Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:66327-DB Court No. - 21 Case :- WRIT - C No. - 41066 of 2024 Petitioner :- Ram Shringar Tripathi Respondent :- District Magistrate District Bhadohi And 2 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Pramod Kumar Tripathi Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Rajesh Kumar Jaiswal Hon'ble Manoj Kumar Gupta,J. Hon'ble Anish Kumar Gupta,J. 1. The following prayer has been made in the writ petition: "i. Issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus commanding the respondents to construct the culvert in front of Gata No. 9 and 433 of the petitioner which was damaged during the widening of the National Highway No.731B." 2. The case of the petitioner is that there was a culvert in existence in front of his agricultural land bearing Gata Nos. 9 and 433 and it was the only source of irrigation. The respondents constructed a National Highway over the existing road and in the process, they caused damage to the culvert. The petitioner had represented to the authorities several times to reconstruct the culvert but no heed was paid to the said request and consequently, the present petition has been filed. 3. In pursuance of the orders passed from time to time, various affidavits have been filed by the respondents. In an affidavit filed by respondent No. 3 dated 19 April 2025, the stand taken is that on enquiry, it transpired that as per approved plan, there is no culvert in front of the plots of the petitioner. It is stated that as per approved plan, there are culverts at two other places. The said stand has been taken on basis of the approved design of the project and a communication dated 31.12.2024 received from Supervising Consultant of the project. The said letter is extracted below: “As per Applicant Sh.Ram Shrangar Tripathi S/O Sh.Badri nath Tripathi there was pipe culvert at 34+550 which was used by Applicant for irrigation purpose, damaged by contractor therefore he is not able to irrigates his fields at other side of the road. As per Authority Engineer team inspection an unauthorized pipe culvert is observed at ch. 34+500. Also as per schedule A of CA there is no previous pipe culvert at this location. For natural flow of excess rainfall and natural slope of the ground two pipe culverts have been provided on both sides of this location eg. Ch.34+484 and Ch.34+994. Hence there is no need to provide a culvert at this location.” 4. The specific stand of the respondents in the said affidavit is that at present, there is a hume pipe in existence in front of the fields of the petitioner and the same was placed by the petitioner himself. The placement of the hume pipe by the petitioner was an unauthorized act and the petitioner cannot take benefit of the same. 5. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of respondent No. 3 has invited our attention towards paragraph-12 of the writ petition wherein the petitioner has admitted that the culvert was constructed by him. Para-12 of the writ petition is as follows: “12. That the culvert was constructed by the petitioner but the said culvert was damaged by the respondents in widening of the National Highway No. 731-B, because of this the petitioner received damage of his constructed culvert. Hence the respondents are liable to be constructed the culvert of the petitioner.” 6. Thus, it is admitted to the petitioner that the culvert was not part of the original design nor was constructed by the respondents but he himself had put the hume pipe. 7. In such a situation, we are of the opinion that no direction can be issued to the respondents to construct any culvert in front of fields of the petitioner as it would be contrary to the approved design of the project. 2 8. The writ petition lacks merit and is dismissed. Order Date :- 29.4.2025 Mukesh Kr. (Anish Kumar Gupta,J.) (Manoj Kumar Gupta,J.) 3 Digitally signed by :- MUKESH KUMAR High Court of Judicature at Allahabad