KUNHAMMAD KEYI Vs. PREMALATHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Petitioners are the owners of a house within the Tellicherry Municipality of which the 1st respondent entered into occupation as a tenant on 23-3-1952 on a monthly rent of Rs. 30/- and has since been in occupation. She was content to pay rent at the agreed rate till 1-7-1959. Thereafter she paid no rent with the result that the petitioners sent her a registered notice threatening her with eviction on the ground of the non payment. Her answer to this was to make an application to the Rent Control Court under S.5 of the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act (Act 16 of 1959) praying that, under the proviso to sub-s.(2) of that section, the fair rent of the building be fixed at Rs. 17.25, the monthly rent on the basis of which house tax for the building had been fixed by the municipality being Rs. 15/-. It was not disputed that this was the monthly rent on the basis of which house tax was fixed for the year in which the 1st respondents tenancy commenced, and, taking the view that the proviso referred to fixed the ceiling at 15% more than this rent, the Rent Control Court allowed the 1st respondents application and fixed the fair rent at Rs. 17.25 with effect from 1-1-1960, the date of the application. Against this order the 1st respondent appealed under S.18 of the Act praying for a refund or adjustment of the rent paid in excess for a period of three years immediately before the date of her application, that is from 1-1-1957, and the petitioners came to this court seeking a writ of certiorari to quash the order of the Rent Control Court, and a writ of prohibition to restrain the appellate authority from hearing the 1st respondents appeal, on the ground that S.5 (2) and 8 (1) of the Act were void for offending Art.14, 19(1)(f) and (g) and 31 of the Constitution. Their petition for the purpose is now before us having been referred by the Single Judge before whom it came on for hearing to a Division Bench, and, in turn, by the Division Bench to a Full Bench.

(2.) It is the petitioners case - and this case stands uncontradicted - that since 1954 the municipal assessment in respect of the house has been on the basis of a monthly rent of Rs. 30/-. If the current assessment, current that is at the time of the application for fixing the fair rent, and not to the assessment at the time of the letting, is to determine the ceiling under the proviso in question, the petitioners have no grievance.

(3.) S.5 of the Act, as it stood at the relevant time, runs (so far as is material) as follows: