The proviso to that sub-section, however, permits the State Government to issue a notification before completion of such inquiry and record in the event of urgency. The Division Bench was, therefore, not right in presuming that an inquiry of the type contemplated by sub-section (3) of Section 29 must have preceded the notification. The possibility of the application of the urgency clause cannot be ruled out. The inquiry is contemplated to determine the nature and extent of the rights of the government and of private persons in or over the forest land. Based on the findings of the inquiry the record is to be prepared. The learned trial Judge has observed that ‘after the grant no right of the government in the land in suit was recorded in the Forest Settlement or land revenue settlement or the land revenue records’. Under sub-section (3) such a record shall be presumed to be correct until the contrary is proved. The presumption, therefore, attaches to the record prepared in pursuance of the inquiry. In the present case, no such record evidencing the right of the government in the forest land or forest produce is shown to have been made. Therefore, the question or presumption of correctness of record never arose and the plaintiff was not obliged to dislodge the same. The evidence on the contrary shows that the disputed lands were entered in the revenue records as the private property of the plaintiff. That should be so because where the land in question forms part of a permanently settled grant, it is ordinarily the private property of the grantee. That is why by the subsequent notifications issued under Section 4 of the Himachal Pradesh Private Forest Act, 1954, the disputed forests were notified as private forests of the plaintiff. The plaintiff, therefore, sought permission, presumably under Section 11 of the said Act, for cutting and felling trees situate in his private forests. If the notification issued under Section 29 held the field, the State Government could not have issued the subsequent notifications under Section 4 of the State Act, in view of Section 2(b) thereof which in terms states that ‘this Act shall not apply to any land which is a reserved or protected forest under the Indian Forest Act, 1927’. But before the State Government can invoke Section 29(1), it must be shown that the requirements of that provision are satisfied. From the various documents placed on record it is quite clear that the disputed forests did not belong to the government nor did the government have any proprietary rights thereon. But the Division Bench has held that the government was entitled to the whole or part of the forest produce under the agreement of lease dated September 25, 1942. The agreement of lease merely permitted the government to manage the forests as the Raja found it
