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CASE NO.: Appeal (civil)  2874 of 2001

PETITIONER: Government of Karnataka & Ors.

RESPONDENT: Smt. Gowramma and Ors.

DATE OF JUDGMENT: 14/12/2007

BENCH: Dr. ARIJIT PASAYAT & P. SATHASIVAM

JUDGMENT: J U D G M E N T

Dr. ARIJIT PASAYAT, J.

1.      Heard learned counsel for the parties.         2.      Challenge in this appeal is to the judgment of a learned  Single Judge of the Karnataka High Court allowing the appeal  filed by the respondents. 3.      Plaintiffs, who are the respondents in the present appeal  filed a Suit for recovery of a sum of Rs.1,47,965.20    on the  ground that being owners of the Trees which were transported  to the Government godown on the basis of the permission  granted by the present appellants, the value of the Trees has  to be paid by the government.  4.      The case of the plaintiff, as culled out from the    averments in the plaint is that they are the owners of the  suit schedule property. The plaintiffs and their predecessor  had drown silver wood, jungle wood and other varieties of  trees in the schedule land by spending lot of money and had  cultivated the said land with coffee crop. In order to  regulate the shade in the schedule property and also for  cutting and felling of silver wood, jungle wood and other  trees, the plaintiffs had applied for permission for cutting and  felling of the silver wood, jungle wood and other trees. Before  granting the felling permission of the said trees, a joint survey  was carried out by the forest authorities as well as the  revenue surveyors. Thereafter, the second defendant granted  permission for felling of the trees situated in the schedule  properties. In terms of the permission, the plaintiffs cut and  felled the trees. While issuing the transport permit to the  plaintiffs, the second defendant had directed issuance of  transport permit for a portion of the trees and ordered to  transfer 1050 CFT of timber valued at Rs.1,31,250/- to an  earmarked forest depot. The firewood of 22-1/2 meters valued  at Rs.10,000/- was also transported to the same depot.  Therefore, the claim was made that the plaintiffs are entitled  to the value of the Timber @ Rs.125/- per CFT and At  Rs.150/- per CFT at the prevailing rates. Defendants took the  stand that the permission was conditional and there was  never any challenge to the conditional permission granted.  After having accepted the permission with the conditions  stipulated, it was not open to the plaintiffs to lay a claim for  the value of the trees. The Trial Judge dismissed the Suit,  inter alia, holding that in the absence of a challenge to the  conditional permission, there was no question of the plaintiff’s

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making a claim for value of the timber transported.

5.      An appeal was filed before the High Court, which, by the  impugned judgment, accepted the stand of the plaintiffs. For  granting relief to the plaintiffs, i.e. the present respondents,  reliance was placed on certain judgments of the High Court  where it was held that in respect of reserved trees, the  ownership was not with the Government but was with the  owner of the land. Accordingly, as noted above, the appeal was  allowed. 6.      In support of the appeal, learned counsel for the  appellant-State submitted that the grant of permission was  governed by the Karnataka Preservation of Trees Act, 1976 (in  short \021the Act’). Permission is required for felling of all trees  irrespective of whether they are situated in private or in  government land. The permission undisputedly is subject to  the stipulated conditions. There is a provision for preferring an  appeal in case of refusal to grant permission. The permission  was granted on 30.3.1999 and there was a specific condition  which stipulated that 27 trees of a particular variety which are  reserved trees are to be transported to the Government Nata  Warehouse after felling. There was no challenge to the order in  this regard. Since the conditions were not challenged, the High  Court should not have granted relief to the respondents- plaintiffs relying on certain decisions which were rendered in  different context and had no application to the facts of the  present case. 7.      Learned counsel for the respondents, on the other hand,  submitted that merely because the trees which were permitted  to be cut were reserved trees, that did not mean that  government was the owner of the trees. Reference is made to  certain provisions of the Karnataka Forest Act, 1963 to  contend that the ownership of the Government in respect of  the trees is restricted only to sandalwood trees.           8.      It is an admitted position that the permission was  granted with conditions. It is also not disputed that PW-l, who  was examined in support of the plaintiffs’s case, accepted that  the trees in question were reserved trees. The Trial Court took  note of this fact and noted that in the cross-examination of  PW-1, he has specifically admitted that the Nandi trees are  reserved trees. Further, the High Court lightly brushed aside  the stand of the State and its functionaries that in the absence  of any challenge to the conditions stipulated in the permission  granted, it was not open to the plaintiffs to claim value of the  Timber. The High Court, in the impugned judgment, referred  to some judgments rendered in writ petitions.             9.      Reliance on the decision without looking into the factual  background of the case before it is clearly impermissible. A  decision is a precedent on its own facts. Each case presents its  own features. It is not everything said by a Judge while giving  a judgment that constitutes a precedent. The only thing in a  Judge\022s decision binding a party is the principle upon which  the case is decided and for this reason it is important to  analyse a decision and isolate from it the ratio decidendi.   According to the well-settled theory of precedents, every  decision contains three basic postulates \026 (i) findings of  material facts, direct and inferential. An inferential finding of  facts is the inference which the Judge draws from the direct,  or perceptible facts; (ii) statements of the principles of law  applicable to the legal problems disclosed by the facts; and (iii)  judgment based on the combined effect of the above. A

