Supreme Court of India
VISHNU PARTAP SINGHversusSTATE OF MADHYA PRADESH & ORS.
- Citation
- 1990 INSC 6
- Decided
- 12 January 1990
- Disposal
- Appeal(s) allowed
- Bench
- S RANGANATHAN
Holding
The Maharaja retained sovereign authority to designate and transfer his private property after the merger, making the 1948 gift valid and the High Court’s decision erroneous.
Summary
The case concerned a house in Chhatarpur that the Maharaja had listed as his private property in July 1948 and subsequently gifted to his father‑in‑law on 25 August 1948. The State of Madhya Pradesh claimed that, because the Maharaja’s sovereign powers ceased on 1 May 1948 when his state merged into the United State of Vindhya Pradesh, the gift was void and the house became State property. The trial court held the gift valid, but the High Court reversed, relying on the merger date and a subsequent letter that allegedly re‑classified the house as State property. The Supreme Court examined the 1948 covenant and its 1949 abrogation, noting that the covenant allowed the ruler to retain ownership of private assets and that no penal provision stripped him of that right for delayed filing of the inventory. It concluded that the ruler did not lose the authority to earmark and dispose of his private property after the merger, so the gift deed was valid. Consequently, the State’s claim for possession and mesne profits failed and the suit was dismissed.
Issues considered
- The nature of the house – whether it was private property of the Maharaja or State property after the merger of Chhatarpur into Vindhya Pradesh.
- Whether the Maharaja lost the sovereign power to dispose of his private property after 1 May 1948.
- The effect of the 1948 covenant and its 1949 abrogation on the status of the property.
- The legal validity of the gift deed executed on 25 August 1948.
- The applicability of the Transfer of Property Act and other statutes to the gift.
Legislation cited
Subjects
private propertysovereign rightsprincely state integrationcovenant of statesgift deedproperty disputeArticle 363Vindhya PradeshMadhya Pradesh
Judgment
VISHNU PARTAP SINGH
A
v.
STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH & ORS.
JANUARY 12, 1990
[S. RANGANATHAN, KULDIP SINGH AND B
M.M. PUNCHHI, JJ.]
Constitution of India: Article 363 and Covenant of Rufer of States
in Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand-Whether Ruler of Chhatarpur had
set aside the demised property as private property?
'• The question is whether the property in dispute was the private C
property owned by the Ruler or State property? On August 25, i948 the
then Maharaja of erstwhile Chhatarpur State made a gift of the house
in dispute in favour of his father-in-law J)ewan 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 D
State of Madhya Pradesh in i962. 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 defendant and was mistakenly shown later as
>· 'State Property'. The High Conrt allowed the appeal of the State of
Madhya Pradesh on the view taken by It that the property in dispute
had vested in the llnited State of Vindhya Pradesh on May l; i948 and E
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 i, 1948 and the gift made thereafter could not
give the defendant a valid title to the property.
Allowing the appeal, this Court, F
HELD: The Ruler of Chhatarpur l.ost none of his sovereignty by
integrating his State with other States except to the extent in which it
was arranged or re-distributed on some of its aspects. lt is in exercise of
that sovereign power that the Ruler, bad set apart the property iri
dispute as one of his private properties in the list submitted on July 5, G
1948. [52F]
the High Court committed an error that the Ruler had lost his
sovereign right to earmark the property in dispute as liis private .prop-
erty after May i, 1948 or that the said property vested in the State with
effect from that date or that the letter f<:xhibit P-9 of Shri N .M. Buch H
43
44 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1990) 1 S.C.R.
A 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. l53EJ
Virendra Singh & Ors. v. State of Uttar Pradesh, [1955) I SCR
415, referred to.
B
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.
c 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
D
M.M. PCNCHHI, 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.
C>ne has straightaway to come to grips with some basic facts of
F the case alongside the historic backdrop influencing their course. The
property in dispute is a medium-sized house bearing No. 4941 l, Partap
Sagar Ward, known as Guiab 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 J
F 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 suzerainty of the British Crown over the Indian
Stat.es lapsed simultaneously because of section 7 of the Indian lnde-
G pendency Act, 1947. It is a matter of history that immediately there-
after all but three of the Indian States acceded to the Dominion by
executing Instrument of Accession. Chattarpur was one such State.
The new Dominion oflndia was empowered to accept such like acces-
sions by a suitable amendment in the Government of India Act, 1935.
