Deeming provision preserves prior notification and continues its effect under the re-enacted law

A repealing-and-reenacting statute that expressly preserves prior notifications through a deeming provision carries the notification forward under the new law. Section 25 of the Bombay General Clauses Act, 1904 kept the earlier notification in force so far as it was consistent with the re-enacted Act, and the statutory fiction in section 15(1) had to be given full effect. The notification could not be read narrowly in a literal sense where that would defeat the purpose of the deeming provision. As a result, the notification continued to extend the re-enacted Act to the notified areas, and the High Court's contrary view was incorrect.

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Issues: Whether a notification issued under a repealed ordinance continued in force after re-enactment of the law and operated to extend the re-enacted Act to the notified areas.

Analysis: The Act repealed the ordinance but expressly applied sections 7 and 25 of the Bombay General Clauses Act, 1904 to the repeal as if the ordinance were an enactment. Under section 25, a notification issued under the repealed enactment continued in force so far as it was not inconsistent with the re-enacted law and was to be deemed to have been issued under the re-enacted provisions. The statutory fiction created by section 15(1) had to be given full effect, and once the ordinance was treated as an enactment, the word used in the notification could not be confined in a literal manner so as to defeat the purpose of the deeming provision. The notification therefore continued to operate and extended the Act to the areas covered by it.

Conclusion: The notification validly extended the provisions of the re-enacted Act to the notified areas, and the High Court was wrong in holding otherwise.

Final Conclusion: The legal effect of the decision is that the prosecution was maintainable on the basis that the building-control provisions applied to Ratnagiri under the continued notification, although the acquittal was not disturbed for reasons of undertaking.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a repealing and re-enacting statute expressly preserves notifications under the repealed enactment by a deeming provision, the notification must be read as continuing under the re-enacted law and given the full consequences necessary to make the statutory fiction effective.

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