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decision is an authority for what it actually decides.  What is  of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every  observation found therein nor what logically flows from the  various observations made in the judgment.  The enunciation  of the reason or principle on which a question before a Court  has been decided is alone binding as a precedent.  (See: State  of Orissa v. Sudhansu Sekhar Misra and Ors. (AIR 1968 SC  647) and Union of India and Ors. v. Dhanwanti Devi and Ors.  (1996 (6) SCC 44).  A case is a precedent and binding for what  it explicitly decides and no more.  The words used by Judges  in their judgments are not to be read as if they are words in  Act of Parliament. In Quinn v. Leathem (1901) AC 495 (H.L.),  Earl of Halsbury LC observed that every judgment must be  read as applicable to the particular facts proved or assumed to  be proved, since the generality of the expressions which are  found there are not intended to be exposition of the whole law  but governed and qualified by the particular facts of the case  in which such expressions are found and a case is only an  authority for what it actually decides.

10.     Courts should not place reliance on decisions without  discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the fact  situation of the decision on which reliance is placed.  Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclid\022s  theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too taken  out of their context. These observations must be read in the  context in which they appear to have been stated. Judgments  of Courts are not to be construed as statutes. To interpret  words, phrases and provisions of a statute, it may become  necessary for judges to embark into lengthy discussions but  the discussion is meant to explain and not to define. Judges  interpret statutes, they do not interpret judgments. They  interpret words of statutes; their words are not to be  interpreted as statutes. In London Graving Dock Co. Ltd. V.  Horton (1951 AC 737 at p.761), Lord Mac Dermot observed:

       \023The matter cannot, of course, be settled  merely by treating the ipsissima vertra of  Willes, J as though they were part of an Act of  Parliament and applying the rules of  interpretation appropriate thereto. This is not  to detract from the great weight to be given to  the language actually used by that most  distinguished judge.\024

11.     In Home Office v. Dorset Yacht Co. (1970 (2) All ER 294)  Lord Reid said, \023Lord Atkin\022s speech.....is not to be treated as  if it was a statute definition. It will require qualification in new  circumstances.\024 Megarry, J in (1971) 1 WLR 1062 observed:  \023One must not, of course, construe even a reserved judgment  of  Russell L.J. as if it were an Act of Parliament.\024 And, in  Herrington v. British Railways Board (1972 (2) WLR 537) Lord  Morris said:

       \023There is always peril in treating the  words of a speech or judgment as though they  are words in a legislative enactment, and it is  to be remembered that judicial utterances  made in the setting of the facts of a particular  case.\024

12.     Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or different fact  may make a world of difference between conclusions in two  cases. Disposal of cases by blindly placing reliance on a

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decision is not proper.  

13.     The following words of Lord Denning in the matter of  applying precedents have become locus classicus:

       \023Each case depends on its own  facts and a close similarity between one  case and another is not enough because  even a single significant detail may alter  the entire aspect, in deciding such  cases, one should avoid the temptation  to decide cases (as said by Cordozo) by  matching the colour of one case against  the colour of another. To decide  therefore, on which side of the line a  case falls, the broad resemblance to  another case is not at all decisive.\024

                               ***             ***             ***         \023Precedent should be followed only  so far as it marks the path of justice, but  you must cut the dead wood and trim off  the side branches else you will find  yourself lost in thickets and branches.  My plea is to keep the path to justice  clear of obstructions which could impede  it.\024   

       14.     As noted above, there was no challenge to the conditions  stipulated and it was accepted that the trees were reserved  trees. What is the effect of this admission, was not examined  by the High Court. Therefore, looked at from any angle, the  judgment of the High Court is clearly unsustainable and is set  aside. The appeal is allowed but without any order as to costs.