The court's jurisdiction is determined by the provisions of the relevant legislation, and in this case, Section 106(2) of the Government of India Act, 1915, dictated that the court had no jurisdiction to entertain the suit.

1. This was a suit brought by Messrs. Best & Co. Ltd., a firm of merchants carrying on business in this city, for a declaration that an agreement dated the 4th October 1915 entered into by them with the Collector of Madras of the day was binding on the parties. The action is brought because, on the 22nd May 1917, the Collector purporting to act in consequence of the Income-Tax Act, V of 1916 declared that the agreement was no longer binding on him and repudiated it. The plaintiffs tendered the sum that they sad to be due under the agreement and brought this action to safeguard their rights under it. The agreement is one made with the Collector of Madras under the provisions of the former Income-Tax Act (II of 1886) Section 31, which enables persons, instead of being reassessed every year, to arrange with the Collector for a definite sum to be assessed for a fixed period and in this case the period agreed upon was five years from the 1st April 1915. The plaintiffs originally sued the Secretary of State for India. At one time the point was taken on behalf of the Government that the proper person to be sued was not the Secretary of State but the Collector of Madras but, on a suggestion nude at the time of the settling of issues, that difficulty, which was purely a technical one, was obviated by adding the Collector of Madras as a party, so that, the relief being in the alternative against one or other of those officials, it is really immaterial to decide as to which of them is actually liable. Of course, we all know it really comes to the same thing, the Collector being the revenue authority.

2. By way of preliminary objection, another point was taken by the learned Advocate General which is embodied in the first issue in the case, and that was, that I sitting as a Judge on the Original Side of the High Court of Judicature for Madras, had no jurisdiction under Section 106(2) of the Government of India Act, 1915, to try the suit. The words of the section seem to be quite explicit and are as follows :--" The High Courts have not and may not exercise any original jurisdiction in any matter concerning the revenue, or covering any act ordered or done in the collection thereof according to the usage and practice of the country or the law for the time being in force." As I say, on the face of it, it appeared to me that that entirely precluded me from entertaining the suit on the merits or from entertaining it at all. Mr. Grant took two points in answer to that contention. The first point was this : that by the decision in Collector of Sea Customs v. P. Chidambaram (1876) I.L.R. 1 Mad. 89 which, of course, if the situation were unchanged would be binding upon me. I was compelled to hold that the prohibition against the High Court on the original side trying revenue suits had disappeared, because one of the learned Judges, Mr. Justice Kernan, held that the prohibition contained in the section of Act 39 and 40 Geo. III C. 79, otherwise known as the Government of India Act, l800, was repealed by 53 Geo. III, Ch. 155, Sections 99 and 100, and the other learned Judges apparently held that the prohibition contained in 39 and 40 Geo. III C. 79 was by necessary implication repealed by the Charter Act and the Letters Patent of this Court. What Mr. Grant says is as I follow it, this : here in 1874 at the date of the judgment of that Bench, there was in existence the Act 39 and 40 Geo. III Ch. 79, but the learned Judges still held that the effect of later legislation had been to abrogate that section of the Act. Then, he says, the Government of India Act, 1915, Sub-section 1 of Section 106 re-enacts the Letters Patent and, therefore, I must hold just the same as the learned Judges did in 1874, viz., that the effect of re-enacting the Letters Patent is to overrule the prohibition contained originally in 39 and 40 Geo. III Ch. 79 and now in the Act of 1915. I do not think that is a possible construction for me to adopt. It is very unfortunate