LAW FOR ALL

Mining lease - cancellation - When the litigation raised by original lessee ends in abatement, and after giving lease to third party, the legal heirs of original lessee can not claim any rights for renewal of lease or any rights conferred by the virtue of orders of high court which passed infavour of deceased with out knowledge, after the lapse of 14 years and the Delhi Highcourt has no jurisdiction over the mines of M.P. and over the orders of M.P. High court =In view of the aforesaid fact, we hold that after the death of the original lessee, Rajendra Nath Bhaskar, all rights come to an end and the first respondent or any other legal heir(s) were neither entitled to continue with the lease nor entitled for renewal of lease. The Original Lessee died on 7th September, 1982 during the pendency of Miscellaneous Petition No. 805/81 and much before the final order dated 16th July, 1986 passed in the said case by the Madhya Pradesh High Court. In the absence of petition for substitution of legal heirs, the said case got abated. The legal heirs including the first respondent cannot derive the advantage of the order dated 16th July, 1986, which was inadvertently passed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court in absence of knowledge of death of the original petitioner/lessee.= Admittedly, the third party rights were created in the meantime in favour of the Mining Corporation pursuant to the order of Madhya Pradesh High Court dated 16th July, 1986. The order passed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court was not challenged in any appeal.= failed to decide the jurisdiction of the High Court to entertain the appeal against the order passed in favour of the Mining Corporation which was passed pursuant to the direction of the Madhya Pradesh High Court. In this back­ground, it was not desirable for the Delhi High Court to entertain the writ petition. Even though the revisional order was passed by the Central Government, the Delhi High Court ought to have asked the first respondent to move before the Madhya Pradesh High Court for appropriate relief. In view of our findings given in the preceding paragraph, the order dated 21st September, 2010 passed by the Single Judge of the High Court of Delhi and the impugned order dated 20th April, 2011 passed by the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court cannot be upheld. They are accordingly set aside. Both the appeals are allowed but there shall be no order as to costs.