Judgment

WANCHOO, J. : This is an appeal from a decree of the Patna High Court. The appellant is a Public Limited Company with its registered office at Calcutta. A mining lease was granted to it by the Raja of Ramgarh on December 29, 1947, for a period of 999 years in respect of 3026 villages, situate within the Ramgarh Estate and the appellant was put in possession thereof. On February 1, 1950 the appellant granted a sub-lease of two of the villages comprised in its grant to one Bhagat Singh for a term of 15 years. In the meantime the Mines and Minerals (Regulation and Development) Act, No. LIII of 1948 (hereinafter called the Act) had come into force along with the Mineral Concession Rules, 1949 (hereinafter called the Rules) in the area in which the two villages lay. Bhagat Singh then applied to the Deputy Commissioner, Hazaribagh for the grant of a certificate of approval under the Rules. Thereupon the Deputy Commissioner, taking the view that the sub-lease granted was in contravention of the Act and the Rules, filed a complaint on September 25, 1951, before a magistrate against two directors and the secretary of the appellant charging them with the breach of R. 45 of the Rules and also Rr. 47 & 49 (now R. 51 ) read with R. 51 (now R. 53) and S. 9 of the Act. While the criminal case was going on, the appellant filed a suit challenging the validity and constitutionality of the Act and the Rules. A number of grounds were taken in support of this challenge but it is not necessary now to set out all of them, as learned counsel for the appellant has confined his arguments only to two points, namely, (i) a sub-lease is not covered by the definition of the term mining lease in S. 3 (d) of the Act and therefore the Act and the Rules do not apply to a sub-lease at all, and (ii) as these Rules were made under Ss. 5 and 6 of the Act and not under S. 7 they have no application to a sub-lease granted by a lessor, even after the coming into force of the Act and the Rules, where the lessor s own lease was of a date anterior to the coming into force of the Act and the Rules.

2. The suit was resisted by the respondents and their defence was that the term mining lease included a sub-lease and that the Rules framed under Ss. 5 and 6 of the Act were applicable to all sub-leases granted after the Act and the Rules had come into force.

3. The High Court repelled the contentions raised by the appellant against the validity and constitutionality of the Act and the Rules. It further held that the term mining lease as defined in S.3 (d) of the Act included a sub-lease and therefore the Act and the Rules applied to sub-leases granted after the Act and the Rules came into force and it was immaterial that the lease granted to the appellant was anterior in time to the coming into force of the Act and the Rules. On this view, the suit was dismissed. There upon the appellant applied for a certificate which was granted and that is how the matter has come up before us.

Re. (i).

4. The main question that falls for consideration is whether the term mining lease as defined in S. 3 (d) of the Act includes a . sub-lease. Clause (d) of S. 3 is in these terms :-

" mining lease means a lease granted for the purpose of searching for, winning, working, getting, making merchantable, carrying away, or disposing of mineral oils (sic) or for purposes connected therewith, and includes an exploring or a prospecting licence;"

There is no specific mention of a sub-lease in it. But if one takes the plain meaning of the words used in S. 3(d), it is clear that the term mining lease means any kind of lease granted for the purpose of searching for, winning working, getting, making merchantable, carrying away or disposing of minerals or for purposes connected therewith. It is significant that the definition does not require that the lessor must be the proprietor; and so on a fair reading it would include a lease executed by the proprietor as much as a lease executed by the l