LexSTATE OF MYSORE versus SWAMY SATYANAND SARASWATI, RELIGIOUS PREACHER,RAICHUR
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284 A B c D E F G H 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, compri- sing 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 impli- cation. Therefore, the right to minerals was not granted to the respon- dent'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 sub- soil 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 ac- cording 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 Hyde- rabad 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 Jun
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