STATE OF TRIPURA Vs. PROVINCE OF EAST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from a judgment of the High Court of Judicature in West Bengal reversing a finding of the Second Subordinate Judge of 24 Parganas at Alipore that he had jurisdiction to proceed with a suit after substituting the Province of East Bengal (in Pakistan) in the place of the old Province of Bengal against which the suit had originally been brought.

(2.) The facts leading to the institution of the suit are not in dispute. The Bengal Agricultural Income-tax Act was passed by the Provincial Legislature of Bengal in1944. It applied to the whole of Bengal and purported to bring under charge the agricultural income of, inter alia, "every Ruler of an Indian State." Acting under the provisions of that Act, which came into force on 1-4-1944, the Income-tax Officer, Dacca Range, sent by registered post, a notice to the Manager of the Zamindari Estate called Chakla Roshanabad belonging to the Tripura State but situated in Bengal outside the territories of that State, calling upon him to furnish a return of the total income derived in the previous year from lands in the Estate used for agricultural purposes. The notice was received by the Manager at Agartala in Tripura State. Thereupon, the State, by its then Ruler Maharaja Sir Bir Bikram Bahadur, instituted the suit in question on 12-6-1945 against the Province of Bengal and the Agricultural Income-tax Officer, Dacca Range, in the Court of the First Subordinate Judge, Dacca, contesting the validity of the notice and the proposed assessment on the grounds that the "Provincial Legislature of Bengal had no authority to impose tax on any income of an Indian State or its Ruler" and that, in any case, "the Income-tax Officer, Dacca Range, had no authority or jurisdiction to issue the said notice to the manager of the Estate outside British India." The cause of action of the suit was alleged to have arisen in the town of Dacca within the jurisdiction of the Court on 28-2-l945 when the notice was issued. The reliefs sought were a declaration that the Bengal Agricultural income-tax Act 1944, in so far as it purported to impose a liability to pay agricultural income-tax on the plaintiff as a Ruler of an Indian State was ultra vires and void and that, in any case, the notice served by the Agricultural Income-tax Officer, Dacca' Range, was void and no assessment could be made on the basis of such notice, and a perpetual injunction to restrain the defendants from taking any steps to assess the plaintiff to agricultural income-tax. Before the defendants filed their written statements the suit was transferred by the High Court to the Court of the District Judge, 24 Parganas, and was again transferred from that Court to the Court of the Subordinate Judge at Alipore. The Ruler who brought the suit having died, the plaint was amended by the substitution in his place of his son and heir in June 1947, and the suit was pending in that Court when the Partition of India took effect on 15-8-1947.

(3.) On 9-12-1947 the Province of East Bengal filed a petition stating that the Province of Bengal, the original defendant 1 in the suit, had ceased to exist with effect from 15-8-1947, and in lieu thereof two new Provinces, namely, the Province of East Bengal and the Province of West Bengal had come into existence and that, inasmuch as the Province of West Bengal was taking no interest in the suit, it was necessary in the interests of East Bengal that the suit should be contested and that a written statement should be put in on its behalf for such contest. It was accordingly prayed that the delay should be condoned and the written statement which was filed with that petition should be accepted. In the written statement it was pleaded that inasmuch as the Province of East Bengal was a Province of the Dominion of Pakistan and that defendant 2 was a Revenue Officer of that Province, the Court had no jurisdiction to hear the suit or make an order of injunction against the defendants. It was stated that the Province of East Bengal appeared only to contest the jurisdiction of the Court. By another written statement filed on the same day defendant 2 raised also other pleas in defence but his name was struck off the record at the plaintiff's instance as not being a necessary party to the suit. On 13-12-1947 the Province of East Bengal was substituted as the defendant in the place of the Province of Bengal which had ceased to exist, and the written statement filed on behalf of the former was accepted.