Narendra Prasad Singh vs State of West Bengal

Chakravartti, C.J.—Between Malda in West Bengal and Rajmahal in Bihar, the river Ganga is crossed by a ferry which has come to be known as the Rajmahal Manikchowk ferry, or more popularly the Rajmahal ferry. It is called an inter-state ferry, because the two ends of it lie in two different states, but there was a time when both the ends lay within the area of the then province of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. In those times, the Bengal Ferries Act, 1885, which is an Act passed by the Bengal Legislature, applied to the ferry by its own terms. The Rajmahal end is now outside West Bengal. Indeed, it went out of even undivided Bengal when Bihar was constituted into a separate province, but it appears that the Bengal Ferries Act continued to be applied to the whole of the territories to which it was previously applicable. Such continuance was the effect of Section 2 of the Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and Assam Laws Act (VII of 1912) which provided that the constitution of a separate province of Bihar and a Chief Commissionership of Assam would not cause any change in the territorial application of any enactment, notwithstanding that such enactment might have been expressed to apply or extend to the territories for the time being under a particular administration. Indeed, Section 2 of the Bengal Ferries Act has now been amended so as to provide expressly that the Act shall extend to the states of West Bengal and Bihar and to that part of Orissa which on the first day of August, 1885, was subject to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. The Act therefore applies to the inter-state ferry before us, although it is a Bengal Act and although one end of the ferry lies outside what is now West Bengal.

It appears to have been contended before the learned trial Judge that the provisions of the Act did not apply to this particular ferry at all, it being an inter-state ferry. The contention was advanced in aid of the submission that the provisions of the Act could not be invoked to make out that they did not contemplate any interference by the Government with the administration of ferries and, therefore, the Act being out of the way, such intervention by Government as had taken place in the present case was not statutorily barred. I shall have occasion to deal with the argument that Government had no authority to give any direction regarding the settlement of any ferry governed by the Act, but at the present stage would only point out that the contention that the Act was not applicable to the present ferry was entirely mistaken. Sinha, J., seems to have thought that if the Act did not apply to the ferry, there might be some difficulty about his exercising jurisdiction with respect to the whole of it and he solved that difficulty by observing that whatever decision he gave would only affect the ferry so far as it lay within his jurisdiction. With respect, I do not think that this was a very satisfactory way of disposing of the matter. The question in the present case is in what manner the ferry can be legally framed out. On such a question there cannot obviously be a decision which will affect only a part of the ferry, because it is plainly inconceivable that as to its letting, one end or one part of the ferry will be governed by one law and another part by another. In reality, there is no difficulty about jurisdiction at all. It appears that although the two Governments of Bihar and West Bengal are both interested in the ferry, they agreed some time ago that the administration of the ferry would lie vested entirely in the District Magistrate of Malda who would necessarily act under the direction of his Divisional Commissioner, as the Act provided. The orders in the present case were made by the District Magistrate of Malda and the Commissioner of the Presidency Division, both of whom are subject to the jurisdiction of this Court and if the Act applies to the whole of the ferry as I have shown it to do, this Court obviously can, by its orders, control the settlement of the ferry by the West Bengal authorities and direct the settlement to be made in accordance with the provisions of the Act.

The Appellant is trying in these proceedings to enforce his alleged right to obtain a lease of the ferry for the period April 1. 1956. to March 31. 1959. on an annual rental of Rs. 61,000 as offered by him. The authorities are not conceding his claim and have directed the ferry to be leased by public auction, as required by Section 9 of the Act. The Appellant challenges the direction on various grounds, but in order that those grounds may be understood, a brief recital of the facts is necessary.

