Inter-board transfer under separate Cantonment Boards exceeded delegated power and was invalid under the parent statute.

Rule 5-C of the Cantonment Funds Servants Rules, 1937, was examined against the Cantonments Act, 1924, and the Court reasoned that Cantonment Boards are separate autonomous statutory bodies with their own appointing authorities, so inter-board transfer would amount to termination from one Board and fresh appointment by another. Because the Act, as it then stood, did not authorise a rule on such transfers, the rule exceeded the delegated power and remained void ab initio. The later substitution of the enabling clause did not validate the defective rule, and the statutory effect given to rules could not cure a rule beyond the parent Act. Rule 5-C was therefore ultra vires and the transfer order invalid.

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Issues: Whether rule 5-C of the Cantonment Funds Servants Rules, 1937, enabling transfer of servants from one Cantonment Board to another within the same State, was within the rule-making power under the Cantonments Act, 1924, and whether the impugned transfer order passed under that rule was valid.

Analysis: The Cantonment Boards are autonomous statutory bodies, each with its own appointing authority, and the service under a Cantonment Board is neither centralised nor a State-level service. A transfer from one Board to another would therefore operate as a termination of service under the transferor Board and a fresh appointment under the transferee Board. Rule 5-C was inserted when section 280(2)(c) of the Cantonments Act, 1924, as it then stood, did not authorise rules governing such transfer, and the later substitution of that clause did not validate a rule that was void ab initio. The provision in section 281(2) giving statutory effect to rules does not save a rule that exceeds the statute or the delegated power.

Conclusion: Rule 5-C was ultra vires the Cantonments Act, 1924, and the transfer order made under it was invalid.

Ratio Decidendi: A delegated rule can operate as law only if it conforms both to the parent statute and to the scope of the delegated power; where employees serve under separate autonomous bodies and there is no centralised or State-level service, a rule authorising inter-board transfer exceeds the statutory power.

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