Secretary of State for India in Council vs Ramtahal Ram and Others

B.K. Mullick, J.—The Courts below have given a decree for damages against the Secretary of State on the ground that he has caused injury by allowing canal water to flow through the side-cutting canals connected with the Chousa Branch canal, into the plaintiffs'' lands which adjoin the East Indian Railway at Chousa. The defendant''s case was that water from the Chousa Branch canal was distributed according to the irrigation rules to the tenants of Mouza Salarpur on the west and Mouza Chuni on the east of the Branch canal and that if any damage has been done to the plaintiffs'' lands on the north, the fault lies not with the defendant but with the tenants concerned. The findings, however, in the Court below are, firstly, that the water from Mouza Salarpur, after the tenants there have irrigated their lands, flows back into the side-cutting canal which runs from south to north along the branch canal; and secondly, that the water supplied to the Chuni tenants is taken by a syphon from the field of those tenants into the side-cutting canal to the east of the branch canal and that the water in both side-cutting flows northwards to the point H marked on the map filed by the defendant. At the point H; the tail-end of the canal has been blocked, but the finding of the Munsif which seems to have been affirmed by the District Judge, is that the water in the two side-cuttings flows into the rectangular piece of land marked "S-cutting" and from there into an old channel marked "existing channel" and thence on to the plaintiffs'' land which is shaded in red along the Railway line. The learned Munsif states that formerly the water, after flowing over the rectangular piece was carried by the "existing channel" to a culvert at point A and thence under the Railway line into the fields to the north-west.

The case of the defendant that no damage has been caused by the flow of water through the side canals, but that the tenants of Salarpur and Chuni have negligently allowed the irrigation water to flow over their fields into the lands of the defendants at Khanrajpur, has not been accepted.

In these circumstances the rule in Rylands v. Fletcher (1868) 3 H.L. 330 : 37 L.J 161 : 19 L.T. 220 has been correctly applied. The defendant by constructing the canal has undertaken a duty to protect other parties against damage arising from the water of that canal, and if he has not taken adequate precautions for an outlet at the tail-end of the canal, he is liable to compensate the plaintiffs for the damage caused.

The appeal, therefore, must be dismissed with costs.

John Bucknill, J.

I agree.