P L D 1962 (W (PLP)

SAJJAD AHMAD, J.‑--This matter is being dealt by us on a reference from our brother Masud Ahmad, J. whose order dated the 12th of December 1961 raises generally the question of the effect of the Central Laws (Statute Reform) Ordinance XXI of 1960, (hereinafter described as the Ordinance) on the various enactments and laws that were in force in the former Bahawalpur State. The order mentions amendments to the enactments applicable to the former Bahawalpur State and to their continued operation after the enforcement of the Ordinance. We take it that by the amendments to the enactments is intended the local modifications, additions or alterations in the enacted Indian Laws that had obtained In the former area of the Bahawalpur State. The Indian Penal Code was one of such enactments and in the case before Mr. Justice Masud Ahmad under reference the point turned on the effect of the Ordinance on the validity of a provision added in the Penal Code in its application to the Bahawalpur State making a wife, who, had been enticed away from the custody of her husband, punishable as an abetter of her own elopement under section 498/109, P. P. C. The woman accused in the case was summoned by the trial Magistrate to stand her trial for an offence under section 498/109, P. P. C, which she challenged on the ground that the aforesaid added provision in the Penal Code applicable to Bahawalpur was no longer valid after the enforce ment of the Ordinance which had brought about parity and identity in the laws made applicable by it to the whole of Pakistan, including the former territories of Bahawalpur which were merged in the Province of West Pakistan by the Establishment of West Pakistan Act, 1955. The enacted laws and Ordinances referred to are contained in the Second Schedule annexed to the Ordinance with the amendments noted in column 4 thereof again3t each one of them, and Penal Code being one of them, the argument is that it now supersedes any changes in derogation of it or in addition to it that may have formerly occupied the field of Penal laws in Bahawalpur, now a part of West Pakistan.

2. The question whether a married woman who has been enticed away is punishable for the abetment of her own enticement under the Penal Code has involved conflict of judicial opinion.' The recent and preponderating judicial opinion seems to incline; to the view that since a wife has been specially made immune from punishment for abetment of adultery under section 497, P. P. C. she cannot be convicted for the abetment of a cognate offence of a lesser degree, i.e., section 498, P. P. C. The offence under section 498, may be lesser than that under section 497, P. P. C., in terms of the sentences by which they are punishable, but it is no less grave in its destruction of conjugal relationship and the marital home and is as bad as the act of actual adultery. However, for the purposes of the answer to the question referred to us we will assume without deciding that whereas a woman could be punished as an offender under the provisions of the Penal Code as applied to the former State of Bahawalpur, she cannot be so punished under the Penal Code as applicable now to the whole of Pakistan.

