Allahabad High Court: In a writ petition filed seeking execution of the lease deed of a pond that he bought in a government auction, the division Bench of Prashant Kumar and Shekhar B. Saraf, JJ., directed the Director of UP Fisheries Department to file a report regarding the number of ponds available with the State for leasing, conducted auctions, cancelled auctions, and existing fishing leases.
The Court stated that several cases had been filed against the Fisheries Department, wherein, despite holding auctions for different ponds, neither the possession of the pond was given to the petitioners nor was the lease deed issued in their favour. The Court remarked, “It appears that it is a trend to auction the ponds and thereafter not hand over the pond to the person who wins the said tender.” The Court also noted that there were cases wherein possession was not given to the person who won the tender, and the person was kept in the dark.
The Court added that when the writ petitions are filed, lawyers appearing on behalf of the Fisheries Department inform the Court that the said tender had been cancelled, but are unable to indicate whether such information of the cancellation of the tender was ever provided to the petitioner.
“The above mechanism is quite devious in nature, wherein it clearly appears that this entire action of not giving the ponds to the different people for carrying out fisheries is causing a huge loss to the public exchequer, wherein unknown people continue to carry out fishing activities illegally.”
The Court remarked that it had pointed out the aforesaid factual situation in earlier writ petitions too, but it appeared that the Fisheries Department had not taken any steps to remedy the issue.
Accordingly, the Court directed the Director, Department of Fisheries, State of U.P., to file a report indicating the number of ponds available with the State, which are normally given on lease for fishing activities. The report shall further provide details of the number of auctions that had been carried out and the reasons for the cancellation of the said auctions. Furthermore, the report shall provide information regarding the number of ponds that presently have subsisting leases and the number of ponds wherein no auction has been carried out and/or no lease has been granted to a private person for carrying out fishing activities.
The Court directed that the aforesaid report shall be filed within two weeks and listed the matter on 03-12-2025.
[Malik v. State of U.P., WRIT C No. 10441 of 2025, decided on 14-11-2025]
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the petitioner: Shrey Shukla, Alok Kumar Tiwari
For the respondent: C.S.C., Dilip Kumar Pandey