JUDGMENT

Gwyer, C.J. - In this case the principal question to be decided is whether the Regularization of Remissions Act, 1938 (14 of 1938), an Act of the Legislature of the United Provinces, was within the competence of the Legislature which enacted it. The litigation in which the question has arisen can be briefly described. The defendants to the original suit were thekadars, a thekadar being, by statutory definition, "a farmer or other lessee of proprietary rights in land, and in particular of the right to receive rents or profits", with the terms of his lease or theka embodied in a written instrument executed by the landlord. They were sued by their lessors for arrears of rent for the year ending June 1931, and the two following years at the rate reserved by the lease, and among other defences pleaded that remissions of rent had been ordered by the Local Government which ought to be taken into account in calculating the amount due. The plaintiffs contended that these remissions were beyond the power of the Government to order and that the defendants were not therefore entitled to rely upon them. On this issue both the trial Judge and the District Judge on appeal decided in the d