Report No. 60

6.12. Ordinance amending Acts.-

While on the subject of temporary amending laws, we may refer to the situation of an Ordinance amending a temporary Act, which arose in a Supreme Court case.1 In that case, the enactments involved were:-

(i) the Defence of India Act, 1939 (a temporary Act), (ii) the amendments thereto by Ordinance No. 12 of 1946, and (iii) the Repealing and Amending Act No. 2 of 1948 (which repealed the Ordinance and repealed the Defence of India Act also). On the repeal of the amending Ordinance, the amendments made thereby (in the nature of savings for rights, liabilities etc.) were held to have died. The non-applicability or otherwise of section 6A was not considered, perhaps because the section does not find a mention in section 30 dealing with Ordinances.

We have considered the question whether it is necessary to make a provision on the subject. If the effect of the formal repeal of a law amending a temporary law is to destroy the amendments made by the amending law, some practical difficulties could arise, and one way to solve them would be to provide (in the clause under discussion) that it applies also to an Ordinance amending a temporary Act, when the Ordinance is repealed. We have, however, after careful consideration, decided not to encumber the section with such complications.

1. State of Uttar Pradesh v. Jagamandar Das, AIR 1954 SC 683 (685), para. 8.

6.13. Amendments made by Ordinance would not, therefore, fall within the purview of this clause.