Judgment

KOSHAL, J. :- This is an appeal by special leave against the judgment dated November 8. 1968 of a Division Bench of the High Court of Bombay allowing a petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India and declaring that sub-section (5) of Section 17 of the Maharashtra Medical Practitioners Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) is ultra vires of Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

2. The facts are not in dispute and may be shortly stated. The respondent hails from Uttar Pradesh. In 1940 he obtained the degree of "Ayurved Shastri" from the All India Adarsh Vidwat Parishad, Kanpur. On November 12, 1940 his name was listed by the Board of Indian Medicine, Uttar Pradesh, in the register of Vaids and Hakims. He practised as a Vaid in Agra thereafter up to 1955 when he migrated to Bhopal where he was registered as an Ayurvedic Doctor by the Medical Council of the Government of Bhopal under the Bhopal Medical Practitioners Registration Act, 1935. He migrated to Bombay in 1962 and started practising there as an Ayurvedic Doctor. However, in the meantime, i.e., on November 23, 1961, the Act came into force, except for Chapter VI thereof which came into op