OM PRAKASH Vs. DELHI PINJRAPOLE SOCIETY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition, under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, assails order dtd. 5/7/2022, passed by the learned Principal District and Sessions Judge (the learned Pr. DSJ) in RCT 77/2018 (Om Prakash v. The Delhi Pinjrapole Society), to the extent the learned Pr. DSJ has rejected the petitioner's request to adjourn RCT 77/2018 [being an appeal preferred by the petitioner against order dtd. 31/5/2018 of the learned Additional Rent Controller (the learned ARC], till the Division Bench of this Court adjudicated on the questions of law referred to it by a learned Single Judge in a batch of Rent Control Revision Petitions headed by K.S. Bhandari v. International Security Printers Pvt. Ltd., (2018) 167 DRJ 277.

(2.) Having heard learned Counsel for the petitioner at some length, it appears that the petitioner is harbouring a serious misconception of law which is that District Courts are competent only to decide questions of law for which prior authoritative precedents in the form of decisions of High Courts or the Supreme Court exist.

(3.) The submission advanced by Mr. Vishal Bhatnagar, learned Counsel for the petitioner, is that one of the issues which arises for consideration in RCT 77/2018 before the learned Pr. DSJ is whether a public charitable trust carrying on public activities qualifies as a 'public institution" for the purposes of Sec. 22[1] of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958 (the DRC Act). This issue, points out, learned Counsel, stands referred by the afore-noted decision in K.S. Bhandari1 by a learned Single Judge of this Court to the Division Bench. He has drawn my attention, in this context to para 50 of the report in K.S. Bhandari, the relevant portion of which reads thus: