Judgment :- 1. The former Ruler, Maharaja of Travancore, sanctioned an annual payment of Rs. 75,000/- from 611 1931 to the petitioner who ruled that State as Regent from 191924 to 6111931. Admittedly payments were made in equal monthly instalments till 26 2 -1972; thereafter payments were stopped. This is a motion for mandamus to enforce continued payments. 2. By Ext. P5 letter the Chief Secretary of Travancore State informed the Accounts Officer of that State about the said sanction; Art.523 of the Travancore Financial and Account Code, Vol. I, Chapter XIV (Ext. P6) also evidences the sanction of the said sum and its allotment; Ext. P9 is the copy of the letter whereby petitioner was informed of the sanctioning of the said sum as an'allowance'; in Ext. P7 receipt petitioner refers to the amount as pension; in Exts. P11 to P13 letters the Comptroller of Travancore-Cochin also refers to the payments as pension; Exts. P12 and P13 show that the payments were debited under the head: '54 (A) Territorial and Political Pensions'. 3. It was argued that it was the 'duty and obligation of the Ruler of Travancore State' to pay this amount to the petitioner, and that this duty and obligation devolved on Travancore-Cochin State under Art.3 (b) of the Covenant between the Rulers of Travancore and Cochin States, and thereafter on the Kerala State. Art.3 (b) reads: "As from the appointed day, (a) xxxxxx (b) '11 duties and obligations of the Ruler of either of the Covenanting States pertaining or incidental to the Government of that State shall devolve on the United State, and shall be discharged by it; and (c) xxxX According to the learned Advocate-General, if at all, only Art.16 of the Covenant would be attracted. It is disputed that even that article would be of any assistance to the petitioner. Art.16 reads: - "The Ruler of each Covenanting State, as also the members of his family, shall be entitled to all the personal privileges, dignities and titles enjoyed by them, whether within or outside the territories of the State, immediately before the 15th day of August, 1947 " 'Disputes arising out of a provision of a Covenant' are outside the pale of this Court's jurisdiction. This is so under the first part of Art.363 of the Constitution. This is so under the first part of Art.363 of the Constitution. A dispute relating to interpretation of any of the provisions as also as regards enforcement of any provision of the Covenant, is certainly a'dispute arising out of the provisions of the Covenant'. I am supported in this view by the Supreme Court decision in Madhav Rao Scindia v. Union of India (AIR. 1971 S.C.:30). See Para.66,142, 227, 310 and 352. Therefore, the submission based on Art.3 (b) of the Covenant cannot be countenanced. 4. The learned counsel for the petitioner then submitted that the Travancore-Cochin State recognised and accepted this obligation to pay the amount to the petitioner by S.7(b) of the Travancore-Cochin Administration and Application of Laws Act, 1125, and that this obligation devolved on the Kerala State on its formation. 5. The Travancore-Cochin State came into existence on 1-7-1949 by the union of Travancore and Cochin States. On that very day the Administration and Application of Laws Ordinance, 1124, was promulgated. It was thereafter followed by the Administration and Application of Laws Act, 1125. The object of the Ordinance as also of the Act was to provide for the continuance, in the respective areas of the two erstwhile constituent States of the existing laws, that is, the laws that were in force in those States immediately prior to 17 1949. It was something like a re-enactment by the new State of these enactments which had ceased to be in force on the formation of the new State, whole of them at once, confining the territorial extent of their operation to the respective areas. S.7 of the Ordinance and the Act read alike and is analogous to S.6 of the General Clauses Act, 1897, but with this difference, viz., S.7 deals with the effect or the formation of the new State instead of the effect of repeal of any enactment dealt within S.6 of the General Clauses Act, 1897. S.7 of the Ordinance and the Act read alike and is analogous to S.6 of the General Clauses Act, 1897, but with this difference, viz., S.7 deals with the effect or the formation of the new State instead of the effect of repeal of any enactment dealt within S.6 of the General Clauses Act, 1897. S.7(b) of the Ordinance and the Act provides that the formation of the new State shall not "(b) affect any right, privilege, obligation or liability acquired, accrued or incurred prior to the appointed day; (171949)" It is therefore necessary for the petitioner to establish that she acquired a right or that a right accrued to her under an existing law of Travancore and that a corresponding obligation or liability was incurred by the erstwhile Travancore State under that law of Travancore. 6. Even apart from the fact that S.7(b) read with the preamble to the Act can be understood only as referring to rights and privileges acquired or accrued and to liabilities and obligations incurred under an existing law as defined in the Act, it is by now well-settled that a succeeding sovereign or State will be bound only by such pre-existing rights of citizen as have emanated from law, and that too, only on acceptance of that law by it. If it is an executive or administrative order of the predecessor sovereign or State that is relied on as the source of the 'right', then it will be no 'right' at all, for there is no corresponding duty, liability, or obligation that is enforceable against him. No doubt, even in the former case that is, where the right flows from law be it common law of the land or statute law the enforceability of the right as against the sovereign or State would be a matter of degree depending upon the acceptance of the rule of law and the technique available for forcing the sovereign to submit to the law. Where sovereignty is absolute and the machinery available to redress violation or breach of the laws is the will and pleasure of the sovereign alone, it cannot be postulated that the citizen has any right and the sovereign has a corresponding obligation, for, without the means to enforce compliance with laws, it will be idle to say that there exists a right. Where sovereignty has got itself differentiated to the three well-known spheres of legislative, judicial and administrative activities, and where judiciary is competent to check administrative excesses in relation to citizens' rights rights, conferred by or recognised under the laws of the State then, alone it can be said that there exists a legal right enforceable at law. In such cases a corresponding legal duty, liability or obligation is incurred by the sovereign or State under the laws of the State If these laws are recognised and accepted by the succeeding State, these duties, liabilities and obligations become those of the succeeding State, and the citizen can seek their enforcement in courts. 