C L JOS Vs. ANNAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is the tenant of a building belonging to the 1st respondent. The latter has obtained an order for his eviction under the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act 1959. Motions to have that order quashed by this Court, in O. P. No. 372 of 1965 and Writ Appeal No. 123 of 1965, did not succeed. When the 1st respondent moved to execute the order, the petitioner prayed for some time to vacate the building; and the executing Court - the Principal Munsiff, Irinjalakuda - granted time till April 15, 1965. The present petition is for a declaration, under Art.226 of the Constitution, that the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1959, having been a temporary statute that expired on March 31, 1965, proceedings commenced thereunder have ipso facto terminated on that date leaving no jurisdiction to the executing Court to proceed further in the matter.

(2.) The argument is, no doubt, interesting; but, I am afraid, superficially only. That an order secured by a party after contest in five Courts in succession is of no avail to him seems at odds with all notions of justice. Admittedly, there is no legislative mandate to that effect. Of course, the general rule in regard to a temporary statute is that proceedings taken under it will ipso facto terminate as soon as the statute expires; but I am afraid that that rule has its own limitations. The inhibition is only to the commencement or continuance of proceedings under an expired statute; it cannot extend to proceedings concluded while the statute was in force. Even in penal proceedings under a temporary statute, a sentence imposed with finality is not held - at any rate, no decision brought to my notice has held - to lapse with the expiry of the statute. The true legal position has been pointed out by the Supreme Court in State of Orissa v. Bhupendra Kumar ( AIR 1962 SC 945 ):

(3.) Counsel urged that the ratio of the above precedent applies only to rights created by a temporary statute, but the right of a landlord to resume his premises in eviction of the tenant is a right under the general law and not one created by the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act. I do not feel persuaded by this contention either. Rights may be substantive or remedial; and both may be capable of surviving the lapse of a temporary statute. A right to practise as an apothecary that was the subject of consideration in the case of Steavenson (151 ER 1024), cited with approval by the Supreme Court in the decision referred to above, was a substantive right. The right to levy a penalty that the Supreme Court observed to be capable of surviving a temporary statute is a remedial right. The right concerned here - to enforce eviction through the process of law by virtue of an order of the Rent Control Court - is a remedial right created by the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act and is, as such, squarely within the ruling cited above. The expiry of the Act is therefore immaterial as regards execution or enforcement of the final order for eviction against the petitioner.