The ferry has been declared to be public ferry u/s 6(a) of the Bengal Ferries Act. There can be no question that it could be directly administered by Government themselves, but equally there can be no question that it could be leased out under the provisions of Section 9. In fact, the ferry has not been directly administered, at least in recent years, and it appears that in April, 1953, the Appellant himself obtained a lease for one year which was his first lease. On that occasion, the ferry was leased out by a public auction. When the period of one year expired, the Appellant succeeded in obtaining an extension of the lease for a further period of two years ending on March 31, 1956, at an annual rental of Rs. 40,000. No public auction was held on that occasion. When the second term of the Appellant''s lease was also drawing to a close, he made an application for an extension of the lease for another period of three years on an increased rental of Rs. 61,000 per annum. That application was made on July 21, 1955. Apparently, his management of the ferry had been, in the opinion of the District Magistrate, efficient. The magistrate was agreeable to and indeed strongly in favour of granting the extension prayed for and by a letter, dated August 20, 1955, he made a recommendation to the Divisional Commissioner that an extension be granted. He does not seem to have been altogether certain that his recommendation would be accepted, because in 1954 the Bihar Government had raised an objection to the previous extension granted to the Appellant without holding any public auction. By a letter, dated July 27, 1954, the Secretary of the Government of Bihar in the local Self-Government Department had told his counterpart in the Government of West Bengal that his Government''s feeling was that if the ferry had been settled by public auction, a much larger income could be secured and he suggested that decisions on any future proposals for the settlement of the ferry should be taken in consultation with the Government of Bihar. The District Magistrate of Malda had probably that objection of the Bihar Government in mind when in making his recommendation to the Commissioner in favour of granting an extension to the Appellant, he added that if the Government of Bihar insisted on a public auction, he might be permitted to include in the auction notice certain items of improvement which the Appellant had offered to effect in case an extension was granted to him.

The District Magistrate''s recommendation did not find favour with the Commissioner. By a note recorded on September 13, 1955, he directed the District Magistrate to call for sealed tenders and, in doing so, to include the items of improvement offered by the Appellant as a part of the minimum requirements of the ferry which would have to be complied with by the lessee. It would appear that just as the District Magistrate was doubtful as to whether his recommendation for an extension of the Appellant''s lease would be accepted, the Commissioner also was doubtful as to whether, in directing the magistrate to call for sealed tenders, he was taking the right course under the law. According to the affidavit of Bhupendra Krishna Sinha, Joint Secretary to the Government of West Bengal in the Department of Works and Buildings, the Commissioner communicated to Government the direction he had given to the District Magistrate for their information and necessary action, the necessary action being communication of their approval of the steps proposed to be taken after consulting Government of Bihar. The Commissioner thus did not intend his direction to be final.

In the meantime the Appellant had come to know that the Divisional Commissioner had not accepted the District Magistrate''s recommendation, but had directed the magistrate to call for sealed tenders. Immediately, he began to take steps to meet this new situation and on November 10, 1955, made a representation to the Commissioner by which he prayed for a renewal of the lease for a further terms of three years. On receiving that representation, the Commissioner asked his personal assistant to obtain a report from the District Magistrate and to ask him not to take any action for the time being by way of calling for sealed tenders. Why the commissioner did so is not clear, because the District Magistrate had already given elaborate reasons in favour of the recommendation he had made and it was after a consideration of those reasons that the Commissioner had decided to reject the recommendation and had directed the magistrate to call for sealed tenders. Be that as it may, the District Magistrate, on being asked to make a report, made one on November 23, 1955, by which he recalled that he had already expressed his opinion by his earlier letter. He again made a brief reference to the reasons which had induced him to recommend an extension of the Appellant''s lease and ended by informing the Commissioner that as instructed by him he had not issued any notice calling for sealed tenders. On considering the District Magistrate''s report the Commissioner again came to the same decision and by a note recorded on December 19, 1955, he directed the District Magistrate to call for sealed tenders, "as already ordered without further delay" and to submit his report at an early date.

It is not clear why the Commissioner directed the District Magistrate to proceed with the calling for sealed tenders, since he had himself referred the proposal to lease out the ferry by that method to Government for their approval and no decision of Government had yet been received. The reference made to Government for their approval of the method of calling for sealed tenders and the direction given to the District Magistrate to call for tenders while the opinion of Government was still to be received were plainly inconsistent. Be that as it may, on January 6, 1956, the District Magistrate issued a notice, (sic)iting sealed tenders for a lease of the ferry for a period of (sic)ee years commencing on April 1, 1956. Six offers were received, of which the Appellant''s offer for Rs. 76,525 was the (sic)arth in order of the size of the amount. The offers were (sic)utinized by the District Magistrate who on February 14, 1956, again recommended acceptance of the Appellant''s offer, though it was not the highest, for reasons given in an elaborate communication addressed to the Commissioner. On the (sic)y next day, the recommendation was considered by the commissioner who said in a note recorded on the file that he (sic)ld accept the recommendation and that Government might informed. It appears from the affidavit of Bhupendra Krishna Sinha to which I have already referred and a copy of letter from the Commissioner annexed thereto, that in fact government were not informed and that the Commissioner''s order was not communicated either to the Appellant or even to the District Magistrate. It is said that before Government could be written to, their decision on the reference made by (sic) Commissioner earlier arrived through a letter dated March 1956, and in view of the directions contained in that letter, (sic) further action on the lines of the Magistrate''s recommendation or Commissioner''s approval thareof could possibly be taken.

