APPEAL COURT.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9136, 4 May 1908, Page 5

APPEAL COURT.

OTEKAIKE LAND CASE,

Per Press Association. Welliutgon, May 4. The Appeal Court delivered judgment in the case Mitchell and McKellar v. Otago Laud Board. The case is known as the Otekaike Land Case, and the question was whether plaintiffs who had been station managers on Robert Campbell and Sou's property were entitled to allotments of the proprety without competition by ballot under Section 80 of tho Lands Laws Amendment Actl 007. The Board had granted preference to plaintiffs but subsequently the Minister declined to approve the action of the Board, aud plaintiffs appealed.

Justice Williams said two questions arose, one whether plaintiff’s were persons entitled to lease, secondly if tho lease granted under the Section, and tho grant having been approved by tho Minister was a valid lease. The Board had jurisdiction to construe Section SO and to determine what parsons came within it. and it was necessary for the Board to construe an order to determine the application. Section 48 of Laud Act 1892 would also apply and that Section conferred such jurisdiction on t!ie Board. The Board had granted the applications ana in order to reverse that decision it would have to be made out that the Board wrongly construed the Section to give itself jurisdiction and that had not been madeout. As to the second question, His Honour was of opinion that the approval of the Minister after a grant by the Board was sufficient. There was nothing in the Section which made the approval a condition precedent to the execution of the lease. It was now a purely Ministerial act and each of the plaintiffs had a right to a mandamus to compel its execution aud of an injunction restraining the Board from otherwise dealing with the land. Judgment wasjfor the plaintiffs, as the other members of the Court concurred.