Statutory impossibility defeats deemed non-compliance: the Board's purchase option remained effective, and the State Government's notice failed.

Where section 6 of the Indian Electricity Act, 1910 made the State Electricity Board the primary purchaser of an undertaking, the State Government could exercise the purchase option only if the Board had not been constituted or had not elected to purchase. The prescribed eighteen months' advance intimation under sub-section (4) could not be demanded when compliance was impossible from the date the provision came into force. Applying lex non cogit ad impossibilia, the Court treated the Board's notice to purchase as effective and rejected any deemed non-election. The State Government therefore did not acquire the purchase option, and its notice was ineffectual.

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Issues: Whether the State Government could exercise the option to purchase the undertaking under section 6 of the Indian Electricity Act, 1910 when the State Electricity Board had already elected to purchase it and compliance with the advance intimation requirement under sub-section (4) was impossible on the date section 6 came into force.

Analysis: Section 6 vested the primary option of purchase in the State Electricity Board where the license was one granted before the amendment, and the State Government could step in only if the Board had not been constituted or did not elect to purchase. The notice requirement in sub-section (4) was meant to regulate exercise of that option, but it could not be applied so as to compel performance of an impossible act. Since the relevant period expired within a time-frame that made the prescribed eighteen months' prior intimation impossible from the very commencement of section 6, the maxim lex non cogit ad impossibilia applied. The Board's failure to give such notice could not be treated as a deemed election not to purchase, and the Board's election by notice remained effective.

Conclusion: The State Government did not acquire the option to purchase under section 6(2), and the notice issued by it was ineffectual.

Final Conclusion: The appellant was entitled to protection against action taken under the State Government's notice, and the purchase option remained with the State Electricity Board rather than passing to the State Government.

Ratio Decidendi: Where statutory compliance is impossible from the very commencement of the provision, the law does not insist on performance or attach adverse consequences for non-compliance, and a conditional statutory option cannot be transferred by a deeming fiction that depends on such impossible compliance.

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