The letter of March 2, 1956 was addressed to the Commissioner by a Joint Secretary of the Works and Buildings Department of the Government of West Bengal. It referred to a momo. (sic) District Magistrate dated February 27, 1956, which has not been printed in the paper book, but the subject matter clearly (sic)as, as the heading of the letter shows, settlement of the Raj-mahal ferry with effect from the year 1956-57. The letter said that the legal advisors of Government had expressed the definite opinion that the settlement of the ferry by calling for sealed tenders would be in clear contravention of the Act and that the only method which the Act permitted was by auction, "that is to say, public sale conducted by biddings which "augment the price". The Government of Bihar was said to have also expressed the view that the method of inviting sealed tenders would not be consistent with the provisions of the Act. The letter proceeded to say that if the District Magistrate had already made some progress in the matter of inviting sealed tenders "without waiting for formal orders of "Government to whom the matter had been referred by the Commissioner," he should at once cancel the proceedings and take immedidate action for settling the ferry by public auction, (sic)t the end of the letter it was said that if the Commissioner thought that it would not be possible to complete all the formalities for a fresh lease within March 31, 1956, after holding formal auction, he might consider the feasibility of granti a short extension to the Appellant.

On receipt of the directions contained in the letter of March 2, 1956, the District Magistrate issued a notice for a public auction to be held on March 28, 1956. Upon the issue of that notice, the Appellant made a representation to the District Magistrate for its withdrawal, but "the magistrate rejected his prayer with the observation that the ferry would be resettled by public auction under orders of the State Government. The Appellant next addressed a letter on March 21, 1956, to the State of West Bengal, demanding justice and, two days later was informed by the District Magistrate that the Commissioner had directed postponement of the auction. The Appellant the offered to pay the balance of the money due from him uncle the terms he had offered, but the magistrate simply told him b(sic) an order, dated March 20, 1956, that he should contin(sic) working the ferry from April 1 so that the public service mi(sic) not be hampered. On March 31 the Appellant again asked who he would have to deposit the balance of the security money a execute a fresh lease, but was offered in reply only a short extension of the lease up to May 31, 1956. The Appellant took (sic) the position that his offer had already been accepted and he was entitled to a lease for three years, so that no question of accepting a short extension arose. That position was not conceded. By a letter, dated April 7, 1956, the Appellant informed by the District Magistrate that a fresh notice for auction sale, to be held on May 21, 1956, was under issue on that very day the notice was in fact issued. It appears than the Appellant thereafter again made a demand for justice, which was a demand for a rescission of the auction notice and a reply within seventy-two hours. The notice was not rescinded, no any reply given and thereupon on April 19, 1956, the Appellant moved this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution for various writs against the State of West Bengal, the Commissioner of the Presidency Division and the District Magistrate of Malda and obtained a Rule from Sinha, J''. At the final hearing the Rule was discharged by the learned Judge himself. Thereupon, the present appeal was preferred.

It appears that during the pendency of the Rule, a working order was made by the learned trial Judge, under which the Appellant continued to work the ferry on payment each month of such a sum within Rs. 7,000 which the District Magistrate, might name. After the dismissal of the application, the same arrangement was continued by an order of this Court. Actually therefore, more than two years of the three years'' extension which the Appellant wanted has already elapsed and throughout that period he has been working the ferry. Only about nine months of the contested period still remain. In those circumstances, the practical value of the controversy between the parties would seem to have been reduced to insignificance, but it was submitted to us that the controversy still continued to be important to the parties, because both sides wanted an authoritative decision on the true meaning and effect of Section 9 of the Bengal Ferries Act.

In order to make the points canvassed in the appeal comprehensible it is necessary to refer first to certain provisions of the Bengal Ferries Act. Section 6(a) of the Act makes it lawful for the State Government to declare what ferries shall be deemed to be public ferries and in what respective districts they shall for the purpose of the Act, be deemed to be situate. The State Government has declared that the Rajmahal ferry is a public ferry and that it shall be deemed to be situated in the district of Malda. u/s 7, "the control of all public ferries "shall be vested in the magistrate of the district, subject to the "direction of the Commissioner". The first paragraph of Section 8 provides that the immediate superintendence of every public ferry shall be vested in the magistrate of the district in which such ferry is situated, or in such other officer as the State Government may, from time to time, appoint. No officer other than the magistrate of the district has been appointed to be in charge of the Rajmahal ferry and, therefore, its immediate superintendence lies vested in the District Magistrate of Malda. The first paragraph of Section 9 upon which the main controversy in the case was centred requires to be read in full. It runs thus:

The tolls of any public ferry may, from time to time, be leased by public auction for such term as the magistrate of the district in which such ferry is situated may, with the approval of the Commissioner, direct.

Section 15 of the Act authorises the magistrate of the district by Clause (b) to regulate with the approval of the Commissioner "the "time and manner at and in which, the terms in which, and the "person by whom the tolls of such ferries may be leased by "auction" but no statutory rules made in that behalf could be referred to by the parties. The controversy between them has raged round Section 9 of the Act and to a certain extent Section 7.

Of the four points urged before Sinha, J. one was not repeated before us. It was no longer contended that in so far as Section 9 provided that a public ferry might be leased by public auction, the section was merely directory and not mandatory. The remaining three contentions urged before the learned Judge were urged before us as well. It was contended that the State Government had no authority whatsoever to intervene in the matter of leasing out a public ferry which the statute had made the sole concern of the District Magistrate, subject only to the approval of the Commissioner in a certain regard. The Government''s intervention in this case was, therefore, entirely unauthorised and the Appellant was entitled to the benefit of the decisions taken in his favour by the District Magistrate and the Commissioner which, but for the unwarranted interference on the part of the State Government, would have been available to him as a matter of course. It was next contended that the magistrate having accepted the Appellant''s tender and the Commissioner having approved of his acceptance, the provisions of Section 9 had been wholly satisfied and the Appellant had become entitled in law to a lease of the ferry for three years. Lastly, it was contended that even assuming that the only method of leasing out of public ferry warranted by Section 9 was leasing it out by public auction, calling for public tenders was in truth and substance a form of public auction and, therefore, a lease by calling for sealed tenders was a lease by public auction, as con-templated by the Act.

It seems to me that the real question to be decided is what Section 9 of the Act really means. The two remaining points raised on behalf of the Appellant, though apparently relevant, are not really so. As regards the point that intervention by the State Government was entirely unauthorised, it appears to me that assuming it was so, still, if the only legal method of leasing out a public ferry be the method of public auction and if the District Magistrate and the Commissioner had previously been trying to apply the wrong method of calling for a sealed tender, but were subsequently directed by Government to the right method of public auction, their final orders must be upheld, although they might have been led to make them at the instance of an interloper, unless some right had already accured in favour of the Appellant. If I may put it in another way, if what the District Magistrate and the Commissioner had previously been doing was wrong and what they were trying to do at the final stages was right, then it is immaterial who led them to the right course and equally immaterial that the person or party who did lead them had no authority to intervene in the matter at all. The Court cannot, acting under Article 226, quash an order rightly made and direct the makers of the order to follow the illegal course they had previously been following, simply because they were directed to the right view and to right action by an unauthorised person. The only relevant question obviously is whether what the magistrate and the Commissioner ultimately did was right, no matter by what influence or through the operation of what agency they were made to do it. similarly, as to the point of the Appellant having already become entitled to a lease by virtue of the earlier orders of the district Magistrate and the Commissioner, he could not clearly have become so; if the only lawful method by which an appli-cant for a lease of a ferry can, u/s 9 of the Act, acquire a right to a lease is by the acceptance of his bid at a public auction and if what took place in this case was no public auction (sic)t all. Thus, the question again is what Section 9 of the Act really means and what method of leasing a public ferry it prescribes. shall have occasion to deal, on its merits, with a subsidiary argument that, u/s 9 of the Act no communication of the acceptance of a tenderer''s offer was necessary in order that his right to the lease might accure and would only point out here that even that argument cannot bypass Section 9, because whether or not communication of the acceptance of a offer be necessary, there can be no legal offer with regard to a lease and no legal acceptance of it, if Section 9 requires a public auction and no such auction was held, although there may have been a purported offer and a purported acceptance in some other form of transaction.

All the three points canvassed on behalf of the Appellant have been dealt with by Sinha, J., in a well reasoned and well expressed judgment. It is really not necessary for us to say over again what he has already said and said so well. In defer-ence, however, to the sustained argument advanced before us, I shall nevertheless deal with the points, but as briefly as possible.