7. The question therefore reduces itself to: Is the petitioner's claim based on a law that was in force in Travancore prior to 17 1949? 8. According to the Supreme Court in Narsing Pratap Deo v. State of Orissa (AIR. 1964 S. C.179 3 at 1797): "Stated broadly, a law generally is a body of rules which have been laid down for determining legal rights and legal obligations which are recognised by courts." This statement of law is almost on the same lines as Salmond's definition of the word'Law' which is: "Rules recognised and acted on by any court of justice." In an earlier decision, State of Gujarat v. Vora Fiddali (AIR. 1964 S.C.1043) Shah J. said that law is the result of legislative power, i.e., 'power to lay down a binding rule of conduct' or 'a course of conduct'. In the first mentioned case that Court also said: "In that sense, a law can be distinguished from a grant, because in the case of a grant; the grantor and the grantee both agree about the making and the acceptance of the grant; not so in the case of law." (p. 1797) It was therefore held in that case that there was no legislative element in a grant and that it does not amount to law but only represents an executive act on the part of the Ruler. To the same effect is the earlier decision where it was held that a'Tharao' made by the Ruler granting full rights and authority over certain forests was not law. To the same effect is the earlier decision where it was held that a'Tharao' made by the Ruler granting full rights and authority over certain forests was not law. These decisions were followed by the Supreme Court in State of M. P v. Bhargavend (AIR 1966S.C. 704) and that decision was referred to and followed by that Court in State of M. P. v. Lal Rampal (AIR. 1966 S.C. 820). 9. So far as the erstwhile Travancore State was concerned, it is common knowledge that laws were made by the Ruler by issuing proclamations or by the Ruler approving enactments passed by the legislature that consisted of two Houses. There was also the customary or common laws of the State which were recognised and acted on the courts of that State. So the difficulty which Ayyangar J. pointed out in Para.58 (at p. 1064) in State of Gujarat v. Vora Fiddali (AIR. 1964 S.C.1043) does not arise in the case on hand. 10. There is no element of legislation involved in a Ruler sanctioning an annual payment of a sum to any one of his subjects. It amounts only to a grant and it represents only an executive action. It is bilateral in character, one giving and the other accepting. It is not even binding upon anyone, so that neither of the two parties is entitled to seek an adjudication in respect of it in a court. It has not been shown that such an act was part of the customary law of Travancore recognised and acted on by courts. On the other hand it appears that the amount was sanctioned on the advice of the Viceroy. The petitioner was at all times free to refuse acceptance of the payment. The result is no legal right enforceable in a court was acquired by the petitioner; nor did any such right accrue to her; consequently the Travancore State and the successor States did not incur any liability or obligation to make the payment. As the petitioner was free at all times to refuse acceptance, those States were at all times free to stop payment of the said amount. No property rights were involved in respect of payments that have not been made, though perhaps in respect of those amounts that have already been paid and accepted, it could be said that those amounts have become petitioner's property. No property rights were involved in respect of payments that have not been made, though perhaps in respect of those amounts that have already been paid and accepted, it could be said that those amounts have become petitioner's property. There is no complaint about those sums already paid. 11. Deokinandan Prasad v. State of Bihar (AIR. 1971 SC. 1409) & State of Punjab v. Iqbal Singh, (1976) 1 S.C.W. R.327, relied on by the petitioner's learned counsel, concerned pensions payable to Government servants under pension rules and not, any amount payable under any executive directions. State of M.P. v. Ranojirao Shinde (AIR. 1968 SC. 1053), another decision relied on by the learned counsel was in respect of cash grants which were enforceable by the grantee against the State Government (see at p. 1056). In State of Kerala v. Ravi Varma (AIR. 1964 Kerala 123) a Division Bench of this Court held that though the formation of the Travancore-Cochin State was an act of State, the liability of the Travancore State to pay an annuity to the plaintiff's family was not extinguished by that act of State in view of S.7 (b) of the Administration and Application of Laws Ordinance 1124, and Administration and Application of Laws Act, 1125, and that under S.91 (a) of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 that liability became the liability of the Kerala State. It is not stated therein that the right to annuity to enforce which the suit was filed had its origin in any executive act or order, and therefore I should presume that the Division Bench proceeded on the basis that that right sprung from a law recognised and acted upon by the courts in Travancore. It should be noted that the only defence that was raised in that case was that the suit was not maintainable since the formation of the Travancore-Cochin State was an act of State for which reason no court had jurisdiction to investigate the controversy. I do not think that that decision is of any assistance to the petitioner. 12. The original petition is dismissed. In the circumstances of the case the parties shall suffer their costs. Dismissed.