566527-1929-Supplementary-Drall-Bills--Unclainest-Balance-Bankraptey-Amendment-Supreme-Court-Amendment — Page 5

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11. Provision is made by section 8 for the transfer to general revenue of unclaimed balances, other than those of intestates estates, remaining in the Supreme Court for five years or longer, and the Court is empowered to require notice to such parties as it may think fit.

12. Section 9 provides that every transfer to the general revenue under the provisions of this Ordinance shall be subject to the provisions of the Ordinance as regards refunds.

13. Section 10 provides that any claimant to any money transferred to the general revenue under the new Ordin- ance, or under the Unclaimed Balances Ordinance, 1885, may prosecute his claim by a petition to the Supreme Court, but it is laid down that no such petition shall be presented except within the same time and subject to the same rule of law and equity in and subject to which ani action for the like purpose might be brought against a subject. This limitation of time and this exclusion of merely moral claims are based on the provisions of section 3 of the Intestates Estates Act, 1884, 47 & 48 Viet. c. 71.

14. A further safeguard is provided by section 11, which empowers the Governor in Council to entertain any moral claim to any sum of money which may have been traus- ferred to the general revenue under this Ordinance or the old Ordinance.

15. Section 12 makes any payment under this Ordinance a charge on the general revenue.

It is

16. Section 80 of the Bankruptcy Ordinance, 1991, lays down the procedure to be followed with regard to unclaimed dividends and funds in bankruptcy proceedings. Such unclaimed amounts are paid to the Registrar of the Supreme Court, who has to hold them for a period of five years. During that time he has authority to pay out any amount to any person who satisfies him of his title to such amount. Sub-section (4) of section 80 of the Bankruptcy Ordinance directs that at the end of this period of five years the Registrar is to pay any unclaimed money to the Treasurer for the use of the Colony, and it also provides that all claims thereon shall be thenceforth barred. considered desirable to leave this procedure untouched, and accordingly section 12 provides that nothing in the present Ordinance is to affect the provisions of the Bank- ruptcy Ordinance with reference to unclaimed dividends and funds in bankruptcy proecedings. The section refers to the Bankruptcy Ordinance generally, and not to section 80 because it is probable that the present Bankruptcy Ordinance will soon be replaced by an amending and con- solidating Ordinance, and it is not possible at present to say how or where the special provisions with regard to unclaimed dividends and funds will appear. The reference to the Bankruptcy Ordinance, 1891, will, by virtue of section 14 of Ordinance No. 31 of 1911, be construed as u reference to the new Bankruptcy Ordinance when it becomes law,

17. Section 13 repeals the Unclaimed Balances Ordin- ance, 1885.

18. Section 14 repeals section 25 of the Probates Ordinance, 1897. That section lays down that the provisions of the Unclaimed Balances Ordinance, 1885, in relation to unclaimed balances of the estates of persons dying intestate shall mutatis mutandis apply to moneys received or taken possession of by the Official Adminis- trator under section 14 or section 19 of the Probates Ordinance, with a certain proviso. There are several objections to this section. A mutatis mutandis clause is to be avoided if possible because there is sometimes doubt as to what should be changed and as to how it should be

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