VISHNU PARTAP SINGH Vs. STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal by special leave is against a judgment and decree in reversal passed by a Division Bench of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Jabalpur.

(2.) On March 13, 1948, thirty-five States in Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand. regions agreed to unite themselves into one State which was to be called the United State of Vindyha Pradesh. Chattarpur being one such State in Bundelkhand area was a party thereto. The signing thirty-five Rulers had brought about the new State into being purely as a domestic arrangement between themselves and not as a treaty with the Dominion of India, Obviously there was surrender of a fraction of the sovereignty of each Ruler to the newly created State but there was no further surrender of sovereign powers to the Dominion of India beyond those already surrendered in 1947 relating to Defence, External Affairs and Communications. Despite the readjustment, the sum total of the sovereignties which had resided in each before the covenant then resided in the whole and its component parts; none of it was lost to the Dominion of India.

(3.) The articles of the covenant, so far as they are relevant for our purposes, are Articles VI and Xl, which are reproduced hereafter:-