LAKKAJU SATYANARAYANA Vs. MAJATI VENKATARATTAMMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This application for a writ of certiorari is to quash the order of the Subordinate Judge of Tenali in C. M. A. No. 6 of 1950 setting aside the order of the Rent Controller and directing the petitioner before us to be evicted under the Madras Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act. The ground on which eviction was ordered was default in payment of rent within the prescribed time. Though the facts make it abundantly clear that there was no wilful default on the part of the tenant in the payment of rents, nevertheless, it cannot be said that the learned Subordinate Judge was wrong in holding that there was a technical default in payment within the time prescribed. His order therefore was on his finding quite proper. But the learned counsel for the petitioner invokes in his aid a new provision inserted by Madras Act VIII of 1951 which amended the Madras Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1949. Under Section 9 of this Amending Act (VIII of 1981) the following proviso was added to Section 7 (2) namely,

(2.) Mr. Ramachandra Rao, learned counsel for the petitioner relied on Section 20 of Madras Act VIII of 1951 for his contention that the proviso applied to this case. That section is in these terms:

(3.) We are clear, however, that Section 20 applies to this case, because we agree with Mr. Ramachandra Rao that the appeal preferred to the Subordinate Judge must be deemed to be pending so long as the application to quash the order is pending in this Court. In Halsbury's Laws of England vol. 9, page 838 (Section 1420), the nature of a writ of certiorari is thus set out: