NARAYANA PAI, C. J. ( 1 ) THE petitioners in these cases were Shanbhoges or village accountants originally working as hereditary village officers under the Mysore Village offices Act of 1908 and who continued in office by virtue of the provisions of sub-sec. (2) of S. 16 of the Mysore Land Revenue Act, 1964. ( 2 ) UNDER the provisions of sub-sec. (1) of the said Sec. 16, village accountants are to be appointed by the Deputy Commissioner. The continuance of old village accountants who came in on the hereditary principle by the special provision made in sub-sec. (2) was a temporary provision for the interregnum between the abolition of the hereditary offices and the substitution thereof by offices filled by persons recruited according to rules within the framework of the Constitution. ( 3 ) THE old Act of 1. 908 together with the various other Acts applying the hereditary principle and enforced in other integrated areas, was repealed by the Mysore Village Offices Abolition Act, 1961. There were also promulgated in the year 1961 a set of rules called the Mysore General services (Revenue Subordinate Branch) Village Accountants (Cadre and recruitment) Rules, 1961. Pursuant to those rules certain recruitments were made and the recruits given training as required by one of the rules. The Abolition Act also substituted a new section for the pre-existing 14th section of the Mysore Land Revenue Code, 1884. That new section read as follows:"it shall be lawful for the Deputy Commissioner under the general orders of the State Government to appoint a stipendiary patel or a village accountant or both for a village or a group of villages. The village accountant and the patel shall perform all the duties including the duties of the village accountant or patel as hereinafter prescribed in this Act or in any other law for the time being in force and shall hold office under the rules in force with regard to subordinate revenue officers. " ( 4 ) THE said Abolition Act was published in the Mysore Gazette on 28th July, 1961. It was to come into force on a date to be notified by the state Government. By a notification issued for the purpose, 1st February, 1963 was fixed as the date for the coming into force of the said Act. " ( 4 ) THE said Abolition Act was published in the Mysore Gazette on 28th July, 1961. It was to come into force on a date to be notified by the state Government. By a notification issued for the purpose, 1st February, 1963 was fixed as the date for the coming into force of the said Act. But in a batch of writ petitions presented to this Court questioning the constitutional validity of the said Act, operation of the notification itself was stayed with the result the Act did not come into force. The writ petitions were dismissed on the 9th December. 1963. ( 5 ) THEORETICALLY, therefore, the Act did come into force immediately thereafter. But the enforcement of the Act was stayed by the Supreme court upon appeals presented against the orders of this Court dismissing the writ petitions. The appeals before the Supreme Court were dismissed on 21st January, 1966. The judgment of the Supreme Court is reported in Shankaranarayana v. State of Mysore, AIR 1966 SC 1571 . ( 6 ) IT was after the dismissal of the writ petitions by this Court and during the pendency of the appeals before the Supreme Court that the mysore Land Revenue Act was passed replacing the Land Revenue Code in Mysore and other corresponding statutes in other integrated areas. That Act came into force on 1st April, 1964, and, it is by virtue of the provisions of S. 16 of that Act that the petitioners continued in office. That section is a fresh arrangement substituted for the arrangement contemplated by new S. 14 of the Land Revenue Code copied above. S. 16 of the land Revenue Act reads as follows: 16. Village Accountant- (1) The Deputy Commissioner may, subject to the original orders of the State Government and the Divisional commissioner, appoint a Village Accountant for a village or group of villages and he shall perform all the duties of a Village accountant prescribed in or under this Act or in or under any other law for the time being in force, and shall hold office under and be governed by such rules as may be prescribed. (2) Persons holding the office of a Village Accountant for a village or group of villages immediately prior to the commencement of this Act shall be deemed to be Village Accountants for such village or group of villages till another person is appointed under sub-section (1 ). " ( 7 ) SO far as the factual position is concerned there is no dispute that the petitioners throughout continued to hold the post of village accountants. Probably some of them might have been since displaced by persons regularly recruited under the rules and some continue awaiting termination. ( 8 ) IT is also admitted that when they were continued under S. 16 (2) no provision was made in respect of the remuneration receivable by them. They continued to be paid potige as under the Mysore Village offices Act of 1908 which is a percentage of the land revenue collected by them. ( 9 ) UNDER Rule 2 of the