GOVINDA BHATTA Vs. VENKAPPA BHATTA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In my view - and I have already indicated this view in C.R.P. 1256 of 1963 - the court receiving a deposit under sub-s.(2) of S.6 of (Kerala) Act 7 of 1963 - the depositee court, for short - has only to record the fact of the deposit and is not called upon to adjudicate on the adequacy or otherwise of the deposit in accordance with the several clauses of that sub-section. A reading of that sub-section with sub-s.(3) makes it abundantly clear that the depositee court is only an agency which the tenant may employ for making the prescribed payment to the landlord and the jurisdiction conferred on a court by sub-s.(2) is akin to that conferred by S.83 of the Transfer of Property Act.

(2.) I see nothing in the entire section (section 6 of Act 7 of 1963) which either, expressly or by implication authorises the depositee court to adjudicate upon the adequacy of the deposit made and enter satisfaction of the amount payable under any of the several clauses of sub-s.(2) as the court below has done. The purpose of a payment or a deposit under sub-s.(2) is to bring sub-s.(1) into play - see sub-s.7 - and it is the court that is invited to apply sub-s.(1), namely, the court trying the suit, execution petition, or other application for recovery of arrears of rent, that has to decide whether the conditions required by sub-s.(2) and (7) for the continued application of sub-s.(1) have been satisfied. And it must decide this in the suit or other proceeding for recovery and not in some independent proceeding. After all, if the payment required by sub-s.(2) is made to the landlord direct - such payment is expressly contemplated by the sub-section - it would be only the court trying the suit or proceeding referred to in sub-s.(1) that would decide on the adequacy of the payment made and there is no reason why the depositee court should make the adjudication merely because the payment is made through its agency. There is nothing either in sub-s.(6) or in the explanations to sub-s.(2) which indicates that the depositee court is to adjudicate on the adequacy of the deposit. The adjudication is to be done by the court trying the proceeding referred to in sub-s.(1) and in doing so it has to apply sub-ss.(5) and (6) and the explanation referred to. Even if it be that the depositee court can extend the time under sub-s.(6), that sub-section is confined to a case where a computation has to be made under sub-s.(5) and has no application to other cases. Even so I doubt whether it has to find whether the deposit is deficient or not and I should think that its inquiry could be confined to whether there was a bona fide error in the computation, on application made to it for an extension of time. The word "found" is, I think, used in the sub-section in the sense "discover".

(3.) A receiver was appointed for the holding in question in a suit for arrears of rent due for the three years ending 13-4-1959 and he took charge on 22-12-59. The court below seems to have thought that that determined the lease and that the tenant was under no obligation to pay rent after that date. That is clearly wrong.