Full Judgment Text
http://JUDIS.NIC.IN SUPREME COURT OF INDIA Page 1 of 8
PETITIONER:
VISHNU PARTAP SINGH
Vs.
RESPONDENT:
STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH & ORS.
DATE OF JUDGMENT12/01/1990
BENCH:
PUNCHHI, M.M.
BENCH:
PUNCHHI, M.M.
RANGNATHAN, S.
KULDIP SINGH (J)
CITATION:
1990 AIR 522 1990 SCR (1) 43
1990 SCC Supl. 43 JT 1990 (1) 20
1990 SCALE (1)15
ACT:
Constitution of India: Article 363 and Covenant of Ruler
of states in Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand--Whether Ruler of
Chhatarpur had set aside the demised property as private
property?
HEADNOTE:
The question is whether the property in dispute was the
private property owned by the Ruler or State property? On
August 25, 1948 the then Maharaja of erstwhile Chhatarpur
State made a gift of the house in dispute in favour of his
father-in-law Dewan Shankar Partap Singh, now deceased and
represented by his legal representative appellant. This gift
became the subject-matter of dispute in the suit filed by
the State of Madhya Pradesh in 1962. The Trial Court’s clear
findings were that the property in dispute was not that of
the Maharaja as it had been gifted away by him to the de-
fendant and was mistakenly shown later as ’State Property’.
The High Court allowed the appeal of the State of Madhya
Pradesh on the view taken by it that the property in dispute
had vested in the United State of Vindhya Pradesh on May 1,
1948 and thereafter no valid gift could be made by the Ruler
in favour of the defendant; and whatever rights and power
the Ruler had as a sovereign ceased to exist after May 1,
1948 and the gift made thereafter could not give the defend-
ant a valid title to the property.
Allowing the appeal, this Court,
HELD: The Ruler of Chhatarpur lost none of his sover-
eignty by integrating his State with other States except to
the extent in which it was arranged or re-distributed on
some of its aspects. It is in exercise of that sovereign
power that the Ruler, had set apart the property in dispute
as one of his private properties in the list submitted on
July 5, 1948. [52F]
The High Court committed an error that the Ruler had
lost his sovereign right to earmark the property in dispute
as his private property after May 1, 1948 or that the said
property vested in the State with effect from that date or
that the letter Exhibit P-9 of Shri N.M. Buch
44
http://JUDIS.NIC.IN SUPREME COURT OF INDIA Page 2 of 8
and the lists attached thereto had the effect of divesting
the appellants of the title to the property in dispute in
favour of the State with effect from that date. [53E]
Virendra Singh & Ors. v. State of Uttar Pradesh, [1955]
I SCR 415, referred to.
JUDGMENT:
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No.
509(N)of 1975.
From the Judgment and Order dated 25.7.1973 of the
Madhya Pradesh High Court in First Appeal No. 118 of 1966.
A.K. Ganguli and C.N. Sreekumar for the Appellant.
R.B. Misra and S.K. Agnihotri for the Respondents.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
M.M. PUNCHHI, J. This appeal by special leave is against
a judgment and decree in reversal passed by a Division Bench
of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Jabalpur.
One has straightaway to come to grips with some basic
facts of the case alongside the historic backdrop influenc-
ing their course. The property in dispute is a medium-sized
house bearing No. 494/1, Partap Sagar Ward, known as Gulab
Rai Wala House, in the city of Chhatarpur. In the plaint
filed by the District Collector, Chattarpur, dated May 5,
1962, it was valued at Rs.40,000 and its rental value barely
as Rs.114.77 NP. In British days, the State of Chattarpur,
like other such States, was an independent State, under the
paramountcy of the British Crown. The British Crown was the
suzerain power as acknowledged by the Indian States which
owed a modified allegiance to it, but none to the Government
of India. On India having obtained independence the suzer-
ainty of the British Crown over the Indian States lapsed
simultaneously because of section 7 of the Indian Independ-
ency Act, 1947. It is a matter of history that immediately
thereafter all but three of the Indian States acceded to the
Dominion by executing Instrument of Accession. Chattarpur
was one such State. The new Dominion of India was empowered
to accept such like accessions by a suitable amendment in
the Government of India Act, 1935. The sovereignty of the
acceding States was expressly recognised and safeguarded.
The identical Instrument of Accession, which each Ruler
45
signed, was in the exercise of his sovereignty in and over
his State and clause 8 provided:
"Nothing in this Instrument affects the continuance of my
sovereignty in and over this State, or, save as provided by
or under this Instrument, the exercise of any powers, au-
thority and rights now enjoyed by me as Ruler of this State
or the validity of any law at present in force in this
State."
