DATTATRAYA Vs. SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE plaintiffs are a large number of Izardars of Berar represented by Dattatraya Krishna Kane, one of them. They instituted this suit against the Secretary of State for India in Council for a declaration that the Berar Alienated Villages Tenancy Law is beyond the power of the Governor General of India in Council to pass, inasmuch as its provisions are repugnant to the Waste Land Rules of 1865 which govern the proprietary rights of the Izardars, and have the effect of prejudicing and infringing those rights in the ways enumerated in para. 12 (b) (I) to (VII) of the plaint. Several subsidiary declarations in respect of the various rights infringed, which need not be detailed here, were also claimed.

(2.) THE defence was that the law is not repugnant to the Waste Land Rules or the terms of the Izardars' sanads, that the rights of the Izardars are to be determined by the terms of their sanads, and the Court had no jurisdiction to try the suit as it was in respect of an act of State, The plaintiffs in reply stated that the terms and conditions of the sanads inconsistent with the Waste Land Rules were not binding on the Izardars. The lower Court has dismissed the plaintiffs' suit holding that the passing of the law being an act of State the civil Court was not competent to declare it ultra vires and that in any case the law was not ultra vires.

(3.) THE provisions of the Berar Alienated Villages Tenancy Law which are said to violate the Izardar's rights are those regulating the relative rights of the Izardar and his tenants and are mentioned in para. 12 of the plaint. Rule 3 of the Waste Land Rules, which according to the plaintiffs entirely govern their contracts in the matter in question, is as follows: