State Of Gujarat vs Vora Fiddali Badruddin Mithibarwala on 30 January, 1964
Bombay subsequently repudiated the Jagirdars' rights that
repudiation was of no avail; (3) that the letter sent to the
Ruler of Sant State by the Secretary to the States Depart-
ment, Mr. V. P. Menon, in October, 1948 amounted to a waiver
by the Dominion of India of the right of repudiation of the
rights of Jagirdars; (4) that after the Jagirdars became the
citizens of the Dominion of India there could be no act of
State against them; (5) that the doctrine evolved by the
Privy Council in its decisions starting from Secretary of
State for India v. Kamachee Boye Sahiba(1) and going upto
Asrar Ahmed v. Durgah Committee, Ajmer(2) was opposed to the
present view on the effect of conquest and cession upon
private rights as exemplified in the decisions in United
States v. Percheman(3) and that this Court should,
therefore, discard the Privy Council's view and adopt the
modem view inasmuch as the latter is considered by common
consent to be just and fair and finally (6) that the
Jagirdars could not be deprived of the forest rights
deprived by them from the Ruler of Sant State before the
Constitution, without ,complying with the provisions of s.
299 of the Government of India Act, 1935, and after the
coming into force of the Constitution without complying with
the provisions of Art. 31 of the Constitution.
I agree with my brother Ayyangar J., that the fact that some
officers of the forest department had permitted the
respondents to carry on operations in the forests leased out
to them by the Jagirdars does not amount to recognition of
the right conferred upon the latter by the Tharao of March
12, 1948. In the first place, it was not open to the
officers of the forest department to grant recognition to
the Jagirdars' rights for the simple reason that the right
of granting recognition could be exercised only by the
Government acting through its appropriate agency. Moreover
the permission which was accorded to the respondents was
only tentative and expressly subject to the final decision
of the Government on the question of their right under the
leases granted by the Jagirdars.