The main legal point established in the judgment is the validity of a treaty transferring sovereignty and the subsequent regulation made by the President of India, highlighting the executive power of entering into treaties and the legal force of a treaty without parliamentary legislation.

( 1 ) IN these three applications, the Union of India prays for this Court's permission to prosecute three appeals in place of the Percepteur and Municipal Reserveur of Chandemagore. The Percepteur issued on 2-8-1951, "commandments" upon the respondents-opposite parties for payment of certain sums of money, who thereupon filed "oppositions" calling upon the Percepteur to appear before the Subordinate Judge. Finally, the Subordinate Judge dismissed the three miscellaneous cases started on the three "oppositions". The respondents-opposite parties filed appeals against the decisions of the Subordinate Judge to the District Judge, Chander-nagore, and on 16-6-1952 the appeals were allowed by the learned District Judge.

( 2 ) AGAINST this, three memoranda of appeals were filed on 9-9-1952 by the Union of India. The applications for permission to continue the appeals were filed on the same date.

( 3 ) BEFORE, however, any orders were passed on the applications, the appeals were placed for hearing under Order 41, Rule 11, Civil P. C. , before a Bench of this Court, and the Court unaware of the fact that the Union of India, which had preferred the appeals, was not a party to the appeals before the District Judge, ordered the second appeals to be heard. Some time after this, the applications to prosecute the appeals in this Court came up for hearing before the Registrar and the Registrar passed orders granting the prayers.

( 4 ) THE Registrar's orders granting the applications and the orders of the Bench ordering that the second appeals be heard were vacated by an order of this Court passed on 28-3-1953.

( 5 ) THE applications which had been filed by the Union of India for prosecuting the appeals in this Court were thereafter moved in Court and the present Rules were issued.

( 6 ) THE applicant bases its prayer on the allegation that the rights in the subject-matter of the appeals have become vested in the Union of India with effect from 9-6-1952. This allegation is founded on a Regulation framed by the President of India under Article 243 of the Constitution. On behalf of the opposite parties it is said that the treaty by which Chandernagore is said to have become part of India is itself without legal validity, as the Parliament has not legislated on the treaty by which Chandernagore was ceded to India, and consequently, the Regulation has no legal validity.

( 7 ) CHANDERNAGORE was formerly under the sovereignty of the French Republic. The French Republic, admittedly, claims no longer any sovereignty over the territory. The Government of the Republic has proclaimed that it has ceded the territory in full sovereignty to India. The treaty containing this proclamation was published in an extraordinary issue of the Gazette of India on 19-8-1952.

( 8 ) EVEN if it were assumed that this treaty was not legally valid without parliamentary legislation, the transfer of the territory to India remains an accomplished fact, which is accepted as such by both the interested parties, namely, the French Republic and the Union of India. Consequently, it would be territory comprised within the territory of India, whether or not the treaty was legally valid. It is well to remember in this connection the principle laid down in the case of -- 'secretary of State v. Rustam Khan', AIR 1941 PC 64 at p. 67 (A) that when a territory is acquired by a sovereign State for the first time, it is an act of State; it matters not how it is acquired; it may be by conquest, it may be by cession following a treaty, it may be by occupation of territory hitherto occupied by a recognised ruler--in all cases the result is the same.

( 9 ) THERE is absolutely no reason, however, in my opinion, for thinking that the treaty was not legally valid. Mr. Banerjee's contention that without parliamentary legislation making the treaty an Act of Parliament, the treaty cannot have any legal force or validity, is based, in my judgment, on a misconception of the n