JUDGMENT

VENKATARAMIAH, J. :— In these petitions under Article 32 of the Constitution, the petitioners have questioned the constitutional validity of the Home Department Notification No. 352-LD-73/602 dated January 31, 1973 89 (hereinafter referred to as the Notification) as modified by the Home Department Notification No. 2294-LD-73/3474 dated September 24, 1973 and the Home Department Notification. No. 320-LD-74/3614, dated September 24, 1974 issued by the Chief Commissioner of the Union Territory of Chandigarh under Section 3 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) exempting every building constructed in the urban area of Chandigarh for a period of five years from the respective date applicable to it from the operation of the Act and issuing certain other directions in that behalf. Incidentally the petitioners have also questioned the validity of Section 3 of the Act.

2. For a proper appreciation of the rival contentions of the parties, it is necessary to refer briefly to the history of the relevant provisions of law. The area now known as the Union Territory of Chandigarh was a part of the State of Punjab as it existed prior to the coming into force of the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966 (Act 31 of 1966). With effect from November 1, 1966 i.e. the appointed day under Section 4 of the said Act the Union Territory of Chandigarh came into existence and thereupon the said area ceased to form part of the erstwhile State of Punjab. Section 87 of the Punjab Reorganisation Act, 1966 conferred power on the Central Government to extend by notification with such restrictions or modifications as it thought fit any enactment which was in force in a State at the date of the notification to the Union Territory of Chandigarh. Whereas Section 88 of that Act provided for the territorial extent of laws, Section 89 dealt with the power to adapt laws, with the object of providing as far as possible for the continuity of laws in force in the several parts of the erstwhile State of Punjab in the successor States namely the States of Punjab and Haryana and the Union Territory of Chandigarh.

3. The Act i.e. the East Punjab Urban Restriction Act, 1949 was a law which had been enacted before the commencement of the Constitution and continued to be in operation even after the commencement of the Constitution in the erstwhile State of Punjab by virtue of the provisions of the Constitution. But the Act had not been brought into force in the area constituting the Union Territory of Chandigarh by the State Government of the erstwhile State of Punjab. By the Notification No. 13/l/66 CHD dated November 1, 1966 issued by the Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, the President authorised the Administrator of the Union Territory of Chandigarh i. e. the Chief Commissioner thereof, in relation to the said territory to exercise and discharge with effect from November 1, 1966 the powers and functions of the State Government under any such law. On the basis of the above notification and other relevant provisions of law and notifications which had been issued from time to time to which a detailed reference is not necessary, the Chief Commissioner issued a notification bringing the Act into force in the Union Territory of Chandigarh with certain modifications with effect from November 4, 1972.The validity of the said notification was challenged before the High Court of Punjab and Haryana. The High Court quashed the said notification by its judgment dated October 9, 1974 holding that the Act had not been effectively brought into force in the Union Territory of Chandigarh by virtue of that notification (vide Dr. Harkishan Singh v. Union of India, AIR 1975 Punjab 160 (FB)). It is not necessary to deal with the reasons given by the High Court in support of its judgment since the legal infirmities pointed out by the High Court were set right by the Parliament by the enactment of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restrictio