award by the Land Acquisition Officer
on
July
24,
1950.
Before the Land Acquisition Officer two claims were put
forward, one on behalf of the respondent Swami Satyananda and
the other by Nawab Salar Jung III.
But as all jagirs including
that of Nawab Salar Jung were abolished during the pendency o(
the acquisition proceedings, the claim for compensation by Nawab
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[1971) SUPP. s.c.R.
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Salar Jung III also disappeared.
The claim of Swami Satyanan.da
was for Rs. 29,91,600.
The Land Acquisition Officer awarded
Rs. 31,260.8-0 as the total compensation disallowing the claim
in respect of the granite hillock on the ground that it was not
covered by the grant to Swami Njjananda.
The District Judge
to whom reference was made under the Land Acquisition Act
enhanced the compensation to Rs. 48,892 exclusive of statutory
allowance and interest.
Two of the issues framed by the District
Judge related to the respondent's claim to a right in the quarry
and also to the situs thereof i.e. as to whether it was within the
patta land belonging to the claimant
He found that the rock
was situated within the patta land of the claimant but with regard
to the quarry rights he took the view on the basis of two Farmans of the Nizam Bxs. A-21 and A-22 and Section 2(d) of the
Mines Act and Section 3 of the Hyderabad Land Revenue Act that
the claimant had no right to the minerals and quarries. He did
not record any finding as to whether the jagir granted by the Nizam
included the mining rights and whether the patta granted by the
jagirdar conferred the same rights on the claimant in view of his
conclusion on the points of law urged that mining rights were in
the exclusive ownership of the Nizam.
The High Court took the view that the District Judge had proc~eded on the assumption that there was a grant to Nawab Salar
Jung I with all the mineral products in the land by the jagir ot
1820.
It however held, differing from the District Judge, that the
Farmans Bxs. A-21 and A-22 did no more than explain the provisions of Section 63 of the Land Revenue Act and did not affect
any subsisting rights in the minerals if they belonged to the jagi.rdar.
According to the High Court the question as to whether the
grant to Nawab Salar Jung did or did not include the granite in
the hillock was never rl}ised at any stage and it was assumed by
every one that the gran\ to Nawab Salar Jung included the right
to granite and. that right was a subsisting right even while the
Hyderabad Lam! Revenue Act 1907 was enacted.
The High
Court was not willing to entertain the contention raised by the
Advocate-General for the first time that the grant did not include
the right to granite in the hillock.
The High Court apparently
fortified its conclusion placing reliance on the fact that copies of
all the grants of jagirs should have been available with the State
authorities and as the original grant to Nawab Salar Jung or an
authenticated copy thereof was not produced, the necessary inference would be that the same would not support the contention of
the Advocate-General.
The High Court further took the view that the granite in respect of which compensation was claimed in the case was not a
mineral and that being so neither Section 63 of the Hyderabad
MYSORB v. SWAMY SAlYANAND (Miller, J.)
Land Revenue Act nor the Farmans referred to in Exs. A-21 and
A-22 were relevant to the issue before it and it would not be
possible to hold that the minerals and mineral products in the
hillock vested in the Government under Section 63 of the Hyderabad Land Revenue Act.
In our view it is not necessary to consider the effect of the
Farmans or of Section 63 of the Hyderabad Land Revenue Act. It
was for the respondent to establish his claim to minerals or quarry
rights by putting forward proof of tlie grant thereof by the Nizam
to Salar Jung I and to show that his rights in the land held by him
were co-extensive with those of Nawab Salar Jung III.
There is
no scope for any presumption that the Nizam had parted with the
mineral rights to the jagirdar or that the jagirdar had done so in
his turn.
Even assuming that the Nizam conferred the right of
minerals in the land or to quarry fot granite therein to Nawab
Salar Jung I, the question still remains, what right did the patta
of the Salar Jung estate confer on the predecessor-in-interest of
the claimant.
The patta for S. Nos. 312 and 313 was marked as
Ex. 49 in this case.
It contains various columns including those
for the name of "Khatedar", 'any increase or decrease in the land
on account of cultivation or left uncultivated', 'remarks of the
village officers', "opinion of the Tahsildar" and "the approval of
the 'Nizam' of settlement".
Under the column headed "opinion
of the Tahsildar" is to be found the following : -
"The land bearing S. No. 254 Paramboke known as
'Bolurguddi' is situated in Madlapur village, the area of
which is Ac. 290-00 and it has not been surveyed. Narasimha Bharati Swamy has filed an application wherein he
has approved/accepted land the extent of Ac. 89-00 area
in Tahsil office.
