TMI Blog1964 (9) TMI 60X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... customers on different dates at a rate higher than was authorised by notification dated September 30, 1952 issued by the Steel Controller under the said order. He was acquitted by the Additional City Magistrate but on appeals preferred by the State Government, the learned Judges set aside the acquittal and convicted him of the offences and sentenced him to pay a fine of ₹ 100 in each case with imprisonment in default of payment of fine. It is the correctness of this judgment of the High Court that is canvassed before us by the appellant in these appeals. To appreciate the points raised by the appellant it is necessary to narrate briefly the history of the legislation on the topic of control over the price at which scrap was permitted to be sold by dealers. The Defence of India Act, 1939 enabled the Central Government to frame rules, among others, for maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community (vides. 2). In pursuance thereof Rule 81 (2) of the Defence of India Rules empowered the Central Government so far as appears to them to be necessary or expedient for . . . . . . maintaining supplies and services essential to the life of the community ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... orce on that date continued in force even thereafter. The State legislation on this topic started on October 9, 1948 with the promulgation of the Madhya Bharat Essential Supplies (Temporary Powers) Ordinance, 1948, which was a reproduction of the Indian Essential Supplies (Temporary Powers) Ordinance, 1946. When this Ordinance was replaced in India by the Essential Supplies (Temporary Powers) Act, 1946, the same process was repeated in Madhya Bharat by the enactment of the Essential Supplies (Temporary Powers) Act (Samvat 2005) (Madhya Bharat Act III of 1948). Among the essential, commodities dealt with by the State enactment were iron and steel [vide S. 2(3)(7)]. Section 4 of the Act read: 4. Powers to control production, supply, distribution etc., of essential commodities. (1) The Government so far as it appears to it to be necessary or expedient for maintaining or increasing supplies of any essential commodities, or for securing their equitable distribution and availability at fair prices may by an Order notified in the Official Gazette provide for regulating or prohibiting the production, supply, distribution and movement thereof, and trade and commerce therein. (2) ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... lers etc., proceeded on the same lines. The form of the notification by the Steel Controller to the Government of India, referred to in this notification was on the following lines : There was a schedule to the notification fixing the maximum prices and it was divided into five columns. First was the number of the item, the second was the description or classification of the material and the next three which were headed columns I, II and III dealt with specified maximum basic prices per ton for sale at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. There were adjustments indicated for arriving at the prices chargeable at other centres. Column I specified the prices for sales by Controlled Sources other than those mentioned in column II. The second column was headed specified prices fixed for sales by scrap merchants who have been declared controlled sources and the, last or third column specified the maximum for sales by all persons other than those mentioned in columns I and II. Different maxima were fixed for sale by persons falling under the three columns, the first column price being the lowest, the second t little higher and the last which included sales by retail dealers to the consuming ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the appellant could not have been guilty of the offence with which he was charged. But the question is whether this direction or this modification of the prices fixed under s. 5(1) of the Madhya Bharat Scrap Control Order by incorporating the notification by the Steel Controller of the Government of India in its text, subsisted in 1956 when the sales which are stated as being in contravention of the Indian Scrap Order, took place. We have already seen that the notification dated June 4, 1949 which we have extracted earlier, was issued under the Madhya Bharat Iron and Steel etc., Control Order, 1949 promulgated under the Madhya Bharat Essential Supplies (Temporary Powers) Act, 1948. The Madhya Bharat Act, however, stood repealed by virtue of the provisions of the Essential Supplies (Temporary Powers) Amendment Act, 1950 (Act 52 of 1950) under which the Essential Supplies (Temporary Powers) Act, 1946 was extended to the Part B States as and from such dates as might be specified by the Central Government. By a notification issued by the Central Government the Essential Supplies Act, 1946 was made applicable to the Part B State of Madhya Bharat from August 17, 1950. The effect of t ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Madhya Bharat law on this topic by the law in force in India did not stop with that effected by Act 52 of 1950. By a notification of the Government of India dated September 12, 1950, the Indian Scrap Order, 1943 was extended to Madhya Bharat. It is really the legal effect of this extension that calls for scrutiny in these appeals. The notification by which the Indian Scrap Order was extended to Madhya Bharat, no doubt, did not expressly provide for the repeal of the Madhya Bharat Scrap Iron Steel etc., Order, 1949 , but if the two Control Orders cannot operate simultaneously, it would be obvious that the Indian Scrap Order would have repealed and replaced the State law. In the first place, even if the provisions contained in the two sets of Orders were in identical terms, it might be proper to hold that the Indian Scrap Order replaced the State law in order to give some meaning and effect to the extension of the Indian Scrap Order to Madhya Bharat. But that is not the position here. There are marked differences between the provisions of the two Orders such that it would not be possible for the two to stand together. For instance, Rule 3 of the Indian Scrap Order prohibits pro ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... rap Order was extended to Madhya Bharat, the result was that it effectively replaced the Madhya Bharat Order on the same topic. Even granting that the Madhya Bharat Scrap Order of June 4, 1949 was repealed on the extension to that territory of the Indian Scrap Order, Mr. Agarwala urged that the direction contained in the notification of the State Government dated August 26, 1949 was a special law which stood unaffected by the extension of the Indian Scrap Order to Madhya Bharat. That when the Indian Scrap Order was extended it carried with it the notifications issued by the Controller from time to time and that after the extension of the Scrap Order to Madhya Bharat, all sales of scrap would have to be effected only in conformity with the prices fixed by the 'notifications issued under the Scrap Order was not contested. Nor was it disputed that on the terms of the notifications issued fixing the prices at which several classes of dealers might effect sales tinder the Indian Scrap Order, the Association of which the appellant was the President would have fallen under column II and would have been bound to sell scrap only at the prices fixed in that column. But it was submitte ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... this, because there has been t repeal not merely of the Madhya Bharat Essential Supplies Act no doubt with a saving but of the Madhya Bharat Scrap Order without a saving and on the repeal of the Scrap Order under which the Subordinate rule or regulation was effected the latter would also stand repealed. As explained by Lord Reading C.J. in Watson v. Winch [1916] 1 K.B. 688, 690 : It has been long established that, when an Act of Parliament is repealed, it must be considered (except as to transactions passed and closed) as if it had never existed.......... It would follow that any bye-law made under a repealed statute ceases to have any validity unless the repealing Act contains some provision preserving the validity of the bye-law notwithstanding the repeal. Admittedly there is no saving clause either in the notification of the Central Government by which the Indian Scrap Order was extended to Madhya Bharat nor, of course, in the Scrap Order itself. As the parent order under which the notification was made his been repealed without a saving the effect must be that the notification dated August 26, 1949 must, if it were held to be an independent subordinate legislation, be ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ment is repealed it must be considered (except to transactions passed and closed) as if it had never existed. This submission has, therefore, no merit and must be rejected. The second of the points urged by Mr. Agarwala was that the Scrap Dealers Association was an unincorporated body consisting wholly of retail dealers and that as each of them individually was a dealer who could himself have sold at the column M rate, the Association could not be penalised for selling at that rate. As an unincorporated body, he submitted, it was merely the aggregate of its members and so would have the rights of its constituent units. There is no force in this point either. Apart from the definition of person in the General Clauses Act as including an unincorporated body of persons, what we are concerned with is not sales by individual dealers who composed the Association, but sales by and through the Association. It was the Association that was given the facility of obtaining scrap at more favourable prices than dealers and it was that body which was subjected to control in the shape of having to sell what it had purchased from controlled sources at the prices specified in column II. ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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