To put it differently, the effect of the accession was to
retain full autonomy and sovereignty to the Rulers in their
respective States except on three subjects, namely, Defence,
External Affairs and Communications. These alone were trans-
ferred to the Central Government of the new Domimon.
On March 13, 1948, thirty-five States in Bundelkhand and
Baghelkhand regions agreed to unite themselves into one
State which was to be called the United State of Vindhya
Pradesh. Chattarpur being one such State in Bundelkhand area
was a party thereto. The signing thirty-five Rulers had
brought about the new State into being purely as a domestic
arrangement between themselves and not as a treaty with the
Dominion of India. Obviously there was surrender of a frac-
tion of the sovereignty of each Ruler to the newly created
http://JUDIS.NIC.IN SUPREME COURT OF INDIA Page 3 of 8
State but there was no further surrender of sovereign powers
to the Dominion of India beyond those already surrendered in
1947 relating to Defence, External Affairs and Communica-
tions. Despite the readjustment, the sum total of the sover-
ignties which had resided in each before the covenant then
resided in the whole and its component parts; none of it was
lost to the Dominion of India.
The articles of the covenant, so far as they are rele-
vant for our purposes, are articles VI and XI, which are
reproduced hereafter:
"ARTICLE VI
(1) The Ruler of each Covenanting State shall, as soon
as may be practicable, and in any event not later than the
1st May, 1948, make over the Administration of his State to
the Raj Pramukh;
(a) all rights, authority and jurisdiction belonging
to the Ruler which appertain, or are incidental to the
Govern-
46
ment of the Covenanting State shall vest in the United State
and shall hereafter be exerciable only as provided by this
Government or by the Constitution to be framed thereunder:
(b) all duties and obligations of the Ruler pertaining
or incidental to the Government of Covenanting State shall
devolve on the United State and shall be discharged by it;
(c) all the assets and liabilities of the Covenanting
State shall be the assets and liabilities of the United
State.
XXX XXX XXX
XXX
ARTICLE XI
(1) The Ruler of each Covenanting State shall be
entitled to the full ownership, use and enjoyment of all
private properties (as distinct from State Properties)
belonging to him on the date of his making over the Adminis-
tration of the State to the Raj Pramukh.
(2) He shall furnish to the Raj Pramukh before the 1st
May, 1948 an inventory of all the immovable properties,
securities and cash balances held by him as such private
property.
(3) If any dispute arises as to whether any item of
property is the private property of the Ruler or State
Property, it shall be referred to a Judicial Officer to be
nominated by the Government of India, and the decision of
that person shall be final and binding on all parties con-
cerned."
Despite the distinction drawn in Article XI, there was
in reality no distinction between State property and the
property privately owned by a Ruler, since the Ruler was the
owner of all the property in the State. For the purposes of
arrangement of finance, however, such a distinction was
practically being observed by all Rulers. The apparent
effect of the covenant was that all the property in the
State vested in the United State of Vindhya Pradesh except
private property which was to remain with the Rulers. As is
evident, the Ruler was required
47
under Article XI to furnish to the Raj Pramukh before May 1,
1948 an inventory of all immovable properties, securities
and cash balances held by him as such private property.
Conceivably, on a dispute arising as to whether any item of
property was or was not the private property of the Ruler
and hence state property, it was required to be referred to
a Judicial Officer to be nominated by the Government of
India and the decision of that officer was to be final and
http://JUDIS.NIC.IN SUPREME COURT OF INDIA Page 4 of 8
binding on all parties concerned. Despite the stern language
of Article XI, requiring a Ruler to furnish the list of his
private properties by May 1, 1948, the covenant did not
contain any clause or article providing penal consequences
which would or were likely to follow in the event of a Ruler
not furnishing the list of private properties before that
date. Nothing is available in the covenant and none was
pointed out to us that if a Ruler failed to furnish an
inventory of his private properties before May 1, 1948, he
was debarred from furnishing it at a later stage and that
failure of his part had the effect of divesting him of title
to his private properties.
The House in dispute was built by the then Ruler Mahara-
ja Sir Vishvanath Singh Ju Deo to accommodate Gulab Rai, his
Private Secretary and that is how it acquired its name as
Gulab Rai Wala house. The parties were at variance about the
subsequent user of the house whether it was for State pur-
poses or private purposes of the Ruler. The factual undenied
positioin is that the Ruler of Chattarpur on July 5, 1948
(vide Exhibit D-13-5) submitted a list to the Raj Pramukh of
the United State of Vindhya Pradesh of his private proper-
ties, and in the said list the house in dispute, namely,
Gulab Rai Wala house, was shown as the private property of
the Ruler (by the then Maharaja Shri Bhawani Singh Ju Deo).