Recruitment Rules of 1961 it was provided that the cadre of village accountants shall be a district-wise cadre and the scale of pay of the post of a village accountant shall be Rs. 65-1-70-2-90- the said recruitment rules were replaced by fresh rules of the year 1970. The new rules do not prescribe any specific scale of pay, but provide that the scale of pay shall be such as may be prescribed by Government from time to time. There has been a revision of pay scale pursuant to or in the light of recommendations by the Pay Commission as a result of which the scale prescribed by Rule 2 of the Recruitment Rules of 1961 has to be replaced with effect from 1st January, 1970 by two scales of pay, one applicable to persons whose qualification is less than that of School final or SSLC. and another higher scale for those who are SSLCs. ( 10 ) THE contention put forward by the petitioners in these cases is that they were entitled from 1-4-1964 (i. e. , the commencement of the date of coming into force of the Land Revenue Act of 1964) to be paid the salary as prescribed by the 1961 rules, and to the revised salary in terms of the latest rules for revision cf pay scales. The contention on behalf of the State Government is that the pay scales now claimed by the petitioners are claimable only by persons recruited under the rules of 1961 or of 1970, as the case may be, but that the old hereditary village officers who are continued as village accountants under sub-sec. (2) of s. 16 of the Land Revenue Act are not entitled to anything more than the potige they were leceiving as hereditary officers. ( 11 ) THE only way in which this controversy can be resolved is by tracing these contentions or claims to some statutory provision or rule having the force of law governing the determination and payment ot remuneration to the petitioners for having worked as village accountants. ( 12 ) IT is undisputed, as already stated, that even after their continuance during the period the enforcement of the Abolition Act was stayed by orders of this Court and of the Supreme Court, and even till now, the Government have been paying the petitioners only the potige payable under the old Act of 1908. It is admited that there is no order under any statutory provision, nor in exercise of the executive power of the State Government under Art 162, determining any scale of pay for pesrons in the position of the petitioners So far as the payment of potige is concerned, the legal or statutory basis therefore was the Village Offices act of 1908 and the rules made thereunder That Act, as already stated was repealed by the Mysore Villapc Offices Abolition Act of 1961. S. 4 of the Abolition Art is the principal section in this connection, according to which, with effect on and from the appointed date (i. e. , the date fixed for the commencement of the Act) CD all village offices shall stand abolished and (2) all incidents appertaining to the same shall also stand extinguished. The incidents include the emoluments attached to the office. It is clear therefore that, when the abolition rf the old hereditary village offices became effective, the emoluments attached thereto also became extinguished. The incidents include the emoluments attached to the office. It is clear therefore that, when the abolition rf the old hereditary village offices became effective, the emoluments attached thereto also became extinguished. Although the statement of the law in the fourth section of the Abolition Act of 1961 is, from the point of view of the hereditary officers, a measure of the lose they stood to incur, it is clear legal principle that, if a law does not exist for those who are, in some capacity or other, governed by it, the said law cannot exist for the Government either. If the petitioners could not claim payment of potige, or have lost the right to claim potige, the Government also have lost the right of taking their services on payment of potige alone ( 13 ) WE have, therefore, no hesitation in holding that the clear legal effect of the Abolition Act is that not only did the hereditary village offices stand abolished but the relation which existed between the said hereditary offices and the potige also stood abolished. ( 14 ) SOME attempt has been made by Mr. Puttaswamy, the learned government Pleader, to maintain that the continuance in office of the old shanbhoges as village accountants under sub-sec. (2) of S. 16 was on the same terms and conditions as before, except that the hereditary principle disappeared. He has not been able to place before us any provision of a statute or statutory rule, or a rule specifically made by Government in exercise of its executive power under Art. 162 of the Constitution. In support of this contention he depended upon certain observations at pages 376 and 377 in the judgment of this Court in Narasimha Murthy v. State of Mysore, (1968) 2 Mys. L. J. 366, 376-7, the report commencing at page 366 of the said volume. There is, however, no doubt, nor can there be any, that the observations were not in the nature of any expression of opinion, much less a decision by this Court. They