(1) For the purposes of this Part the Ministerial Corporation, or any person
authorised by it, may enter on any land and take levels and make surveys and
marks, and fix pegs and stakes, and inspect any works.
(2) Any person who
removes, injures, or interferes with any marks made, or pegs or stakes fixed
as aforesaid, shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding 5 penalty units, or
to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months.
(3) The Ministerial
Corporation may, by any of its officers, employees or agents, enter on any
land and:
(a) remove any dam or weir or any other work forming an unlawful
obstruction to the flow of water in a river, and
(b) prevent or stop any
unlawful diversion of water from a river or lake, whether by dismantling a
pump or blocking the offtake of a race or by such other means as the
Ministerial Corporation considers necessary.
(4) The Ministerial Corporation
may recover in any court of competent jurisdiction as a debt due to it from
the occupier of the land from which any work has been removed under subsection
(3), or of the land on which the diversion of water was prevented or stopped
under that subsection, the expenses incurred by it in carrying out the removal
or, as the case may be, in preventing or stopping the diversion.
(5) Where
judgment has been obtained against an occupier of land under subsection (4)
and that occupier is not the owner of the land, that occupier may apply to the
Civil and Administrative Tribunal to apportion between that occupier and the
owner of the land the amount adjudged to be paid to the Ministerial
Corporation under that subsection and any costs awarded against the occupier
in connection with that judgment, and, on any such application being made to
it, the Civil and Administrative Tribunal may make such apportionment of that
amount and those costs as it considers fair and just.
