Judgement

Appeal (No. 13 of 1946), by special leave, from a judgment and order of the Federal Court (April 10, 1942) dismissing an appeal from a judgment of a Full Bench of the High Court at Lahore (February 27, 1941).

The following facts and statutory provisions are taken from the judgment of the Judicial Committee. The question in this appeal was whether Punjab Act No. IV of 1938, entitled the Punjab Restitution of Mortgaged Lands Act, was void as being ultra vires of the Punjab legislature. The action was commenced by the appellants as mortgagees claiming a declaration that they were mortgagees in possession of certain lands therein specified, and that the defendants were not entitled to redeem without payment of the mortgage debt due under the mortgage deeds, and also an injunction to restrain the defen dants as mortgagors from prosecuting their petition for redemption of the lands in the Court of the Collector under the Punjab Act IV. of 1938 (hereinafter called the impugned Act) and for restitution of the lands under the provisions of the Act.

The object of the impugned Act was the relief of mortgagors by giving them restitution of the mortgaged premises on conditions more fa