In the following month, on August 25, 1948, the said Mahara-
ja Shri Bhawani Singh Ju Deo made a gift of the house in
dispute in favour of his father-in-law Dewan Shanker Partap
Singh (now deceased and represented by his legal representa-
tives-appellants). His gift has become the subject matter of
dispute in the suit, out of which this appeal has arisen,
for grounds to be taken note of later at an appropriate
stage.
By means of another agreement dated December 26, 1949,
between the Governor General of India and the Rulers of the
States forming the United State of Vindhya Pradesh, the
covenant entered into on March 13, 1948, was abrogated. The
articles of this agreement, in so far as they are relevant
for our purposes, read as under:
48
"ARTICLE I
As from the first day of January, 1950, the Covenant entered
into in March, 1948 by the Ruler of certain States in Bun-
delkhand and Baghelkhand for the formation of the United
State of Vindhya Pradesh (hereinafter referred to as "the
Covenant") shall stand abrogated.
ARTICLE II
As from the aforesaid day, the United State of Vindhya
Pradesh shall cease to exist and all the property, assets
and liabilities of that State, as well as its right duties
and obligations shall be those of the Government of India.
ARTICLE III
The Ruler of each of the States specified in the Schedule to
this agreement (hereinafter referred to as the Covenanting
States’) hereby cedes to the Government of India, with
effect from the aforesaid day, full and exclusive authority,
jurisdiction and powers for, and in relation to, the gover-
nance of that State; and thereafter the Government of India
shall be competent to exercise the said powers, authority
and jurisdiction in such manner and through such agency as
it may think fit.
XXX XX XX X
XX
ARTICLE VII
(1) The Ruler of each Covenanting State shall be entitled to
the full ownership, use and enjoyment of all private proper-
http://JUDIS.NIC.IN SUPREME COURT OF INDIA Page 5 of 8
ties (as distinct from State Properties) belonging to him on
the date of his making over the Administration of the State
to the Raj Pramukh in pursuance of the Covenant.
-
(2) If any dispute arises as to whether any item of
property is the private property of the Ruler or State
property, it shall be referred to a judicial officer to be
nominated by the Government of India, and the decision of
that officer shall be final and binding on all parties
concerned. ’ ’
49
This Agreement of the year 1949 paved the way for the Cen-
tral Government appointing a Chief Commissioner as Head of
the Administration of Vindhya Pradesh, followed by the
Parliament making it a Part ’C’ State in the year 195 1,
followed by the creation of the State of Madhya Pradesh in
the year 1956 under the States Reorganisation Act. And such
position continues till date.
As is prominent, under the covenant of March 13, 1948,
and as repeated in the agreement of December 26, 1949, any
dispute arising, whether any item of property was the pri-
vate property of the Ruler or State property, was to be
referred to a Judicial Officer to be nominated by the Gov-
ernment of India and the decision of that officer was to be
final and binding on all parties concerned. It appears,
however, that a letter dated January 22, 1950 (copy whereof
was Exhibit P-9) was sent by Shri N.M. Buch, Secretary in
the Ministry of States, New Delhi, to the Ruler suggesting
that a Conference was held between him and the Ruler at
Naugong from 16th to 18th September, 1949, and some deci-
sions were taken with regard to the private properties of
the Ruler and the list of such property as finally emerging
was Exhibit P-10 attached with the letter Exhibit P-9. Item
No. 22 in that list, being Gulab Rai Wala house, was shown
to be State property as per decision taken in the said
Conference. From these documents, the High Court when re-
solving the claims of the State and the donee has taken the
view that originally the property in dispute was claimed by
the ruler as his private property but on agreement it was
decided that it be State property, and further the legal
effect thereof was that with effect from May 1, 1948, the
date of agreement of merger, the property in dispute stood
vested in the new Union. The second factor which weighed
with the High Court to conclude in the aforesaid manner was
that listing of properties, whether State or private, was
open to objection and could be settled by a Judicial Officer
to be nominated by the Government of India, as per the
articles aforereferred to, and a raiseable dispute could
otherwise be settled amicably mutually, Mr. Buch’s letter
being indicative of that. On that basis, the gift deed dated
August 25, 1948, was held by the High Court to be ineffec-
tive, the said property having already vested in the State
with effect from a prior date on May 1, 1948. And since
after that date, the Ruler was incompetent to effect a valid
gift deed in favour of anyone, the State’s claim of posses-
sion and mesne profits was held irresistable.
