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8. On September 29, 1939, the Act, with which we are concerned, was enacted by the Central Legislature, and by Section 21 of it the Ordinance was repealed, but the existing rules were maintained and are deemed to have been made " in exercise of the powers conferred by this Act if it had commenced oh the 3rd September 1939."

9. The Act is a devolution of legislative power by the Central Legislature to the Central Government, co-extensive with its own legislative domain, and. differing from it in respect of the method by which the legislative function is to be exercised, namely, by notification in the official Gazette, and limited to this extent, that the exercise of the legislative function is made conditional upon it appearing necessary or expedient to the Central Government so to act : " for securing the defence of British India, the public safety, the maintenance of public order or the efficient prosecution of war, or for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community." Such opinion of the Central Government cannot be called in question except for want of bona fides : (see Liversidge v. Sir John Anderson [1942] A.C.

13. The question we have to determine arises by virtue of Section 14 of the Defence of India Act, which lays upon the Central Government's power to legislate by rule, and upon the devolution of that power, the stipulation that : " save as otherwise expressly provided by or under this Act, the ordinary criminal and civil Courts shall continue to exercise jurisdiction." By that safeguard the Central Legislature, in deputing its legislative function to the Central Government, has made it plain that any interruption of the continuance of the exercise of the Court's jurisdiction, either in the Defence of India Act itself or in some legislative rule made under it, shall be expressly made, so that all may know when and to what degree the Court's jurisdiction is being interrupted. Under the ordinary statute law, an example of such an express provision is to be found in Section 4 of the Bombay Revenue Jurisdiction Act, 1876, where it is enacted : " No civil Court shall exercise jurisdiction as to any of the following matters :" and there then follows a list of the matters to be excluded.

What are the boundaries or limits of this legislative territory thus assigned to the King-in-Council ? They must continue only during the continuance of the present war. (2) They must be exercised honestly with the intention of securing the public safety and defence of the realm.

90. It was also held that the Court can inquire into the validity if it could not in any reasonable way aid in securing public safety and the defence of the jfealm. Rex v. Halliday [1917] A.C, 260, 272 Rex v. Comptroller General of Patents : Bayer Products Ld., Ex parte [1941] 2 K. B. 308, 317 and Liversidge v. Sir John Anderson [1942] A C. 206, 216 affirm the same position. These authorities clearly show that the Central Legislature having plenary powers, within the limits prescribed by the Constitution Act, has authority to empower the Central Government to make rules, and such action is not considered invalid. They further show that the contention urged on behalf of respondent No. 1 that there can be no delegation or devolution of legislative powers is unsound. The only restriction on such powers is that the Legislature cannot entirely efface itself. In that connection a careful examination of Section 2 of the Defence of India Act shows that the Central Legislature has not done so. The Defence of India Act has prescribed five purposes in Section 2(2) and put further limitations on the powers of the Central Government by the words " as appear to it to be necessary or expedient for securing one of the said purposes." By the1 fact that all those rules are operative for the duration of the war and six months thereafter, a further limit is put on the powers of the Central Government. The question whether the rules framed by the Central Government are within the scope of the section is further' capable of being examined by the Courts, and if on the face of it any rule is found as not falling clearly within the purview of any of the five objects mentioned, it is liable to be held invalid. It has further been held that the five purposes mentioned in Section 2(1) have to be read with the seventh schedule, and so long as the rules fall under any of those heads, they were valid and not outside the powers of the Central Legislature. A similar view of Section 2 was taken by the Allahabad High Court in Emperor v. Meer Singh [1941] All. 617 and by a full bench of the Lahore High Court very recently in Harkishan Das v. Emperor [1944] A.I.R. F. B. Lah. 33.