Judgment

KAPUR, J. : This is an appeal against the judgment and order of the High Court of Mysore dismissing the petition of the appellants made under Art. 226 of the Constitution. The appellants were conducting, since the month of August 1948, what were called "prize competitions" in the State of Mysore with the permission of the Government of the erstwhile State of Mysore. An Act called the Mysore Lotteries and Prize Competitions Control and Tax Act 1951 (Act 27 of 1951) hereinafter called the "Mysore Act" was passed by the Mysore Legislature and came into force as from June 21, 1951. The Rules made thereunder came into force on February, 1, 1952. Previous to that the Bombay Legislature had passed a similar Act called the Bombay Lotteries and Prize Competitions Control and Tax Act 1948 which was amended in November 1952 by the Bombay Act 30 of 1952. In December 1952 and January 1953 petitions under Art. 226 were filed in the High Court of Bombay challenging the Bombay Act. On January 12, 1955 the Bombay High Court held that the provisions of the Bombay Amendment Act above referred to were unconstitutional and that the taxes imposed under the provisions of that Act were hit by Art. 301 of the Constitution. The result of that judgment was that though prize competitions could be controlled by the States within their respective borders, their ramifications beyond those borders could only be dealt with by action under Art. 252(1) of the Constitution. It was for that reason that the States of Andhra, Bombay, Madras, U. P., Hyderabad, Madhya Bharat, Pepsu and Saurashtra passed resolutions under Art. 252(1) of the Constitution authorising Parliament to legislate for the control and regulation of prize competitions and in pursuance thereof Parliament passed the Prize Competitions Act (Act 42 of 1955) hereinafter called the "Central Act" which received the assent of the President on October 22, 1955 and came into force on April 1, 1956. On February 24, 1956 the Mysore Legislature passed a resolution adopting the said Act. The resolutions passed by the various States and the resolution passed by the Mysore Legislature will be quoted in a later part of this judgment.

2. On April 7, 1956 the appellants filed a petition under Art. 32 of the Constitution in the SC challenging the validity of the Central Act but that petition was dismissed and is reported as R. M. D. Chamarbaugwala v. Union of India, 1957 SCR 930 at p. 939. The appeal against the Bombay judgment declaring the Bombay Act to be unconstitutional was brought in this court and was allowed and that case is reported as State of Bombay v. R. M. D. Chamarbaugwala, 1957 SCR 874 at p. 929. During the pendency of their petition under Art. 32, the appellants applied for and were granted a stay of the operation of the Central Act pending the disposal of the said writ petition. This was on April 16, 1956. The judgment of the SC in that petition was given on April 9, 1957. On August 31, 1957 the Mysore Lotteries and Prize Competitions Control and Tax (Amendment) Ordinance 1957 (Ord. 6 of 1957) was issued by the Governor of Mysore and thus for the period of about 16 months the appellants carried on prize competitions as before.

3. The Ordinance was enacted into an Act on September 28, 1957 which is Mysore Act 26 of 1957. Certain amendments were made by this in the Mysore Act as originally passed, in 1951. As a result of this amendment the definition of prize competition was amended; the definition as given in the Central Act was adopted and Ss. 8 and 9 of the Mysore Act were omitted with retrospective effect from April 1, 1956; cl. (b) of sub-sec. (1) of S. 12 was amended and certain words referring to licences under S. 8 were retrospectively, omitted and retrospective effect was given to the Mysore Act as amended. By adding a proviso to S. 15 of the Mysore Act all prize competitions conducted between March 31, 1956 and August 31, 1957 were brought within the purview of the amended Act. Thus t