The. sovereignty of the acceding States was expressly· recognised and
H safeguarded. The identical Instrument of Accession, which each Ruler
V.P. SINGH v. STATE OF M.P. [PUNCHHI, J.] 45
signed, was in the exercise of his sovereignty in and over his State and
elause ·8 provided: A
"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,
authority and rights now en joyed by me as Ruler of this B
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 Com-
munications. These alone were transferred to the Central Government C
of the new Dominion.
1 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 D
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 oflndia. Obvi,ously there was surrender of a
"):, fraction of the sovereignty of each Ruler- to the newly created State but
there was no further surrender of sovereign powers to the Dominion of E
India beyond those alre·ady surrendered in 1947 relating to Defence,
External Affairs and Communications. Despite the readjustment, the
sum total of the soverignties 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 oflndia.
F
The articles of the covenant, so far as they are relevant 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 G
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- H;
46 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1990] 1 S.C.R.
ment of the Covenanting State shall vest in the United
A
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
B incidental to the Government of Covenanting State
shall devolve on the United State and shall be dis-
charged by it;
(c) all the assets and liabilities of the Covenanting State
shall be the assets and liabilities of the United State.
c xxx. xxx xxx xxx
ARTICLE XI
( 1) The Ruler of each Covenanting State shall be entitled
JI) 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 Administra-
tion of the State to the Raj Pramukh.
(2) He shall furnish to the Raj Pramukh before the lst
E May, 1948 an inventory of all the immovable proper-
ties, 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
c; no distinction bet~een 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
H was to remain with the Rulers. Ai; is evident, the Ruler was required
V.P. SINGH v. STATE OF M.P. !PUNCHHI, J.! 47
under Article XI to furnish to the Raj Pramukh before May I, 1948 an
A
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 binding on all parties con- B
cerned. 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 I, c
i948, 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
j properties.
The House in dispute was built by the then Ruler Maharaja Sir D
Vishvanath Singh Ju Deo to accommodate Guiab Rai, his Private
Secretary and that is how it acquired its name as Guiab Rai Wala
house. The parties were at variance about the subsequent user of the
house whether it was for State purposes or private purposes of the
Ruler. The factual undenied positioin is that the Ruler of Chattarpur
on July 5, 1948 (vide Exhibit 0-13-5) submitted a list to the Raj E
Prarnukh of the United State of Vindhya Pradesh of his private proper-
ties, and in the said list the house in dispute, namely, Guiab 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 Maharaja Shri Bhawani Singh Ju Deo made
a gift of the house in dispute in favour of his father-in-Jaw Dewan F
Shanker Partap Singh (now deceased and represented by his legal
representatives-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, bet- G
ween 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:
H
48 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1990] 1 S.C.R.
"ARTICLE!
A
As from the. first day of January, 1950, the Covenant
entered into in March, 1948 by the Ruler of certain States
in Bundelkhand and Baghelkhand for the formation of the
United State of Vindhya Pradesh (hereinafter referred to
B 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 obliga-
c tions shall be those of the Government of India.
ARTICLE III
The Ruler of each of the States specified in the Schedule to
D 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 govern-
ance of that State; and thereafter the Government of India
shall be competent to exercise the said powers, authority
E and jurisdiction in such manner and through such agency as
it may think fit.
xxx xx xx x xx
ARTICLE-VII
F
(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 !O
him on the date of his making over the Administration of
the State to the Raj Pramukh in pursuance of the
G Covenant.
(2) If any dispute arises as to whether any item of
property is the private property of the Ruler or State pro-
perty, it shall be referred to a judicial officer to be
nominated by the Government of India, and the decision of
H that officer shall be final and binding on all parties con-
cerned."
V.P. SINGH v. STATE OF M.P. !PUNCHHI, J.I 49
This Agreement of the year 1949 paved the way for the Central
A
Government appointing a Chief Commissioner as Head of the
Administration of Vindhya Pradesh, followed by the Parliament mak-
ing it a Part 'C' State in the year 1951, followed by the creation of the
State of Madhya Pradesh in the year 1956 under the States Reorganisa-
tion Act. And such position continues till date.
