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does so, generally, in the name of the Governor-General. The Queen's Proclamation of 1858 refers to "all treaties made with them by or under the authority of the Hon'ble East India Company." The transfer by the East India Company of its Indian dominion to the British Crown did not involve a separate transfer of the Indian States apart from the rest of India. The Company did not obtain the consent of the States to the transfer of its rights and obligations in respect of the States to the Crown. The Crown acquired these rights as a matter of course and the change in no way involved the establishment of any special relationship between the States on the one hand, and the Crown and the British Parliament on the other. It is significant that under the provisions of the Government of India Act, 1858 (section 20), the revenues of India were to include all tributes in respect of territories which would have been receivable by, or in the name of, the East Indian Company, if the Act had not been passed. The States were thus an integral part of the system of the Government of India inherited by the Crown from the Company.

257. This relationship was 'real' in that the treaties imposed obligations on the Rulers for the time being of Indian States, in favour of the authorities for the time being of the Government of India and vice versa. Treaties or engagements concerning defence and security between heads of two States and binding on their successors could not be treated as personal contracts. The British Crown is an impersonal institution and there was little justification for the capital which was sought to be made of the personal loyalty of the Rulers to the King Emperor. It is clear that the term 'Crown', for purposes of determining the locus of paramountcy meant only the Crown as the Sovereign of India. The Crown could operate as Paramount Power vis-a-vis the Indian States only because of its sovereignty in British India.

258. The Committee appointed by the All Parties Conference in 1928, under the Chairmanship of the late Pandit Motilal Nehru, to draft a constitution for India, examining the theory of personal contract when it was first openly advocated on behalf of some of the Princes by their counsel in a letter to the Law Quarterly Review, expressed itself as follows:

"The fourth proposition is that the Princes in making these contracts gave their confidence to the British Crown and nation; and the Crown cannot assign the contracts to any third party. The British Government as paramount power has undertaken the defence of all the States, and therefore to remain in India