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otherwise than across a customs frontier as defined by the Central Government.

5. This modification had to be made because under the Constitution Act the exclusive power to legislate with respect to import and export across such frontiers was in the Federal Legislature. Further amendments in the Act were effected in 1940 with a view to supersede a pronouncement by a Special Bench of the High Court in Chinubhai Lalbhai v. Emperor [1940] Bom. 587 : s.c. 42 Bom. L.R. 669, s.b that the Provincial Government had no power under Section 14-B to prohibit the possession of intoxicants as there was nothing in the Act, as it appeared to them, to suggest that total prohibition as a measure of social reform was contemplated by the Legislature. The Bombay Abkari (Amendment) Act, 1940, was accordingly passed by the Governor of Bombay who had assumed legislative powers by a proclamation under Section 93 of the Constitution Act. Besides inserting in the preamble to the original Act words making it clear that it was part of the object of the Act to enforce the policy of prohibition, it effected two important amendments in Section 14-B which, before the amendments, stood thus :

Import and export across customs frontier as defined by the Dominion Government.

and argued that if "intoxicating liquors" in item 31 of list II were held to include also liquors imported from abroad, then the Provincial Legislature, by prohibiting possession of such liquors by all persons, whether private consumers, common carriers, or warehousemen, could defeat the power of the Federal Legislature to regulate imports of foreign liquors across the sea or land frontiers of British India which are customs frontiers as defined by the Central Government and thus seriously jeopardise an important source of central customs revenue. As under Section 100 of the Constitution Act the Provincial legislative powers under list II were subject to the exclusive powers of the Federal Legislature in list I, the Bombay Act to the extent to which it trenched upon the subject of item 19 of the latter list must, it was submitted, be regarded as a nullity. We are unable to accede to this contention. As pointed out by this Court in Bhola Prasad v. The King-Emperor [1942] F.C.R. 17, the legislative power given to the Provinces under item 31 of list II is expressed in wide and unqualified terms which in their natural and ordinary sense are apt to cover such an enactment as Section 14-B in its amended form, and we see nothing in the Federal Legislative List and more particularly in item 19 to lead us to cut down the full meaning of the Provincial entry by excluding foreign liquors from its purview. There is, in our view, no irreconcilable conflict here such as would necessitate recourse to the principle of Federal Supremacy laid down in Section 100 of the Constitution Act. Section 14-B does not purport to restrict or prohibit dealings in liquor in respect of its importation or exportation across the sea or land frontiers of British India. It purports to deal with the possession of intoxicating liquors, which, in the absence of limiting words, must include foreign liquor. It is far-fetched, in our opinion, to suggest that, in so far as the provision covers foreign liquors, it is legislation with respect to import of liquors into British India by sea or land.