ABRAHAM Vs. REVENUE DIVISIONAL OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner in the original petition 1025 of 1959, who will be hereafter referred to simply as the petitioner, is an officer in the Engineering Department of the State. He applied to the first respondent, the Revenue Divisional Officer, Fort Cochin, who is the Accommodation Controller under the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1959 or shortly the Act, for the allotment of a building to him for his residence. The building, number 12/7611, of which the second respondent is the landlord, having fallen vacant on May 1, 1959, the first respondent allotted it to the petitioner by order Ext. P1 on May 13, 1959. When the petitioner desired to occupy it, the second respondent informed him, that he let it out to the third respondent. On this, communications passed between the petitioner and the first respondent, but nothing materialised. On the above allegations, the petitioner filed the original petition 1025 of 1959 on August 27, 1959 to call up the records relating to Ext. P1 and to issue a writ of mandamus directing the first respondent to dispossess summarily the third respondent, or any other person in occupation of the building, and to put the petitioner in possession of the same. After the above petition was filed, the first respondent issued an order to the second respondent to evict the third respondent, but on non compliance with it by the second respondent, the Revenue Inspector was ordered to dispossess the third respondent summarily, under S.4(7) (a)(i) of the Act. Thereupon, the original petition 1205 of 1959 was filed by the petitioner therein, alleging that she and not the third respondent in O.P. 1025 of 1959, was the tenant of the building under the second respondent, having been put in possession thereof by the latter on April 11, 1959, & seeking to quash Ext. P1 and other reliefs, impleading the Accommodation Controller and the Revenue Inspector as respondents 1 and 4 therein, the petitioner being the second respondent. It is the case of the petitioner, that the third respondent in O.P. 1025 of 1959 and the petitioner in O.P. 1205 of 1959 were acting in collusion with each other, to defeat the petitioner. Upon this, a stay of further proceedings was ordered by this court and the two petitions have been heard today jointly.

(2.) The first contention advanced on behalf of the petitioner in O.P. 1205 of 1959 was, that notwithstanding the prescription in S.1 (4) of the Act that it shall come into force on the 3rd day of April 1959 the sanction of the President having been accorded only on May 28, 1959, the Act could come into force only thereafter, and so on the dates of the letting by the second respondent and of Ext. P1, the Act was not in force. It was not disputed, that on the Presidents sanction being accorded the Act as it was passed by the legislature, became law, and if this is so, effect has to be given to every part of it, including S.1(4). On the language of this provision alone, it is not permissible to deny its operation from the specified date, on a mere suggestion that words, such as shall be deemed to have come into force, or better words still could have been employed speaking as from the date of the sanction of the President. The further argument, that vested rights, such as were claimed to have accrued to the petitioner in O.P. 1205 of 1959 by virtue of the letting in her favour, could not be defeated in the absence of express words to that effect in the enactment, is entirely unsustainable, once retroactive operation is conceded to the Act. One of the objects of retrospective operation is the displacement on vested rights. This is only a corollary flowing from retroactivity.

(3.) Then next contention was, that Ext. P1 is not valid not having been issued within 15 days of the receipt by the Accommodation Controller of a notice of vacancy as prescribed by S.4 (3) of the Act. The notice reached the Accommodation Controller on April 28, 1959, and if that date is excluded Ext. P1 was within the period specified. The argument of the learned counsel for the petitioner in O.P. 1205 of 1959 was, that whatever be the meaning of the words from and to with reference to a period of time, by reason of the provisions in the General Clauses Act, 1897 or The Travancore-Cochin Interpretation and General Clauses Act, 1125, the effect and meaning of the word of with reference to a period of time is different, and is not to exclude the first date of the period. The general rule of construction in the computation of time, is to the contrary as laid down by Crawford on Statutory Construction, 1940 Edition, page 765. The word of with reference to a period, has been interpreted as equivalent to after in Williams v. Burgess and Another, 10 L.J.Q.B. 10 and this is taken to be the accepted meaning of the word of in this context, in Bouviers Law Dictionary, 3rd Edition, Volume 3, page 2399. If so, in computing the period of 15 days, April 28 must be excluded, and Ext. P1 was therefore passed within the period prescribed by the Act, and it is not open to challenge on that ground.