Say the ratio out loud before you open Reasoning — recalling it unprompted is exactly what the exam pays for.
Why it matters
The first jurisdictional question is not which court but who may sue. Everyone may, except the enemy alien — and this case decides how enemy character is determined when a friendly country has been overrun.
Facts
A person resided in a friendly country that had been invaded and occupied. The question was whether he was to be treated as an enemy alien and so barred from suing.
Held
Where a friendly country is invaded and occupied, a person residing there cannot be regarded as an enemy alien, the Government of that country not being at war with India. Enemy character is keyed to the recognised government, not to the occupying force.
Reasoning
Step one — start from the statutory rule. Section 83 allows alien enemies residing in India with the permission of the Central Government, and alien friends, to sue in any court otherwise competent, as if they were citizens of India; alien enemies residing in India without such permission, or residing in a foreign country, may not sue.
Step two — identify what makes a person an enemy. Enemy character depends not on nationality but on the place where the person is residing or carrying on business voluntarily.
Step three — ask whose war it is. Occupation by an enemy force does not put the occupied State at war with India. The relevant government remains the recognised one, which is friendly, so residence in its territory does not confer enemy character.
Exam use
It opens: Who may sue in an Indian court? — as the one decided case on the enemy-alien exception.
State the English position alongside. Anyone may sue — nationals, foreigners and bodies corporate wherever incorporated, provided they enjoy legal personality under the law under which they were incorporated. The single exception is the enemy alien, who cannot sue but may be sued, and if sued may defend and appeal.
Note the voluntariness point, which does the work in a problem question: a national of a friendly State who voluntarily carries on business in enemy territory acquires enemy character, and a national of the enemy State residing here with permission does not. Link it to commercial domicile, which this course treats as a wartime test of enemy character requiring neither residence nor intention and capable of being held in the plural.
It does not decide anything about immunity, which is a different question — whether a foreign State or its ruler may be sued — governed in India by s. 86 of the Code and the two statutes on privileges and immunities.