Undeniably, the Dewan Shanker Partap Singh was in pos-
session of the house in dispute when the suit was instituted
by the State of Madhya Pradesh on May 5, 1962. The suit was
filed almost 14 years of
50
the gift in his favour. The gift was challenged as null and
void and ineffective for the reasons: (i) the gift deed was
written on an ordinary paper; (ii) was unregistered, (iii)
was not signed by any witness, (iv) did not bear the seal of
http://JUDIS.NIC.IN SUPREME COURT OF INDIA Page 6 of 8
the Maharaja, (v) prior to the date of the gift the power of
the Maharaja was transferred to Vindhya Pradesh Government
and the said house was not his private property, and (vi)
the house in dispute was already declared to be the property
of the Vindhya Pradesh Government as per terms of the cove-
nant between the ex-Ruler of Chattarpur and the Government
of India, and the Civil Court was not competent to question
the legality of the conditions of the said covenant. On that
basis, possession of the house was claimed from the donee
Dewan Shanker Partap Singh as also arrears of rent from
August 25, 1949 onwards at the rate of Rs.114.77 NP, totall-
ing Rs.18,866, before the trial court.
The suit was contested by the defendant-Shanker Partap
Singh contending that (i) the gift of August 25, 1948, was
not void and inoperative and that there was no legal re-
quirement to use a particular kind of paper for executing a
gift deed; (ii) non-registration thereof had no legal effect
as the executant had admitted execution of the document,
(iii) the Transfer of Property act was not applicable at the
relevant time, (iv) the deed was signed by the Ruler and the
absence of seal was of no consequence, (v) the property was
the private property of the Maharaja, and (vi) finally the
Ruler had every right to make such gift. Besides, a number
of other pleas were raised, which are unnecessary to be
dealt with for the present purposes. Similarly, the pleas in
the replication, countering the pleas in the written state-
ment, also need not require any attention for the present
purposes, for the way in which we propose to deal with this
appeal.
The trial Court framed a number of issues which attract-
ed voluminous evidence to be led by the parties. The Mahara-
ja of Chhatarpur was examined as defendant’s witness and
owned making of the gift in favour of his father-in-law. He
admitted, however, that Shri Buch had met him in connection
with the covenant, but he denied that he had received any
letter Exhibit P-9 from Shri Buch or the lists Exhibits P-
10 to P- 12 regarding his private and State properties, were
a part thereof. His evidence was suggestive of there being
no agreement between him and Shri Buch to change the list of
properties. The trial Court’s clear findings were that the
property in dispute was not that of the Maharaja but that of
the defendant, as it had been gifted to hun by the Maharaja
on August 25, 1948, and that the house was mistakenly shown
later as ’State property’. In that view of the matter, the
trial
51
Court dismissed the suit. The appeal of the State of Madhya
Pradesh was, however, allowed by the High Court on the view
taken that the property in dispute had vested in the United
States of Vindhya Pradesh on May 1, 1948, and that thereaf-
ter no valid gift could be made by the Ruler in favour of
the defendant. The High Court further held that whatever
rights and powers the Ruler had as a sovereign ceased to
exist after May 1, 1948, and the said date was fixed not
later than May 1, 1948, and the gift deed made thereafter on
August 25, 1948, could not give the defendant a valid title
to the property on that basis. With regard to damages, the
High Court took the view that the rate of Rs.56 per mensem
as at one time demanded initially by the State should be the
basis for assessment of damages. In that view of the matter,
the suit of the State of Madhya Pradesh Government was
decreed for possession, but reducing the damages to
Rs.16,735.35 paise. And this has given rise to the present
appeal.
History of the covenant entered into by the Rulers and
http://JUDIS.NIC.IN SUPREME COURT OF INDIA Page 7 of 8
the final integration finds recognition in Virendra Singh
and others v. State of Uttar Pradesh, [1955] 1 SCR 415. The
significant passage as available at page 4 19 of the report,
is worthy of reproduction here:
"After this, on 13th March, 1948, thirty five States in
Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand (including Charkhari and Sarila)
agreed to unite themselves into one State which was to be
called the United State of Vindhya Pradesh. In pursuance of
this agreement each of the thirty five Rulers signed a
covenant on 18th March, 1948, which brought the new State
into being. It is important to note that this was a purely
domestic arrangement between themselves and not a treaty
with the Dominion of India. Each Ruler necessarily surren-
dered a fraction of his sovereignty to the whole but there
was no further surrender of sovereign powers to the Dominion
of India beyond those already surrendered in 1947, namely,
Defence, External Affairs and Communications. Despite the
readjustment, the sum total of the sovereignties which had
resided in each before the covenant now resided in the whole
and its camponentparts: none of it was lost to the Dominion
of India."
