P L D 1959 W (PLP)

The petitioner was one of the persons against whom the Divisional Canal Officer passed an order imposing Tawan. He and other persons put in an appeal before the Deputy Commis sioner who dismissed it in exercise of powers as Commissioner, on the ground that it was time‑barred. The Commissioner's argument is that when many of the irrigators had received information about the Tawan imposed on the whole body of irrigators, each individual irrigator cannot demand that his right of appeal will depend on the date on which he is individually served. This argument is not justified in law. The present petitioner was never served by the Irrigation Branch. He can, therefore, say that his period of limitation had not expired before he put in his appeal. On merits, the petitioner has not got a very good case. The outlet was found damaged by the scraping of the crest so that the 'Y' was increased from 1.05 to 1.14 feet. This was on 29‑9‑

51. The Divisional Canal Officer has imposed a penalty equal to a single assessment of crop rates only thus, the penalty must be considered to have been imposed in a lenient manner. There are a few odd circumstances in this case. One of them is that the overseer recorded a report that he had checked the outlet in question on 29‑9‑51 and had found it intact. The damaged condition of the outlet was also noticed on the same date by the Sub‑Divisional Officer. The Divisional Canal Officer has come to the conclusion that the overseer's report was not a genuine one and that his purpose in recording such a report was to help the guilty irrigators. The second peculiar thing is that the overseer reported on 14‑10‑51 that he had taken the discharge at the damaged outlet and it was found 5.29 cusecs as against the sanctioned discharge of 5.46. The Divisional Canal Officer takes this as too unreliable. He has, however, not given any reasons why lie thought so. It is possible that the canal was running rather low on the day when the discharge was taken by the overseer. The Divisional Canal Officer is a technical officer and could have explained this matter in greater detail for the benefit of the Appellate Courts. I find that the Tawan imposed against the present petitioner is Rs. 326‑9‑0 and relates only to Kharif 1951 harvest. Having considered all the above factors, I have come to the conclusion that I should not intervene in favour of the petitioner. I, therefore, dismiss this petition for revision. A.M.C. Petition dismissed.