For almost five months now, the Span Resorts management has been moving bulldozers and earth movers to turn the course of the Beas for a second time.

The area being ecologically fragile and full of scenic beauty should not have been permitted to be converted into private ownership and for commercial gains.

It was founded on the ideas that certain common properties such as rivers, sea-shore, forests and the air were held by Government in trusteeship for the free and unimpeded use of the general public.

Under the English common law, however, the Sovereign could own these resources but the ownership was limited in nature, the Crown could not grant these properties to private owners if the effect was to interfere with the public interests in navigation of fishing.

The Public Trust Doctrine primarily rests on the principle that certain resources like air, sea, waters and the forests have such a great importance to the people as a whole that it would be wholly unjustified to make them a subject of private ownership.

The doctrine enjoins upon the Government to protect the resources for the enjoyment of the general public rather than to permit their use for private ownership or commercial purposes.

It is an affirmation of the duty of the state to protect the people's common heritage of streams, lakes, marshlands and tidelands, surrendering that right of protection only in rare cases when the abandonment of that right is consistent with the purposes of the trust...." Our legal system-based on English Common Law - includes the public trust doctrine as part of its jurisprudence.

The Court said that they had no hesitation in holding that the Himachal Pradesh Government committed patent breach of public trust by leasing the ecologically fragile land to the Motel management.

The prior approval granted by the Government of India, Ministry of Environment and Forest and the lease-deed dated 11.04.1994 in favour of the Motel were quashed.

The pollution caused by various constitutions made by the Motel in the riverbed and the banks on the river Beas have to be removed and reversed.