B
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 oi property was the private property Of the Ruler or
State property, was 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 binding on all parties concerned. It appears, how-
ever, that a letter dated January 22, 1950 (copy whereof was Exhibit c
P-9) was sent by Shri N.M. Buch, Secretary in t]le Ministry of States,
New Delhi, to the Ruler suggesting that a Conference was held bet-
_) ween him and the Ruler at Naugong from 16th to 18th September,
1949, and some decisions were taken with regard to the private proper-
ties of the Ruler and the list of such property as finally emerging was D
Exhibit P-10 attached with the letter Exhibit P-9. Item No. 22 in that
list, being Guiab Rai Wala house, was shown to be State property as
per decision taken in the said Conference. From these documents, the
High Court when resolving 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 E
be State property, and further the legal effect thereof was that with
effect from May 1, 1948, the date of agreement of merger, the pro-
perty in dispute stood vested in the new Union. The second factor
which weighed with the High Court to conclude in the aforesaid man-
ner 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 F
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 ineffective, 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 incom- G
petent to effect a valid gift deed in favour of anyone, the State's claim
of possession and mesne profits was heW irresistable.
Undeniably, the Dewan Shanker Partap Singh was in possession
of the house in dispute when the suit was instituted by the State of
Madhya Pradesh on May 5, 1962. The suit was filed ahitost 14 years of H
50 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1990] 1 S.C.R.
the gift in his favour. The gift was challenged as null and void and
A
ineffective for the reasons: (i) the gii.ft deed was written on an ordinary
paper; (ii) was unregistered, (iii) was not signed by any witness, (iv)
did not bear the seal of 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)
a the house in dispute was already declared to be the property of the
Vindhya Pradesh Government as per terms of the covenant 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, totalling
c 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 requirement to use a particular
D 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 statement,
also need not require any attention for the present purposes, for the
way in which we propose to deal with this appeal.
F The trial Court framed a number of issues which attracted
voluminous evidence to be led by the parties. The Maharaja 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 Exh:ibit P-9 from Shri Buch or the lists
a Exhibits P-10 to P-12 regarding his private and State properties, were a
part thereof. His evidence was sugg1~stive of there being no agreement
between him and Shri Buch to change the list of properties. The trial
Court's clear findings were that'lhe propety in dispute was not that of
the Maharaja but that of the defendant, as it had been gifted to him by
the Maharaja on August 25, 1948, and that the house was mistakenly
H shown later as 'State property'. In that view of the matter, the trial
V.P. SINGH v. STATE OF M.P. [PUNCHHI, J.] 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 A
property in dispute had vested in the United States of Vindhya
Pradesh on May 1, 1948, and that thereafter 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 B
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 c
paise. And this has given rise to the present appeal. ·
History of the covenant entered into by the Rulers and the final
integration finds recognition in Virendra Singh and others v. State of
Uttar Pradesh, [1955] 1 SCR 415. The significant passage as available D
at page 419 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 E
pursuance of this agreement eac!t 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
surrendered a fraction of his sovereignty to the whole but p
there was no further surrender of sovereign powers to the
Dominion of India beyond those already surrendered in
1947, namely, Defence, External Affairs and Communica-
tions. Despite the readjustment, the sum total of the
sovereignties which had resided in each before the covenant
now resided in the whole and its component parts: none of it G
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 H
52 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1990) 1 S.C.R.
before May 1, 1948, his individual sovereign power did not stand taken
A
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
B 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 sovereign 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
c 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
D 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 what-
ever they possessed before the integration returned to each
when the United State of Vindhya Pradesh was brought to
E 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.
F 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 pro-
perty, that he transferred the house in dispute to his father-in-law on
G August 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 therewith, is not of much significance. In the first
place, the Ruler denied when appearing as a witness in the trial as
H having received any such letter or the lists appended therewith, sug-
V.P. SINGH v. STATE OF M.P. [PUNCHHI, J.) 53
gestive of the fact that he had reconverted the donated property to be a 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 B
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 C
divested in the manner suggested. And lastely, there was no raiseable
-; queston or issue which the Ruler could, while sitting with Shri Buch,
I ,/ decide amicably without the aid of the Judicial Officer nominated by
the Government enterinK upon such dispute, because before integra-
tion he owned his State and its properties and there could legitimately D
J not arise a dispute as to which was his private property or State pro-
perty 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 sovereiKfi right to ear-mark the property. in dispute as his private
property after May 1, 1948, or that the said property vested in the E
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 questioned on the grounds enumerated in the plaint, due to exercise F
of sovereign power of the Ruler in the grant thereof 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 Ll1e High Court and dismiss the suit of the G
State of Madhya Pradesh with costs.
R.N.J. Appeal allowed.
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