JUDGMENT

UNTWALIA, J.:— Several Writ Petitions were heard together by a Division Bench of the Gujarat High Court involving interpretation of certain provisions of the Bombay Land Revenue Code, 1879, hereinafter referred to as the Land Revenue Code, and the Bombay Merged Territories and Areas (Jagirs Abolition) Act, 1953, hereinafter called the Jagirs Abolition Act. They were disposed of by a common judgment whereby all the Writ Petitions were dismissed. In the present three appeals brought to this Court by certificate the facts and law involved are almost identical. In our common judgment disposing of these three appeals, we shall discuss the law with reference to the facts of Civil Appeal No. 2469 of 1969.

2. All the three sets of appellants in the three appeals were proprietary Jagirdars under Idar State. Survey settlement had been made in that State in the year 1936 and the land revenue payable by the Jagirdars was assessed. In the year 1948 the Land Revenue Code was applied by the Province of Bombay to the lands in question under the Extra Provincial Jurisdiction Act. The territory comprising the lands in question was merged in the Bombay State, first by an Ordinance promulgated