(Emphasis supplied)
Only a fraction of sovereignty to the whole was surrendered
by the Ruler--not his total sovereignty. Though it was
expected by Article XI of the covenant of the Ruler to
submit a list of his private properties
52
before May 1, 1948, his individual sovereign power did not
stand taken away after May 1, 1948. He was still sovereign,
as is our view, to submit the list beyond that date and
there was no penal clause in the covenant to penalise him
for belated observance or to treat belated observance non
est. It is the admitted case that factually the Ruler of
Chattarpur had in his list of July 10, 1948, shown the
property in dispute to be his private property and this was
followed by a gift of it in writing on August 25, 1948, in
favour of his father-in-law. It is in the assertion of his
sovereign power that he gave his list on July 5, 1948
(Exhibit D-13-5) and it is in assertion of the same sover-
eign power as also individual that he made the gift of the
house in dispute to his father-in-law. Support for such view
is available in Virendra Singh’s case (supra) from the
following passage occurring at page 429 of the report;
" ..... The Rulers of Charkhari and Sarila retained at the
moment of final cession, whatever measure of sovereignty
they had when paramountcy lapsed, less the portion given to
the Indian Dominion by their Instruments of Accession in
1947; they lost none of it during the interlude when they
toyed with the experiment of integration. There was then
redistribution of some of its aspects but the whole of
whatever they possessed before the integration returned to
each when the United State of Vindhya Pradesh was brought to
an end and ceased to exist. Thereafter each acceded to the
Dominion of India in his own right." (Emphasis supplied).
It is thus plain that the Ruler of Chhatarpur lost none.
of his sovereignty by integrating his State with other
States except to the extent in which it was arranged or
redistributed on some of its aspects. It is in exercise of
that sovereign power that the Ruler, in the manner indicated
above, had set apart the property in dispute as one of his
private properties, in the list submitted on July 5, 1948.
It is nobody’s case that he could not submit such a list on
July 5, 1948. Further, in exercise of his sovereign as also
individual right over his private property, that he trans-
ferred the house in dispute to his father-in-law on August
http://JUDIS.NIC.IN SUPREME COURT OF INDIA Page 8 of 8
25, 1948. In these circumstances, the suggested Conference
which took place later in September, 1949 between him and
Shri N.M. Buch, Secretary in the Ministry of States, New
Delhi, evident from letter Exhibit P-9 dated January 22,
1950, and the lists Exhibits P- 10 to P-12, appended there-
with, is not of much significance. In the first place, the
Ruler denied when appearing as a witness in the trial as
having received any such letter or the lists appended there-
with, sug-
53
gestive of the fact that he had reconverted the donated
property to be a State property. In the second place, but
for the said letter, purportedly issued at a time when the
State of Chhatarpur had otherwise ceded to the Central
Government vide agreement dated January 1, 1950, there was
no direct evidence forth-coming for such conference. In the
third place, even if such Conference had taken place in
September 1949, as suggested, the minutes thereof cannot be
treated as amounting to a divestiture of the gift made in
favour of the father-in-law. Fourthly, the Ruler had no
sovereign power towards administering his State which had
become part of the integrated United State in terms of
Article VI of the covenant, and during the integration he
could not exercise such a sovereign power, so as to take
away the property of a private person and treat it as State
property because the property in dispute having once vested
in the defendant-appellants could not be divested in the
manner suggested. And lastly, there was no raiseable ques-
tion or issue which the Ruler could, while sitting with Shri
Buch, decide amicably without the aid of the Judicial Offi-
cer nominated by the Government entering upon such dispute,
because before integration he owned his State and its
properties and there could legitimately not arise a dispute
as to which was his private property or State property and
thus its settlement by a mutual consent did not arise.
Taking thus the totality of these circumstances in view, we
are driven to the conclusion that the High Court committed
an error that the Ruler lost his sovereign right to ear-mark
the property in dispute as his private property after May 1,
1948, or that the said property vested in the State with
effect from that date or that the letter Exhibit P-9 of Shri
N.M. Buch and the lists attached thereto, had the effect of
divesting the appellants of the title to the property in
dispute in favour of the State with effect from that date.
In that strain, factual position having not been denied, the
validity of the gift dated August 25, 1948, cannot be ques-
tioned on the grounds enumerated in the plaint, due to
exercise of sovereign power of the Ruler in the grant there-
of at that point of time. Once that is held the claim for
damages too caves in. We hold it accordingly.
For the view above taken, we allow this appeal, set
aside the judgment and decree of the High Court and dismiss
the suit of the State of Madhya Pradesh with costs.
R.N.J. Appeal al-
lowed.
54