Judgment

WANCHOO, J. : These four appeals on certificates granted by the High Court at Calcutta arise out of one judgment and will be dealt with together. The brief facts necessary for present purposes are these : In September, 1946, there was food shortage in the Country. In order to relieve this shortage, the Government of India entered into an agreement with the President of Argentine Institute for Promotion of Trade by which it undertook to freeze, requisition and take over and sell to the Argentine Institute and Ship to Argentine 30,000 tons of hessian and in return the Institute guaranteed to obtain licences for shipment from Argentine of maize and wheat offals already purchased by the Government of India in Argentine. This agreement was arrived at on September 27, 1946. In anticipation of this agreement, the Government of India on September 20, 1946, addressed letters to the managing agents of various jute mills in Bengal demanding from them information as to stocks of hessian of certain description held by the mills under their managing agencies and prohibiting them from selling, transferring, removing, consuming or otherwise disposing of any article enumerated in Sch. B to the communication. This demand was made under sub-rule (5) of R. 75A of the Defence of India Rules (hereinafter called the Rules). After the information had been gathered, the Government of India issued an order on September 30, 1946, to the same managing agents requisitioning the hessian specified in the schedule to the order and directing them and every other person in possession of the said property to deliver it to the Director of Supplies, Calcutta, and in the meantime not to dispose of the property in any manner without the permission of the Central Government. The schedule to the order in each case indicated the mill from which the requisition was made, the quantity, the description of the hessian and the name of the registered stock-holders. These requisition orders were served upon the managing agents of the mills under sub-rule (1) of R. 75A of the Rules on that very day. Thereafter on the same day, that is, September 30, 1946, the Government of India issued a notice under sub-rule (2) of R. 75A to the managing agents communicating that it had been decided to acquire the property under that sub-rule. The managing agents were further informed that by virtue of sub-rule (3) of R. 75A the said property would vest in the Central Government at the beginning of the day on which the notice was served upon them free from any mortgage, pledge, lien or other similar encumbrance. The notices of acquisition were accompanied by schedules similar to the schedules accompanying the requisition-orders. This notice of acquisition was also served on the same day on all the managing agents. Further on the same day the deputy Director of Supplies, Government of India, wrote to the Secretary, Indian Jute Mills Association, that shipping instructions would be issued in due course by the Director of Supplies, Calcutta, with respect to hessian requisitioned and acquired under the orders and notices already referred to. The Government then tried to take possession of the hessian requisitioned and acquired but the mills and the holders of delivery-orders resisted the Government s attempt on the ground that the orders of requisition and acquisition were invalid. The Government of India then filed the suit out of which the present appeals have arisen on December 11, 1946, for enforcing the orders of requisition and acquisition and also applied for a receiver to be appointed. This application was resisted and it became apparent that it would take some time before it could be disposed of. As ships which were to carry the hessian to Argentine were ready and shipment could not be delayed, the Government on January 7, 1947, promulgated an Ordinance, being Ordinance No. 1 of 1947, whereby notwithstanding the pendency of the suit the title and possession of the goods requisit