The President's certificate under Art. 31 (6) of the Constitution bars the court from considering the validity of a law on the grounds specified in Art. 31 (2).

Shearer, J - This Special Bench has been constituted to try a suit instituted by the Maherajadhiraja of Darbhanga in the Court of the Subordinate Judge at Laheriasarai which has been removed to this Court to be tried by it in the exercise of its extraordinary original civil jurisdiction. In this suit the plaintiff has asked for a declaration that the Bihar State Management of Estates and Tenures Act, 1949, is an unconstitutional law and for an injunction restraining the defendant from taking possession, through its officers, of his estate. The defendant in the suit, which was instituted prior to the enactment of the Constitution, is the Province of Bihar. Along with this suit, there have been set down for hearing a number of applications under art.226 of the Constitution. These applications are by zamindars who have instituted suits similar to the suit instituted by the Maharajadbiraja of Darbhanga. They too asked for injunctions restraining the State of Bihar or any of its officers from taking possession of their estates, and, on one ground or another, their applications for an ad interim injunction, pending the disposal of the suits, were refused. At a very early stage, we pointed out that, if the suit instituted by the Mabarajaihiraja of Darbhanga was decreed, the State of Bihar would, preen mably, refrain from taking possession of the estates of the petitioners, unless and until the decree had been reversed on appeal, and that, if, on the other hand, the suit was dismissed, the applications under Art. 226 of the Constitution would, necessarily, have to be dismissed also. The learned Government Pleader subsequently assured us that the State would take the course which, we had suggested, was proper. In these circumstances we thought it unnecessary to consider what other protection could or ought to be afforded to the various petitioners, and intimated that their applications would be dismissed, but, in the circumstances, without costs.

2. It is unnecessary to set out in more than their broad outlines the provisions contained in the impugned Act. The draftsman apparently took as his model, the Chota Nagpur Encumbered Estates Act, and one somewhat curious result of this is that, while the Act professes to provide for the State management of estates and tenures in the Province of Bihar," the management is, in fact, to be vested in a Manager who is to be an officer not below the rank of Deputy Collector. Although the Manager, being a public servant, may be amenable to the control of the Provincial Government, it is the Manager alone, and not the Provincial Government, who

stands responsible in law for fidelity in the discharge of the entire duties of management, disposal, realisation and restoration, with regard to the estate under his care/vide Flukum Chand v. Ran Bahadur Singh, 51 A, 208 at p. 214 : (AIR (11) 1924 P.C.156)."

As from the commencement of the period of management, which is to be 20 years, the proprietor is disabled from recovering rent, including arrears of rent, which have already accrued due, and from making a valid lease or a valid mortgage, although not from selling the estate outright or making a gift of it. The Manager is required to pay him a quarterly allowance not exceeding 20 per cent. of the gross annual income in the case of estates yielding an income of not more than Rs. 10,000 and not exceeding 5 per cent. in the case of estates yielding an income exceeding RS.5 lakhs. Although the quarterly allowance to be made to the proprietor is comparatively small, the Manager is, nevertheless, required, at the end of the year, to make over the surplus income to him. The proprietor may, however, have some difficulty in ascertaining what that surplus is or ought to be, as he is not entitled to inspect the accounts until they have been audited, and is then entitled only to inspect them once in the course of every twelve months. He is not free to institute a suit for accounts or, indeed any other suit, and c