Law: Easements Act (V of 1882)

Section: 26

(On appeal from the judgment and order of the High Court of West Pakistan, Lahore, dated the 17th November 1969, in Criminal Revision No. 1152 of 1969).   Easements Act (V of 1882),  S. IS and Limitation Act (IX of 1908), S. 26-Easement-Contentions that opposite party could not be deemed to have acquired prescriptive right to draw water from well claimed by A as his own in absence of evidence that they had used water openly and as of right without any interruption for 20 years-No evidence to show that until A excluded opposite party from drawing water there was any interruption of such right-Contention, in circumstances, held, without substance. Date of hearing : 26th February 1970. JUDGMENT HAMOODUR RAHMAN, C. J.-The petitioner was convicted under section 430 of the Pakistan Penal Code and sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 1,000 or in default to suffer rigorous imprison ment for one year. The learned Sessions Judge, Sialkot upheld this conviction in appeal but reduced the sentence to Rs. 500 or in default rigorous imprisonment for six months. The petitioner went up in revision to the High Court but the High Court dismissed his revision petition. He now seeks special leave to appeal to this Court. The petitioner was charged for having committed mischief by raising a wall round a well which, it was alleged, was meant for irrigation purposes and thereby deprived the local Zamindars of their supply of water for agricultural purposes. The plea of the petitioner was that this well was situated inside a haveli which had been allotted to him as an evacuee property, and, as such, the local Zamindars had no right to draw any water from this well. In any event, whatever the petitioner had done was done in assertion of a bona fide claim of right and not with any wrongful motive of causing any loss or damage to any one. The Courts below on a consideration of the evidence have come to the conclusion that the haveli which the petitioner claims to be his own was before Independence used as a Sarai for the stay of Sadhus and the water of the well was also utilized by the public for drinking purposes. The finding was also to the effect that the well was not situated…