The Calcutta Weekly Notes February 12 1945

(2).? The effect of such legilation it is said will be ? to empower the Indian Legislature to vest the Federal Court with civil appellate jurisdiction concurrent with that of the Privy Council and to leave the choice of the forum of appeal to the free option of the party to whom the right of appeal has been granted.? The Resolution declares that in this view of the Secretary of State the G [...] It is alsa easy to see that the reasons for which the Secretary of State is anxious to put it beyond the power of the Indian Legislature to abolish appeals to England are not those for which Indian opinion objects to the elevation of the Federal Court into a Supreme Court or even a Court of parallel jurisdiction with the Privy Council. [...] It seems to us that the whole reason for giving to the scheme of appeals the farm prposed is that while providing more work to the Federal Court which at present is not too occpied and ostensibly conceding a demand for a promotion of that Court which has gone up from some misguided quarters the Crown wants to preserve for itself the right of appealing to the Privy Council instead of to the [...] From the point of view of the parties the position would be that the party who has lost before the High Court will have the power to take his successful opponent to an interior Court although the latter might wish that the superior Court should adjudge his rights. [...] Such situtions can be prevented only by providing that if one of the parties has already preferred an appeal or applied for leave to appeal to one of the tribunals the rest will have no option to have recourse to the other that is to say the choice; of the forum will be left not to the free option of the party to whom a right of appeal has been granted ' but to the quickest of such parties.