§ Mr. ARTHUR STANLEYasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether the concession for providing electric tramways, lighting, and power to the city of Bombay, granted to the Bombay Electric Supply and Tramways Company, 232W Limited, is the concession the grant of which was the subject of the appeal to the Privy Council of the Bombay Tramway Company, Limited, and others versus the Municipal Corporation of Bombay, heard in May, 1904; whether the concession which was the subject of the said appeal to the Privy Council was the concession granted by the Municipal Commissioner and Corporation of Bombay to one William Gentry Bingham, on 11th March, 1901; whether he is aware that the judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, delivered in June, 1904, affirmed the right of the corporation to enter into the agreement of 11th March, 1901, with the said Bingham, and upheld the legality of that agreement, that the Municipal Commissioner and the Corporation thereafter set aside the concession granted to the said Bingham, and granted a fresh concession to the Bombay Electric Supply and Tramways Company, Limited; will he say whether the substitution of the Bombay Electric Supply and Tramways Company as concessionaires in the place of the said Bingham was with the consent of the latter, and, if not, whether proper notice was served upon him by the Municipal Commissioner and the Corporation of their intention to determine their agreement with him; whether he is aware that the said Bingham entered into the agreement of 11th March, 1901, at the request of the Municipal Commissioner and the Corporation, and that but for the said agreement the Corporation would not have been in a position to give the necessary notice in March, 1901, failing which the Bombay Tramway Company would have been entitled to retain possession of the tramways ill March, 1908; whether the voiding of the concession granted to the said Bingham in 1901 was made at the instance of the Municipal Commissioner of Bombay; whether the Commissioner is an official of the Bombay Government appointed as executive officer of the Corporation; and whether, seeing that the setting aside of an agreement whose legality had been upheld by the Judicial Committee is in the nature of the reversal of a decision of the Privy Council, he will say what action, if any, the Secretary of State will take in the matter?
§ Mr. MONTAGUThe Secretary of State understands that the judgment delivered by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on 3rd June, 1904, on the appeal of the Bombay Tramway Companyv. the Bombay City Municipal Corporation, dealt only with questions arising out 233W of a purchase by the Corporation of the undertaking of the company. The company contended that the notice of intention to purchase was invalid, in that the Corporation had entered into an arrangement with Bingham, and were acting, not for themselves, but on his behalf. The Privy Council, in dismissing the appeal, held that the Corporation were acting as principals and not as agents, and that whether they could or could not carry out their agreement with Bingham did not concern the tramway company. The concession stated to have been granted to Mr. Bingham by the Corporation was therefore not the subject matter of the suit, and no question as between these two parties arose or was determined by the judgment. The Secretary of State has no information as to any action that the Corporation or the Municipal Commissioner may subsequently have taken to determine the agreement with Mr. Bingham. He does not propose to interfere in the matter, which is one appropriate for decision by a court of law.