The Calcutta Weekly Notes July 12 1948

16 (r) of the West Bengal Secrity Act just before the day on which a Bench of the High Court was to consider the effect of that section in antcipation that the decision of the Nigh Court might go against the Government the Governor of West Bengal has held up the High Court to public contempt and ridicule. [...] The proper course for the Government would have been to await the decision of the Full Bench and accept its interpretation of the law as correct and ;f the law so interpreted was necessary to be altered to have it altered by having rcourse to the proper procedure. [...] We cofess we are one of those who consider the powers of the High Court as sacrosanct in the sense that these should not be curtailed lightly far less by an Ordinance without the sanction of the Legislature ; for in the last resort it is an independent judiciary which acts as a check to the vagaries of the executive. [...] The Pill was rferred to a Select Committee which rcommended that the provisions as to the bar of jurisdiction of Courts should be subject to the Court's power relating to Habeas Corpus “ and added the words ” subject to the provisions of sec. [...] The contingency that would arise if the High Court decides gainst the Government was foreseen—as a matter of fact it would be the outcome of the act of the Legislature itself.