MAQBOOL ALI Vs. FINANCIAL COMMISSIONER, J&K GOVT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an application for quashing an order of the Financial Commissioner dated 13 -11 - L961 by an appropriate writ.

(2.) THE circumstances giving rise to the petition may be mentioned as follows -

(3.) IT appears from the order of the Financial Commissioner that he was faced with two judgments of the court, which appeared to him to be contradictory to each other, but which on proper analysis do not appear to us to be of much assistance to the petitioners. The point canvassed before the Financial Commissioner was that in view of the decision of this court in Writ petition No. 59 of 1959 dated 12 -7 -1960, the appeal being a vested right which accrued to the litigant the moment proceedings started could not be taken away by the amendment unless the language of such an amendment was specifically retrospective. The argument was that the principles which govern the case of an appeal applied equally to the case of a revision. The Financial Commissioner, however, relied on a previous judgment of a Division Bench of this court in writ petition No. 60 dated 20 -4 -1959, where it was held that if the revisional court was itself abolished, the right of revision also goes with it and any amendment which changes the forum of revision would have a retrospective effect. In this connection, Nair J. who delivered the leading judgment observed as follows: -