I do not consider it necessary to enter into a discussion as to whether the Government had or had not any legal authority to intervene in the matter and issue a directive to the Commissioner and the District Magistrate. The learned Judge has held that the State Government had no such authority and it has not been contended before us on behalf of the Respondents that they had. The successive references made to Government and the expression of opinion by them are, however, intelligible, because the interests of two Governments Were involved and since direct consultation with the Government of Bihar could only be made by the Government of West Bengal, a reference to Government for obtaining the concurrence or at least ascertaining the views of the Bihar Government seems to me to have been unavoidable. Those references were, however, merely administrative steps and Government''s approval sought by the Commissioner would also be nothing more than administrative approval. The functions which a District Magistrate exercises in respect of a public ferry are clearly not functions exercised by him as an agent of the executive Government, but statutory functions which have been conferred on him by an Act of the Legislature. He, is, therefore subject only to such supervision or superintendence as the Ac provides for, but to no more. The Act does not provide for an, superintendence by the State Government and since the administration of public ferries has been provided for by the legislature by an Act passed in that behalf, there can be no question of the State Government exercising any supervision by the right of their superior executive authority. As I have already stated, the finding of the learned Judge on this point was not questioned by the Respondents and I need not, therefore, do anything more than express my entire agreement with him. I am also pre-pared to concede in favour of the Appellant that the letter of March 2, 1956, did not contain mere advice which the Commissioner and the District Magistrate were free to take or not to take, but it amounted to a directive, enjoining the District Magistrate and the Divisional Commissioner authoritatively to follow the course of action suggested by Government. There can be no doubt that, but for the directive of March 2, 1956, the decision of the District Magistrate and the Commissioner would have been otherwise and in favour of the Appellant and that the decision went against him, because the opinion of the Distric Magistrate and the Commissioner was superseded and overrider by that of the State Government. This, however, is, as I have already explained, of little help to the Appellant, if the course of action to which the State Government directed, the District Magistrate and the Commissioner was the only legal course warranted by the Act.

It would be convenient to dispose of the first contention on behalf of the Appellant before taking up Section 9 of the Act. In my view, there are two answers to the contention. It was said that Section 9 was a statutory provision, compete in itself, and that as soon as its terms were complied with, a right to a lease arose in favour of the person whose offer had been accepted irrespective of whether the offer had been communicated or not. The District Magistrate, it was recalled, had accepted the Appellant''s offer and the Divisional Commissioner had approved of his acceptance. In those circumstances, all the requirements of Section 9 had been fulfilled and nothing else remained to be done by either of the parties in order to complete the Appellant''s right to a lease. This contention amounts to saying that Section 9 of the Bengal Ferries Act virtually supersedes or overrules the Contract Act and that by virtue of its provisions, an offer, followed by its acceptance, gives rise, without more to a completed contract.

I can see no reason whatever for taking that view of the section. To my mind, Section 9 is only addressed to laying down that public ferry may be leased out instead of being directly administered by Government that if leased out, the official competent to lease it out will be the magistrate of the district in which the ferry is situated, subject to the condition that with regard to the term of a lease, his decision will require the approval of the Commissioner and, lastly, that the method of leasing but a public ferry shall be the method of public auction. The argument of the Appellant which I am just now considering apparently assumed that the calling for of sealed tenders amounted to holding a public auction and I shall, for the purcase of the present discussion, grant the assumption. Still, it clear to my mind that beyond laying down that a lease may be granted and that the lessee shall be determined by public auction whatever public auction may mean, the section is not addressed to laying down the procedure which must be gone though before a right to a lease on the result of a public auction may arise or now, although the method of public auction will have to be followed, a lease will come into existence. The sole concern of he section, it seems to me, is to prescribe for an auction as the method of leasing out a public ferry and to indicate by what method a lease may be granted and what authority may grant it. further details as to how and in what circumstances the right of intending lessee will arise are not in the contemplation or within ambit of the section. I can find no indication in it that though there may have to be an offer and the offer may have to be accepted, still the ordinary rule of the law of contract that an acceptance of an offer will not give rise to a contractual right till he offer is communicated, is not to apply.

