on the face of its was no more than an act of indemnity and relief in respect of penalties incurred. It may be true that 'not Jove himself upon the past hath power', but legislators have certain the right to prevent alter or reverse the consequences of their own decrees. There is no necessity to give instances to prove that they have frequently done so, even going so far as to restore the heritable quality to blood which had been deprived of its virtue by Acts of attainder. 232. I am not impressed by the argument that retrospective operation of the relevant provisions of Act 40 of 1975 affects free and fair elections. The said provisions of Act 40 of 1975 are general in terms and would apply to all election disputes which may be pending either in the High Court or in appeal before the Supreme Court or which may arise in future. It is no doubt true that the retrospective operation of an amending Act has the effect of placing one of the parties to the dispute in a more advantageous position compared to others but that is inevitable in most of the amendments with retrospective operation. This Court in the case of Harbhajan Singh v. Mohan Singh, (1974) 2 SCC 363 (364) = (AIR 1974 SC 2068) dealt with the provisions of Section 3 of the Punjab Pre-emption (Repeal) Act, 1973, according to which on and from the date of commencement of that Act, no court shall pass a decree in any suit for pre-emption. This Court held that the above provision was also applicable to appeals which were pending at the commencement of that Act as an appeal was in the nature of a re-hearing, and as such even if the suit had been decreed by the trial court, the suit was liable to be dismissed because of the coming into force of the Punjab Pre-emption (Repeal) Act during the pendency of the appeal. It is plain that only those vendees obtained the benefit of the above Act who had filed appeals against the decree awarded against them in pre-emption suit. Vendees in other cases who did not file appeal against the decree awarded against them in view of the then existing law had to lose the purchased property and thus be at a disadvantage. That fact, however, did not prevent this Court from giving effect to the amendment. Whenever a legislature makes a law or amends a law, it has to indicate the time from which it would come into effect. This is essentially a matter for the legislature and the court cannot substitute its own opinion for that of the legislature. The fact that the change in law is made applicable to pending cases and the classification treats the decided cases as belonging to one category and pending cases as belonging to another category is not offensive to Art. 14 (see Anant Mills v. State of Gujarat. (1975) 2 SCC 175 = (AIR 1975 SC 1234) ). Nor can the court interfere on the score of the propriety of giving retrospective effect to an amendment made in an election law. Indeed, the question of propriety is a matter which is entirely for the legislature to think of and decide. It cannot affect the validity of the law. This Court in the case of Kanta Kathuria (supra) expressly rejected the contention that amendment in election law was void because it gave advantage to a party. Hidayatullah, C.J. observed in this context : “It is true that it gave an advantage to those who stand when the disqualification was not so removed as against those who may have kept