are in the nature of a summary of the contentions advanced before Court, or at the highest a description of the actual state of affairs as admitted or conceded by both the parties. They are in the nature of a summary of the contentions advanced before Court, or at the highest a description of the actual state of affairs as admitted or conceded by both the parties. The observations particularly depended upon at page 377 read:"it is in this new post of village accountant the old incumbents were continued on the same terms and conditions as before but without hereditary rights, though there was no formal order to that effect by the Government or any of the authorities. " ( 15 ) THIS sentence leaves no room for doubt that what this Court was stating was only the factual position. It is worthy of note that it is clearly observed that the continuance of old terms and conditions was without any formal order by the Government or other competent authority. The said observations, therefore, are of no assistance to the respondent State government in these cases. ( 16 ) WHAT follows from this discussion is that so long as the abolition of the Act had not come into force or so long as the abolition of the old hereditary offices and the emoluments and rights connected therewith had not been effectively brought about, the Government may claim that they were entitled to pay only the potige to the petitioners. The history of the litigation questioning the validity of the Abolition Act summarised above, shows that such effective abolition came about or can be said to have come about only on 21st January, 1966. Till that date, therefore, the petitioners may not be in a position to make an effective claim for payment of anything other than potige. ( 17 ) FOR the period subsequent thereto, the question is whether the pay scales should be the same as were prescribed by or payable under the rules of 1961 and 1970 or any other pay scale. As already stated, there were no other specific orders. Both according to the observations of this court in the case of Narasimha Murthy (1) mentioned above as well as the observations of the Supreme Court in the appellate order in Shankaranarayana v. State of Mysore (1), when the old post was abolishd the legal effect was that the posts of village accountants were new posts on and from the date of declaration of the unconstitutionality of the hereditary principle in the matter of holding public offices. The observations of the Supreme Court in that regard contained in paragraph 15 of the judgment at page 1576 of the report read as follows:"it is argued that even after abolition the same posts are sought to be continued. It is no doubt true that the names of the offices have not been changed but there is a basic structural difference between the posts that have been abolished and the posts that have been created. The posts created by the new Act are stipendiary. They carry salaries according to the grades created by the rules. The incumbents are transferable and their service is pensionable. Different qualifications are prescribed for the new posts. From a consideration of the incidents attaching to the new posts it is clear that the old posts have been abolished and new posts have been created, and that the whole complexion of the posts has been changed. " ( 18 ) IN this observation the sentence that is of direct relevance is that the posts created are stipendiary posts carrying salaries according to the grades created by the rules. It is in this new post that the petitioners continue. ( 19 ) THE clear legal effect of this is that they would be entitled to be paid salary on the scales as prescribed under the rules. ( 20 ) THE only point in favour of the State Government would be one of limitation. If the petitioners had filed suits as the most appropriate remedy to be pursued for the recovery of the money due to them by way of salary, they would not have been able to recover more than what was due for a period of three years immediately preceding the date of the plaint. They cannot get over this disability by invoking the jurisdiction of this Court under Art. 226 of the Constitution. They cannot get over this disability by invoking the jurisdiction of this Court under Art. 226 of the Constitution. On these principles, therefore, the proper order to pass, in our opinion, is that each of the petitioners should be placed at the bottom of the scale prescribed under rule 2 of the Mysore General Services (Revenue Subordinate Branch) village Accountants (Cadre and Recruitment) Rules, 1961 on 21st January, 1966 and be given increments in the scale and also the benefit of revision of pay scales in 1970 and be paid the difference between the amount so becoming payable and the potige or other emoluments actually paid to them, but that they shall not be entitled to payment of the excess so calculated for any period prior to a date three years immediately preceding the date of presentation of these writ petitions. There will be an order in these terms in each of these writ petitions. In all of them parties shall bear their own costs. --- *** --- .