Evacuee property declaration remains valid despite prior insolvency vesting when the statutory scheme and object support it

A declaration under section 7(1) of the Administration of Evacuee Property Act, 1950 may validly be made where the property was that of an evacuee at the time of migration, even if title had later vested in the Official Receiver under insolvency law before the declaration. The Court read section 7(1) with the definition of evacuee property, the saving and prohibition provisions, and the statutory scheme as a whole, and held that a literal approach would defeat the Act's object of preventing evacuees from defeating the law through transfers or intervening vesting. The declaration was therefore not invalid merely because the insolvent had lost title before notification.

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Issues: Whether, for a declaration under section 7(1) of the Administration of Evacuee Property Act, 1950, the property must be evacuee property on the date of the declaration, or whether it is sufficient that it was the property of an evacuee at the time of migration and could be validly notified notwithstanding an intervening vesting under insolvency law.

Analysis: The statutory scheme showed that section 8(1)(a) gives retrospective vesting only as a consequence of a valid declaration under section 7(1), and therefore section 8 could not control the meaning of section 7(1). Section 4(1) also did not assist, because the provisions of the Act and the Provincial Insolvency Act were not inconsistent. The Court read section 7(1) with the definition of evacuee property in section 2(f), the prohibition and saving provisions in section 40, and the blanket restriction in section 7(2), and held that a literal construction would frustrate the legislative object. The Act was intended to prevent intended evacuees from defeating the law by transfers before or after migration, and the statutory scheme supported a liberal construction under which property transferred or vested before commencement of proceedings could still be the subject of a declaration.

Conclusion: The property could validly be declared evacuee property under section 7(1) even though it had vested in the Official Receiver before the declaration, and the declaration was not invalid merely because the insolvent had lost title before the notification.

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