As the village was under survey the
Tahsil office &ent the file to the Settlement Department ...
According to the profit accruing to the State as pointed
out by the applicant, the survey No. 312 measuring 109
acres and 13 guntas, having an assessment of Rs. 27 and
Survey No. 313 measuring 13 acres 13 guntas having an
assessment of Rs. 19 in all 183 acres 33 guntas and with a
total assessment of Rs. 46 were given into the possession
of the applicant and the remaining 109 acres 20 guntas
have been included in the Paramboke the survey number
of which is 154, the Government has got the right over the
trees bearing fruit.
The patta bearing S. Nos. 312-313
may be made in the name of the applicant Narsimha Bharati Swamy from 1331 Fasli. The letter received from
the Settlement is worthy of perusal.
According to the
remarks of Settlement Department, the entry of uncultivated land has been made since 1330 F. because it was
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approved in 1330 F. The file of the Thasil has also been
submitted. The acceptor has filed an application in the
District office stating that the entry of the patta be made
in the year 1330 Fasli and that he is willing to pay the
amount."
bA. 50 is a copy of the proforma No. 8 (Takavi) statement ol
village Madlapur and is for Paramboke (pattal granted on 7th
Mehar 13 36 F. The remarks of the Tahsil office in this case
read :
"An assessment of Rs. 28-4-9 of the unsurveyed
Paramboke No. 154 measuring 106 acres 20 guntas at the
Bolguddi is approved as per the District Office Order.
Nijanand Narasimha Bharati Swamy of Dolurguddi is
granted the excess of 'Lawani' in accordance with
Rs. 04-0 agreement from 'Dhara' to 'Rev-Sharan'."
Reference may also be made lo the letter issued by the Superintendent, Settlement Department, Salar Jung Estate where the petition for grant of patta of land of Bolur Gedda by Narasimha
Bharati Swamy mentioned as one for the purpose of grazing
cattle.
According to this letter :
"The land once bearing survey No. 244 measuring
209 acres and known as Bolur Gedda has been lying as a
waste since a long time.
The land in the said survey
number is not fit for cultivation.
On all the occasions
water of the stream will be surrounded on all the four
sides.
It would be useful only for grazing the cattle.
Near about the said survey land there are two tamarind
trees.
But the product of the trees has not been auctioned at any time. . .
Now regarding the rent received by the Government
of the State as indicated by the petitioner in regard to the
aforesaid land of the land measuring 109 acres 13 guntas
and assessed at Rs. 27 and survey land No. 313 measuring
74 acres and 20 guntas assessed at Rs. 19, thus a total of
183 acres and 33 guntas assessed at Rs. 46 has been given
in possession of the petitioner and the rest of the land 106
acres and 20 guntas has been included in this 'purpose'
land only and its survey number is 154.
The tamarind trees standing on the said survey land
would belong to the Government only.
In case a petition is presented in future the lands may be included in
the patta as per rules. The patta of the survey lands bearing S. Nos. 312, 313 may be madt-. in the name of the peti-
MYSORE v. SWAMY SATYANAND (Mitter, J.)
tioner Sri Nijanand Narasimha Bharati Swamy from the
year 1331 F."
It is amply clear from the above that what was in contempla.tion of the grantor and gantee at the time of the grant was
either the cultivation of the land or the grazing of cattle on it.
Nobody at that time had any thought or idea of the land being
put to any other use or any mining or quarrying rights being exercised therein.
The grantor was careful to exclude even the fruitbearing trees. It would be wholly unrealistic to construe the
grant as conferring mining rights by implication simply because
of the fact that there was no mention of it.
A long line of decisions of the Judicial Committee of Privy
Council relating mainly to the grants of land and leases by the
Zamindars in Bengal makes it amply clear that sub-soil rights are
not to be treated as having been conveyed by implication in grantio
of surface rights to tenure-holders pattidars (lessees) etc.
In this
connection it may be noted that by the Permanent Settlement of
1793 the zamindars with whom the lands were settled were held
to be owners of all mines and minerals in their zamindaries. The
decisions of the Privy Council relate principally to grants of land
in coal-bearing areas before the discovery of any coal therein. One
of the early cases of this type was that of Hari Narayan Singh v.
Sriram Chakraval'ti('). There the dispute was as to the right to
minerals lying under a village called Petena situate within the
zamindari of the first appellant. The appellant's predecessor had
conveyed some sort of interest in the village to a set of persons
called Goswamis who were shebaits or priests of an idol.