3. We have then to consider the effect of the Ordinance on this local modification or addition in the Penal Code applicable to the areas of the former State of Bahawalpur. Under section 3 of the Ordinance, enactments and Ordinances with their amend ments specified in Schedule 11 thereof are deemed to have come into force from the fourteenth day of October, 1955, when the Province of West Pakistan was created, saving from their opera tion the Scheduled Districts and the Special Areas to which the Acts and Ordinances aforesaid were not applicable before the said date, and similarly an Acceding State incorporated, on and from the same date, into the Province of West Pakistan whose Instrument of Accession did not authorise, nor is deemed to authorise, the Federal Legislature to make for that State such, law as is contained in any such Act or Ordinance. It is conceded' that the Bahawalpur State is not such an Acceding State which is saved from the operation of this section. The effect of section 3, therefore, is that enactments and Ordinances mentioned in Schedule 11 of the Ordinance with the amendments indicated in the fourth column thereof have been duly applied to the former Bahawalpur State. Section 4 of the Ordinance repeals the pre existing laws that were in force in those areas replacing them by the provisions of the Acts and Ordinances specified in the Second Schedule as if they were Central Laws re‑enacted by the Ordinance. The correct interpretation of section 4 provides a key to the answer to the reference before us. This section bears the title "Repeal and re‑enactment of certain laws in force in certain Acceding States before their incorporation into West Pakistan", and reads as follows :‑ "(1) Subject always to the provisions of subsection (2) of section 3, where the operation of any Central Act or Ordinance has been extended by an amendment indicated in the Second Schedule to any area which before the fourteenth day of October, 1955, formed part of the territories of an Acceding State, any law in force in that area before that date and corresponding to the provisions of such Act of Ordinance shall stand repealed, and shall be deemed to have been re‑enacted by such Act or Ordinance, as amended by this Ordinance, as if such law were a Central Act, and the provisions of the General Clauses Act, 1897 (X of 1897), shall apply accordingly. (2) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (1), anything done, action taken, right accrued, or liability, penalty, forfeiture or punishment incurred, under any such laws as aforesaid during the period commencing on the fourteenth day of October, 1955, and ending with the commencement of this Ordinance, shall be deemed to have been validly done, taken, accrued, or incurred, as the case may be, and the Central Act or Ordinance by which such taw is deemed to have been re‑enacted shall, to that extent, be deemed not to have come into force during the said period in the area to which such law applied immediately before the commencement of this Ordinance." Analysing its provisions in relation to Bahawalpur it may be stated that it effects the repeal of all such laws as were in force in Bahawalpur before the enforcement of the Ordinance and corresponding to the provisions of the Acts and Ordinances specified in the Second Schedule, and that the repealed laws shall be deemed to be re‑enacted by the provisions of the same enactments and Ordinances with their amendments. The test for the survival of old Bahawalpur Laws, therefore, is their character and how they stand in relation to the newly‑enacted laws and Ordinances extended and applied to the whole of Pakistan including Bahawalpur. It is plain that the object behind the Ordinance is to bring about uniformity in laws in the whole of the newly‑constituted Province of West Pakistan as the result of the merger of the former Provinces, Acceding States and Tribal Territories into One‑unit. The preamble of the Ordinance state that the integration and incorporation of several different territories into the Province of West Pakistan had rendered it expedient that certain changes should be made in the laws and certain law should be extended to the part of the new Province to which they had not extended before, and to remove from the Statute book, as a measure of expediency, certain Acts and Ordinance which had become obsolete.

4. While examining the validity of a previous law of Bahawalpur in relation to the laws enforced by the Ordinance all that has to be seen is whether the former corresponds to the latter not in the sense of being identically the same or similar, but in the sense whether ft occupies a field of legislation which is now occupied by the corresponding law extended and enforced by the Ordinance. Corresponding is a word of wide import bearing several meanings, but in our view, in the context of section 4 of tile Ordinance its sense is best conveyed by those stated inter alia in the Webster's Dictionary, viz. "to answer (to something else) fn fitness, character, function etc., to suit, agree, fit, or match, to be adapted, congruous, reciprocal or analogous." The newly‑enacted laws or re‑enacted laws have by their own applicability and force under the Ordinance, repealed the laws which formerly occupied the field which they are now intended to fill. Each law in force in the former Bahawalpur State which may be found to be holding the field in its own sphere of legislative operation will now have to give place to the analogous law enacted and enforced by the Ordinance.

5. The expression employed in the section "any law in force in that area . . . . . shall stand repealed, and shall be deemed to have been re‑enacted by such Act or Ordinance . . . ." presents a little complication, giving room for the argument that the repealed laws, having been re‑enacted by the corresponding Act or Ordinance, form part of it. If it forms part of it obviously it has to be applied to the whole of Pakistan. Clearly this could not have been the intention of the law‑giver and mere was no point in repealing a law and then reviving it in spite of the existence and the application of a corresponding law by which it is proposed to replace it. The two ideas are mutually exclusive and despite the lack of clarity in the expression, we would not put an interpretation on it which apparently would be destructive of the object of the Ordinance. Again if the old laws of Bahawalpur, whether in derogation of, or in addition to the corresponding laws, enacted and enforced by the Ordinance were to remain alive as valid parts of the same, there was no occasion for introducing the common saving provision of subsection (2) of section 4, protecting the actions and acts already performed under the old laws. We consider that the Ordinance effects the whole sale repeal of such laws in Bahawalpur in the legislative field covered by the corresponding enactments and Ordinances enforced B by the Ordinance.

6. We would, therefore, answer the reference in the general terms as stated above to serve as a guide. It is not possible to determine the point more specifically except by repeating that any law in force in the former Bahawalpur State prior to the c Ordinance must now surrender place to the newly‑enacted Act or Ordinance specified in the Second Schedule of the Ordinance if both are found to cover an analogous field of legislative activity. A. H. Reference answered.