As I have already stated, this branch of the Appellant''s argument assumed that the method of calling for sealed tenders (sic)s a form of holding a public auction and it was on that basis at it was said that if there was an offer and the offer was accepted, nothing else required to be done to give rise to a right under the section. This argument will obviously fail if the method of calling for sealed tenders cannot be a form of public auction with the result that if only sealed tenders were invited, there was no compliance with the section at all and no right could arise under it. The Appellant, if he claims any right, must claim it u/s 9, but if Section 9 prescribes public auction as the only method of granting a lease and if the calling for of sealed tenders, the method followed in the present case was not a form of public auction, he cannot obviously claim any right, not to speak of a perfected right, under the section at all as arising out of the acceptance of his sealed tender. Once again attention must be turned towards Section 9. That section, it was not disputed before us, prescribes a public auction as the only and the exclusive method of leasing out a public ferry. If so, even if the Appellant''s offer and the acceptance of it created any right notwithstanding that the acceptance was not communicated, s(sic) right could only be a right to damages against the magistrate and the Commissioner for failing to put him in possession of (sic) lease after having accepted his offer, but no right to the lea(sic) itself u/s 9 of the Act, since calling for of sealed tenders unknown to the section. I do not, however, say that really a(sic) right to damages against the magistrate and the Commission arose in the Appellant''s favour.

Turning now to Section 9, it apears to me that there cannot (sic) any doubt about its true meaning. The section says first, "T(sic) "tolls of any public ferry may, from time to time, be leased (sic) "public auction". The auxiliary verb ''may'' was made the four (sic) dation of an argument before the trial court that the direction to lease out by public auction was only directory and that public auction was not the only and exclusive method prescribed by the Act. That argument, as I have already said, was n(sic) repeated before us. To my mind, the word ''may'' merely incorporates an option between administering a ferry directly a(sic) leasing it out. It does not embody or incorporate any option to the method of granting a lease. As to the method of grant a lease, only one method is prescribed and that method is method of public auction. It is but a common place rule of construction that where a. statute directs a certain thing to be d(sic) and prescribes a mode for doing it, such mode is the only mode which the act may lawfully be done, because all other modes a by necessary implication, excluded. This was conceded in t(sic) course of the argument before us. The only ground on whi(sic) it was sought to bring the Appellant''s case u/s 9 was by (sic) tending, though no longer very forcibly, that the calling sealed tenders amounted to holding a public auction in a particular form. The learned Judge has given convincing reasons to why that contention cannot be accepted and I have nothing to add to what he has said. It is quite true that both where tenders are called for by open advertisement and a public auction is notified, there is an invitation to all memebrs of the public to come forward and make offers. There is, however, one substantial difference in the manner in which the invitation can be acted on and also a difference in the results. Where tenders are called for, one tenderer does not know what offers have been made by his competitors. He makes an offer which he thinks may reasonably be expected to be acceptable or which represents the farthest limit up to which he is at that moment prepared to go. There is no incentive in such a case to stretch oneself to the utmost, because it is not known what is there to compete with or contend against. The very essence of a public auction, on the other hand, is that it promotes a strong rivalry in open binding in the hearing of one another and prices which might not have been offered in the composure of one''s chamber, are offered out of zeal bred in the excitement of the moment to the benefit of the seller. There can be no doubt that for getting the best competitive price, the method of public auction is a bettel method than that of calling for sealed tenders. We are, however, not concerned with the question as to whether one method is better than the other, but whether they are one and the same. In my view, they are plainly not, but are, on the other hand, as one of the noble and learned Lords observed in a case cited on behalf of the Appellant himself, "nor only not "identical, but rather contrasted, the one with the other:" see Edward Barlow v. Edward Com Osborne (1858) 6 H.L.C. 556 : (1858) 10 E.R. 1412 per Lord Brougham. Section 8 cannot, therefore, be said to authorise any method other than the method of public auction, which was concede and public auction cannot also be said to be anything else th open and public bidding on a notified date and at a notice.

He was said that the proper concern of an Act, like the Bengal Ferries Act, would be to secure a reliable lessee and not mere (sic)gh offers which the offerer might never be able to imple and acceptance of which might land the authorities int(sic) difficulty. Such considerations are not pertinent to the con(sic) of the section, but I may point out that the consequence (sic)ended need not happen. It appears from the terms of action notice published in this case that ample precautions taken to provide for a preliminary scrutiny of the (sic)ding bidders and a determination of their eligibility before (sic) were allowed to bid. Each intending bidder was to pro(sic) valid service certificates of two steamers of the required capacity, together with an affidavit to the effect that they were there engaged, nor had they been offered for service elsewhere only those persons were to be allowed to bid whom the act Magistrate would declare to be eligible after verification the materials submitted by them. Provision was also made for an inspection of the steamers. These considerations, as I have already pointed out, are however, irrelevant.

In my view, none of the points urged on behalf of the Appellant can succeed.

The appeal is, accordingly, dismissed with costs, the hearing fee being assessed at ten gold mohurs.

Lahiri, J.

I agree.