The
Goswamis had purported to grant to the respondents two leases
by virtue of which the latter claimed to have exercised rights
with respect to minerals.
There was no evidence whatever that
the zamindar Raja had ever granted mineral rights to the Goswamis or any other person.
The courts in India concurrently
found that no prescriptive rights had been proved by the respondents to any underground rights in the village.
The High Court
took the view that the Goswamis being tenure-holders had permanent heritable and transferable rights, from which it was inferred that the underground rights also belonged to them.
The
Subordinate 1 udge had however inferred from the smallness of the
jumma (rent) that only the surface rights and not the underground
rights were intended to be let out to the Goswamis. The Board
held that (p. 146) :
••. . . . the title of the zamindar raja to the village
Pctena as part of his zamindari before the arrival of the
Goswamis on the scene being established as it has been.
(I) 37 I. A. 136.
19-1 S.C. India/71
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be must be presumed to be the owner of the underground
rights thereto appertaining in the absence of evidence
that he ever parted with them, and no such evidence has
been produced."
Durga Prasad Singh v. Braja Nath Bose (') was a case where
the zamindar of a permanently settled estate who asked for a
declaration of his right to minerals as against a lessee from a dig·
war tenure bolder.
The digwar tenure was originally granted
in consideration of the perfonnance of military servic;e to which
police duties were attached.
The tenure was hereditary and inalienable, the digwar being appointed by Government and being
liable to be dismissed by Government for misconduct.' On such
dismissal the next male heir if fit to be appointed had the right
to be appointed.
The digwar of Tasra granted a perpetual lease
of the coal mines underlying two villages to Tasra Coal Company
in 1892. On the question as to whether the digwar had a proprietary right in the underground minerals the Board took the view
that the permanent settlement having been made between the
Government and the zamindar of Jharia and no attempt having
been made to prove that the mineral rights were vested in the
digwar before or at the time of the permanent settlement and
there being no evidence to show that the zamindar had ever
parted with mineral rights to the digwar, the latter could not be
held to have any proprietary right in the minerals.
In Girdhari Singh v. Megh Lal Pandey (') the question before
the Board was whether a mokarari lease of land with all rights
carried a right to the subjecent minerals in a permanently settled
estate.
According to the Board (see page 248) :
"It is unavailing to urge that the right granted by the
mokrari pottah 'to the lessee is of a permanent, heritable,
and transferable character, as, even although this be the
case, it does not advance the question whether tbe lease
itself embraced within its scope the mineral rights. On
the contrary, unless there be by the terms of the lease an
express or plainly implied grant of those rights, they remain reserved to the zamindar as part of the zamindari."
Their Lordships referred to the decisions mentioned above as also
to that of Sash# BhushQfl Misra v. Jyoti l'rasahad Singh Deo(")
and adopted the principle (p. 249) :
" ...... when a grant is made by a zamindar of a
tenure at a fixed rent, although the tenure may be permanent, heritable, and. transferable, minerals will not be
(I} 39 1 •. A. 133.
(3) 44 J, A. 46.
(2) 44 I. A. 246.
MY'SORE v. SWAMY SAlYANAND (Mitter, J.)
291
held to have formed part of the gi:ant in the absence of
A
express evidence to that effect."
According to the Board :
"On the assumption that the expression (mai hak
hakuk) means 'with all rights', or may be properly am·
plified as 'with all right, title and interest', such expres..
·sions ... did not increase the -actual corpus of the subject
affected by the pottah.
They only give expressly what
might otherwise quite well be implied, namely, that that
corpus being once ascertained, there will be carried with
it all rights appurtenant thereto, including not only possession of the subject itself, but it may be of rights of passage, water or the like which. enure to the subject of the
potta and may even be derivable from outside properties .
. It must be borne in mind also that the essential characteristics of a lease is that the subject is one which is occupied and enjoyed and the corpus of which does not in
the nature of things and by reason of the user disappear.
In order to cause the latter specially to arise, minerals
must be expressly denominated, so as thus to permit of
the idea of partial consumption of the subject leased."
Accordingly it was held that the words founded on did not add
to the true scope ol' the grant nor cause mineral rights to be
included within it
It should be noted here that there was a reference to the
trees on the land in the pottas it being expressly provided that
the lessee would be entitled to take the price of the trees by cutting and selling them and the zamindar would not have any right
thereto.
This was held by the Board to negative the idea that
mokarari pottah could be comprehensively viewed to include
mineral rights.
According to the Board :
"Such a lease is a lessee of the surface only. This is
the general case to which in the present case there is
alone superadded a right to the trees. The minerals are
not included."
