MULCHAND KUNDANMAL JAGTIANI Vs. RAMAN HIRALAL SHAH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The plaintiff filed a suit on July 2, 1948, on two promissory notes. A. plaint was also prepared in respect of a suit on a promissory note on August 27, 1948, and an application was made to take that suit on the file of this Court, and the question that arises both in the suit and in the application is whether this Court has jurisdiction to try these two suits, and the question of jurisdiction can only be determined by considering whether a recent piece of legislation passed by the Provincial Legislature is intra vires with regard to certain of its provisions.

(2.) Bombay Act XL of 1948, an Act to establish an additional City Civil Court for Greater Bombay, received the assent of the Governor General on May 10, 1948, and the Act came into force on August 16, 1948. The material provisions of the Act are that it sets up an additional Civil Court for the Greater Bombay for the trying of all suits of a civil nature not exceeding Rs. 10,000 in value and arising within the Greater Bombay. In Section 3 of the Act certain kinds of suits are excluded from the purview of this new Court, but we are not concerned with those excepted. suits. Section 12 bars the jurisdiction of this Court in all those suits which are made cognizable by the City Civil Court. Therefore the position is that whereas before the passing of this Act the High Court had jurisdiction to try all suits from Rs. 1,000 upwards on its Original Side, now suits up to the value of Rs. 10,000 would be solely triable by the City Civil Court. Section 18 provides for the transfer of suits pending in the High Court, and the effect of that section is that all suits, which were pending in this Court in which issues had not been settled or evidence had not been recorded on or before the date of the coming into force of the Act, were to be transferred to the new Court which was established.

(3.) Now, the contention, very briefly put, of the plaintiff and the petitioner before us, is that it is not within the legislative competence of the Provincial Legislature to invest this new Court with the jurisdiction to try suits on promissory notes, nor is it within the legislative competence of the Provincial Legislature to deprive the High Court of its jurisdiction to try suits on promissory notes below the value of Rs. 10,000. In order to fully understand and appreciate this contention it is necessary to look at the scheme of the Government of India Act. The scheme of the Constitutional Act has been considered over and over again both by the Federal Court and by the Privy Council, and I do not think it will be right on my part to repeat and reiterate what have now come to be regarded as truisms in the interpretation of the Constitutional Act. The basic and fundamental idea underlying the Government of India Act is the creation of a Federation, and as is well known, Federation means distribution of powers, and the scheme adopted in the Government of India Act is that legislative power is distributed between the Center and the Provinces and the distribution is brought about in this way. Three Lists are prepared : List I which deals with subjects over which the Center alone has the egislative competence; List III which is the Concurrent List with regard to which both the Centre and the Provinces can legislate; and List II which is a purely Provincial List in regard to which only the Provincial Legislature can legislate. Section 100 deals with these Lists and the scheme of Section 100 also is fairly clear. It, as it were, lays down a hierarchy of these Lists. It gives priority to the different Lists and it provides that the dominant List shall be the Federal Legislative List; next comes the Concurrent Legislative List; and finally comes the Provincial Legislative List. It is also now a well recognised canon "of construction that as far as possible attempt should be made to reconcile different items in different Lists so as to avoid a conflict and overlapping and also that full effect must be given to each item in each of the Lists.