Raghubar Dayal, Ag.C.J. - (1.) Nazakat All Khan, the appellant, filed a petition before His Highness the Nawab of Rampur sometime before the 1st of December 1949, praying that the order of the Board of Revenue, Rampur, dated the 22nd May 1949, be set aside. The State of Rampur merged with the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh in 1949. Paragraph 12, Clause (e) of The States' Merger (Governors' Provinces) Order, 1949, as amended by the States' Merger (United Provinces) Order, 1949, provided: "12. As from the appointed day, --(e) all proceedings (including proceedings for confirmation of the sentence of death) pending before the Ijlas-e-Humayun immediately before the appointed day shall stand transferred to the High Court at Allahabad and shall be heard and decided by that Court as if they had been proceedings instituted or commenced in that Court or Submitted to it for confirmation of a sentence of death by a Sessions Judge subordinate to that Court, in accordance with Sub-section (2) of Section 31 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898;". The tribunal which His Highness the Nawab of Rampur constituted for considering such petitions was known as 'Ijlas-e-Humayun'. This petition in suit got transferred to this Court under para. 12, Clause (e) of the aforesaid Merger Order.
(2.) No appeal lay against the order of the Board of Revenue, Rampur. It must have been in the exercise of the royal prerogative that His Highness the Nawab of Rampur entertained such petitions and decided them. No such petition or appeal could have been instituted before this Court after the appointed day, i.e., the 1st of December 1949, against the orders which had been passed by the Board of Revenue, Rampur, prior to that date. This Court cannot therefore treat these proceedings to be proceedings instituted or commenced in this Court and consequently cannot hear and decide them as such proceedings. It follows that this appeal cannot be heard and must be rejected as not maintainable after the appointed day.
(3.) We accordingly reject this appeal, but make no order about costs of these proceedings. We also discharge the notice issued on the 13th of March 1953 to the opposite parties for the consideration of an application praying for the stay of the hearing of the appeal.;