Kodakan Pillai, G.S.N. V. Mudanayake, P.B.

[IN THE PRIVY COUNCIL]

1953 Present : Lord Normand, Lord Oaksey, Lord Tucker, Lord Asquith of
Bishopstone and Lord Cohen

G. S. N. KODAKAN PILLAI, Appellant, and P. B. MUDANAYAKE et al., Respondents

PRIVY COUNCIL APPEAL NO. 7 OF 1952

S. C. 368-Application for Writ of Certiorari

Citizenship Act, No. 18 of 1948, ss. 4 and 5-Parliamentary Elections Amendment Act, No. 48 of 1949, s. 3, amending Parliamentary Elections Order in Council, 1946, s. 4 {1) (a)-Discriminatory legislation ?-Constitution Order in Council, 1946, s. 29 (2) (b)-Indian and Pakistani Residents (Citizenship) Act, No. 3 of 1949- Judicial notice of reports of Parliamentary Commissions-Maxim Omnia praesumuntur rite esse acta-Applicability to Act of a legislature.

Sections 4 and 5 of the Citizenship Act, No. 18 of 1948, and section 3 of the Parliamentary Elections Amendment Act, No. 48 of 1949, which amends section 4 (1) (a) of the Parliamentary Elections Order in Council, 1946, constitute legislation on citizenship and cannot be said to be legislation making persons of the Indian Tamil community liable to a disability to which persons of other communities are not made liable. They do not, therefore, offend against section 29 (2) (6) of the Constitution Order-in-Council, 1946.

Judicial notice may be taken of such matters as the reports of Parliamentary Commissions and of such other facts as must be assumed to have been within the contemplation of the legislature when the Citizenship Act and the Parliamentary Elections Amendment Act were passed.

There may be circumstances in which legislation though framed so as not to offend directly against a constitutional limitation of the power of the legislature may indirectly achieve the same result. In such circumstances, the legislation would be ultra vires.

The maxim omnia praesumuntur rite esse acta is as applicable to the Act of a legislature as to any other acts and the court will not be astute to attribute to the legislature motives or purposes or objects which are beyond its power. It must be shown affirmatively by the party challenging a Statute, which is upon its face intra vires, that it was enacted as part of a plan to effect indirectly something which the legislature had no power to achieve directly.

APPEAL from a judgment of the Supreme Court reported in (1951) 53 N. L. R. 25.

D. N. Pritt, Q.C., with Frank Gahan, Q.C., S. Canagarayer and Sirimevan Amerasinghe, for the appellant.

Sir Hartley Shawcross, Q.C., with Sir Frank Soskice, Q.C., Dingle Foot, Walter Jayawardene and Biden Ashbrooke, for the second respondent (Commissioner of Elections).

Cur. adv. vult.

434

May 11, 1953. [Delivered by LORD OAKSEY]-

This is an appeal from the judgment of the Supreme Court of Ceylon dated the 28th day of September, 1951, granting a Mandate in the nature of a Writ of Certiorari quashing an order made by the second respondent dated the 2nd July, 1951, that the appellant's name be included in the Register of electors for the Electoral District 84, Ruwanwella, for the year 1950.

The issue for determination in this appeal is whether the Supreme Court of Ceylon were right in holding that sections 4 and 5 of the Citizenship Act, No. 18 of 1948 (hereinafter referred to as the Citizenship Act), and section 4 (1) (a) of the Ceylon (Parliamentary Elections) Amendment Act, No. 48 of 1949 (hereinafter referred to as the Franchise Act) were valid or whether as contended on behalf of the appellant and as held by the third respondent (hereinafter referred to as the Revising Officer), these sections were made in contravention of section 29 (2) of the Ceylon (Constitution and Independence) Orders in Council, 1946 and 1947.

It is convenient to set out here the provisions of section 29 of the Constitution Order-in-Council, sections 4 and 5 of the Citizenship Act and section 4 (1) (a) of the Franchise Act.

Ceylon (Constitution and Indepe

Click Here to Read the rest of this document