History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

CHAP. V.] A WISE EXCEPTION. 249

by law, yet that Parsis who were in possession of land within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Courts, which they have inherited according to their national usages and with the acquiescence of all interested parties, ought not to be disturbed in that possession ; and it was declared that this appeared to his Lordship in Council to be one of those cases in which the strict enforcement of law would defeat the end for which laws are made, would render property insecure, and would shake the confidence of the people in the institutions under which they live.”

These are the principles on which the Indian Legislature proceeded in passing Act IX. of 1837 (Appendix A), which, as is well known, provides that “immovable property, within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Courts, shall, as regards its transmission by the will of a Parsi testator, or on the death of a Parsi intestate, be taken to be and to have always been of the nature of chattels real.”

This Act applied solely to the Parsis residing in Bombay as regards their immovable property ; thus a further distinction was made between the Parsis living in the Presidency town and in the Mofussil.

The Parsis, however, did not regard this as a permanent and satisfactory settlement of their laws of inheritance and succession. They therefore forwarded another petition in November 1838, on the basis of

the answers to Mr. Borradaile’s queries, praying that