Report No. 40

10. Legislation of 1955-Constitutional angle.- Legislation was consequently undertaken in 1955 to simplify the unduly complicated and dilatory procedure laid down in Part IX of the Prisoners Act, 1900, to repeal that Part and to re-enact its provisions with suitable modifications as a separate law. As a matter of constitutional interest, it should be noted that, apart from sections 34 to 52 comprising the said Part IX, the Prisoners Act was a law relating to entry 4 of the State List in the Seventh Schedule, which reads "Prisoners, reformatories, Borstal institutions and other institutions of a like nature, and persons detained therein, etc.".

The specified sections of this Act were, in pith and substance, provisions relating to criminal procedure and civil procedure covered by entries 2 and 13, respectively, in the Concurrent List. This separation of the Concurrent List matters from an existing law relating in the main to a State subject was desirable from the constitutional point of view.