Most of the above cases were referred to again by the Board
in Govinda Narayan Singh v. Sham Lal Singh (') where after
noting tlte earlier cases the Board concluded that in the case of
any claim against the zamindar to the lands which were included at the permanent settlement the burden of proof is upon 4ke
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claimant. Reference may also be made to Bejoy Singh Dudhoria
v. Surendra Narayan Singh (') where . the Board held that the
grant of a patni lease by a zamindar of his zamindari lands "in·
eluding all interest therein. and jalkar, banker, falkar, bcels and
jhils at an annual jama containing a stipulation that the grantee
should not cut trees or excavate a tank was onl:ii consistent with
the theory that the lessee and those claiming under him were not
entitled to excavate the soil for the purpose of making bricks and
that there was no transfer of the property in the soil".
In our view the principle which is to be deduced from these
cases is not one which is to be confined to the case of zamindars
in permanently settled estates.
What has to be considered in each
case is the purpose for which the lands are leased or an interest
created therein with all the clauses which throw any light on the
question as to whether the grantor purported to include his rights
to the subsoil in the grant when there was no express mention of
it. If the lease shows that the purpose of the grant was to allow
the user of the surface only it would be wrong to presume that
sub-soil rights were also covered thereby.
The patta Ex. 49 in
this case amply demonstrates that what was in contemplation of
the parties ait the time of the grant in 1930 was. the cultivation
thereof or grazing cattle thereon. The grantor was even careful
to reserve the right to fruit-baring trees.
It would be a strange
construction to hold that although the grantor expressly excluded
such trees from his grant he must be taken to have parted with.
his sub-soil rights by implication.
We may also note that in State of Andhra Pradesh v. Duv·
vuru Balarami Reddy (') where the respondents had obtained
mining leases for mining mica from the owners of a certain shor·
triem village it was held that shortriemdars had no rights in the
minerals and the leases granted by them to the respondent had
no legal effect.
It is true that this Court was there dealing with
rights of a different class of persons and it was claimed on behalf
of the respondent that inasmuch as the grant included poram·
boke if followed that mere surface rights were not the subject
matter of the grant.
Rejecting this contention the Court observed (p. 183) :
"So far as the sub-soil rights are concerned, they can
only pass to the grantee if they are conferred as such by
the grant or if it can be inferred from the grant that subsoil rights were also included therein. w
(1) I. L.R.. 61 Calcutta I.
(2,) [1963l1 S. C.R.. 173'.
MYSORE •• SWAMY SATYANAND (Mitter, J.)
293
It is not in our view possible to hold otherwise than that granite
A
is a mineral. According to Halsbury's Laws of England :
"There is no generad definition of the word 'mineral'.
The word is susceptible of expansion or limitation in
meaning according to the intention with which it is used ...
It is a question of fact whether in a particular case a
substance is a mineral or not. ..
The test of what is a mineral is what, at the date of
the instrument in question, the word meant in the verna·
cular of the mining world, the commercial world, and
among landowners, ·and in case of i::onfiict this meaning
must prevail over the purely scientific meaning". (See
Vol. 26, 3rd edition, Art. 674 page 320).
In Article 675 at page 322 the learned authors summarise the case
law on the subject as to whether particular substances are minerals or not. Reference is there made to the case of Attorney
General v. Welsh Granite Co.(') where granite was held to be
included under the reservation of "minerals" in the Enclosure Act
which reserved all mines, minerals, ores, coal, limestone, and slate
to the Crown.
According to Lord Coleridge, the word "minerals" was large enough to include granite.
·
In the view we have taken, it is not necessary to consider
the effect of the Farmans or Section 63 of the Hyderabad Land
Revenue Act.
In our view the pattas only indicating that the
grant was for the purpose of cultivation or grazing IX cattle with
the express reservation of the trees on the land to the grantor,
the question of grant of sub-soil rights by implication does not
arise.
It is therefore not necessary to consider the effect of the
Farmans Exs. A-21 and A-22 or of Section 63 of the Hyderabad
Land Revenue Act.
The claim to compensation on the basis
of the sub-soil rights to the hillock must therefore be negatived
and the appeal allowed.
In the result the decree of the High Court regarding the minerals in the land or quarry rights will be set aside and the judgement and order of the District Judge on that point restored. The
respondent will be entitled to the costs of the appeal in pursuance of the order of this Court made as a condition for setting
aside the abatement of the appeal.
V.P.S.
Appeal allowed.
(I) I The Law Times Reports S49.
B
c
D
'
G
H