JUDGMENT

Gwyer, C.J. - In this suit between the United Provinces and the Governor-General in Council, the plaintiffs pray for a declaration that certain provisions of the Cantonments Act, 1924, were ultra vires the then Indian legislature and were therefore not a law in force in British India when Part III of the new Constitution Act came into operation; that all fines imposed and realized by Criminal Courts for offences committed within the cantonment areas in the United Provinces ought to be credited to provincial revenues; and that the plaintiffs are entitled to recover and adjust all such sums wrongly credited to Cantonment Funds since 1924. The declaration prayed for in the original plaint was limited to the last two matters; but, by leave of the Court, the'plaintiffs were allowed to amend it in order that the Court might be in a position to determine the real matter in issue in the case. The Governor-General in Council by his defence denies that any provisions of the Cantonments Act 1924, were invalid; and he contends further that the dispute with the plaintiff is not one which is justiciable before this Court and that this Court has therefore no jurisdiction to entertain the suit.

2. The facts in the case are not in dispute and may be shortly summarized. A cantonment is a place in or in the vicinity of which any of His Majesty's regular forces or regular air forces are quartered and which has been declared by notification to be a, cantonment for the purposes of the Acts in that behalf for the time being in force. The administration of cantonment areas, almost from their first establishment has been for obvious military reasons subject to special regulations. The first general Cantonments Act, a consolidating and amending measure, was passed in 1889 and repealed a large number of existing Acts and Regulations. The Act of 1889 was followed by another Consolidating and Amending Act in 1910 (Act 15 of 1910), and later by the very elaborate. Code of 1924, an Act of 292 Sections and six schedules (Act 2 of 1924), which superseded all previous legislation and is, Theugh it has not itself escaped amendment, the principal Act relating to the subject which is now in force.

3. Part of the administrative machinery of every cantonment area is the Cantonment Fund, which is credited with revenue derived from various sources and is required to be applied for the purposes, express or implied, for which any statutory powers and duties are conferred or imposed upon the administrative authority of the area; see Sections 106 and 109 of the Act of 1924. Among the above sources of revenue are all fines recovered from persons convicted of offences committed within the cantonment (i) under the Act, or any rule or bye law made thereunder, (ii) under Section 34, Police Act, 1864, or any corresponding enactment for the time being in force, (iii) under Chapters 13 and 14, I.P.C. (iv) under Section 15,6, Army Act, (v) under the provisions of any enactment providing for the crediting of a fine to the Cantonment Fund and (vi) under any other enactment for the time being in force in respect of which the Governor-General in Council has, by general or special order, directed that the fines realized thereunder shall be credited to the Cantonment Fund. These provisions have not been affected by any subsequent legislation up to 1st April 1937, and were therefore, if otherwise valid, laws in force immediately before the commencement of Part 3, Constitution Act. Statutory provisions with regard to Cantonment Funds first appeared in the Cantonments Act, 1889. The provisions of that Act which relate to them were substantially reproduced in the Consolidating and Amending Act of 1910; and Section 106 of the Act of 1924 only differs in this respect from the earlier statutes by the addition of the provisions (v) and (vi) set out above.

4. Between the enactment of the Cantonments Act, 1910, and the Cantonments Act, 1924, respectively the Montagu Chelmsford Reforms, embo