Nityananda Panigrahi vs Basudeb Patra And Ors. on 13 February, 1970
16. Mr. Mohanty, however, placed some decisions of the Madras High Court where the legality or otherwise of that Act came for consideration. According to him the case directly on the point is in AIR 1936 Mad 223, Kuttikrishna Menon v. Purushothaman Nambudiri. The facts of the case which came up for consideration before Pandrang Row, J. were as follows: Two suits by a melcharthdar for redemption were filed before the Court of the District Munsif, Pattanibi. Those melcharths were granted by the first plaintiff whose name was subsequently struck off to his Anandravan the second plaintiff on 1-3-1925. A conditional decree had been passed by the trial court condition being that the decree for redemption would stand only if a certain order of the Board of Commissioners for Hindu Religious Endowments dated 21-4-26 was set aside by the District Court. An application to set aside the order was actually pending in the District Court of South Malabar, but that application was not prosecuted. It was, therefore, contended in Second Appeal that the condition imposed by the trial Court in the decree was wiped out. The condition was imposed by the trial Court as it was of the view that the melcharths offended against the provisions of Section 72 of Madras Act 1 of 1925 and the melcharths which were a type of alienation without the sanction of the Board were not valid. The lower appellate Court did not maintain the condition as it was of the opinion that Madras Act 1 of 1925 was ultra vires the Madras Legislature and also on the ground that by the time those alienations were made the Board of Commissioners had not been constituted. In this background the learned Judge came to hold,
"The objection to the validity of this Act (Act 1 of 1925) is thus an objection to the procedure followed by His Excellency the Governor in the course of the Legislation. In my opinion no objections to the procedure followed by the Legislature or any part of it in the course of any legislation can be entertained by Courts, and even if well founded such objections do not render the subsequent legislation ultra vires. What the Court has to do, when it is contended that a particular Act of the legislature is ultra vires is to look at the subject-matter of the Act and to see whether that subject-matter is included within the provisions which define the powers granted to that legislature by the Government of India Act."