Ayyangar, J. - (1.) Section 13 of the Displaced Persons (Debts Adjustment) Act, 12951 (Central Act LXX of 1951) which will be referred to hereafter as the Act, enacts: "13. Claims by displaced creditors against persons who are not displaced debtors.-At any time within one year after the date on which this Act comes into force in any local area, any displaced creditor claiming a debt from any other person who is not a displaced person may make an application, in such form as may be prescribed, to the Tribunal within the local limits of whose jurisdiction he or the respondent or, if there are more respondents than one, any of such respondents, actually and voluntarily resides, or carries on business or personally works for gain, together with a statement of the debt owing to him with full particulars thereof."
(2.) The respondents in each of these 13 appeals, which have been consolidated for hearing are "displaced creditors" and the point arising for decision in them is whether they could make a claim under this provision against the State of Punjab. A petition claiming such relief was filed by the respondent in Civil Appeal 439 of 1961 before the Subordinate Judge, Amritsar who was the Tribunal created under the Act for the purpose of receiving claims under S. 13 and, similarly, the contesting respondents in the other 12 appeals 440-451 of 1961 made similar claims before the Subordinate Judge, Hissar. Immediately the claims were filed and notices issued to the State of Punjab, a preliminary objection to the maintainability of the applications was raised by the State and the Tribunal at Amritsar passed an order on May 7, 1953 rejecting the preliminary objection and holding that on a proper construction of S. 13 the claim was maintainable before it. Similar objections were also raised before the Subordinate Judge, Hissar who, by orders passed on May 25, 1953, similarly overruled the preliminary objections and held that the claims were maintainable before him. The State thereafter filed revisions in all the 13 cases to the High Court of Punjab. These petitions came in the first instance before a learned Single Judge who directed that they should be placed before a Division Bench and the two learned Judges constituting the Division Bench after referring briefly to the arguments urged on behalf of the State in support of their contention that the State was not a 'person' against whom a claim could be made under S. 13 of the Act, expressed their opinion that the matter deserved to be decided by a larger Bench and the cases were thereupon placed before the Chief Justice for constituting a Full Bench for deciding the point of law which was formulated in these terms: "Whether an application under S. 13 of the Displaced Persons (Debts Adjustment) Act, 1951, is not maintainable against the State of Punjab." A Full Bench of three Judges accordingly heard arguments upon the point raised and held by a unanimous judgment that the applications were maintainable and in doing so overruled two earlier decisions which had taken a contrary view. The revision petitions were thereafter posted for final hearing before the learned Chief Justice who had originally heard them as a Single Judge and who, giving effect to the views expressed by the Full Bench, dismissed them. The State of Punjab thereafter applied to this Court for special leave and this being' granted, the appeals are now before us.
(3.) As would be seen from the foregoing the only question that arises for consideration is whether under S. 13 of the Act a "displaced, creditor" could make a claim against the Government either of the State or of the Union, subject to the limitation of one year referred to in the opening words of the provision. It is not in dispute that each one of the contesting respondents is "a displaced person" nor is it the contention that the State is a displaced person. These two matters being put aside, the submission of the appellant in brief is twofold:(1) that what is claimed in the applications filed against the State is not 'a debt" within the definition of the term in the Act to be presently referred to and (2) that even if it be held that the sum claimed is a "debt" , the same is not being claimed from a person of whom it would be said that he or it. "actually and voluntarily resides or carries on business or personally works for gain". Both these arguments stem from a single postulate and that is that the State is not within the scope of the enactment, not being named expressly or by necessary implication, and hence is not bound in respect of the liabilities, if any which the respondents might have against it by the provisions of the Act, and therefor is not subject to the jurisdiction of the tribunals created by the Act. It is the further contention that far from the intention of the enactment being to bind the State, the language that it employs and the provisions that it enacts, both from the point of view of the positive provisions as well as the omissions, tend strongly to establish that the State was outside the Act. These submissions were supported by an elaborate and able argument which covered a very wide ground of constitutional law and general jurisprudence which we shall notice and deal with, in their proper place. It would be seen from this brief statement of the points involved that nothing very much turns on the facts of the case. We would, however, set out the facts in one of the appeals, Civil Appeal 439 of 1961, merely as illustrative of the type of claims involved in these appeals. We should, however, hasten to add that in regard to most of these applications made by the respondents to the Tribunal there is a dispute about the facts themselves and about the genuineness and the quantum of the claim which have not yet been investigated, since only the preliminary objection to the maintainability of the applications has been decided and not the merits of the claims or the defence.;