VASANT SHANKAR OAK Vs. RAGHUNATH DEVAJI BANKAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE three revision applications raise a common point and can, therefore, he disposed of by a common judgment. The petitioners (who will hereafter be called the tenants) made applications to the Small Causes Court, Bombay, for the fixation of the standard rent under Section 11 of the Rent Act in respect of their respective premises. The opponent (who will hereafter be called the landlord), who is common in all these applications, resisted the said applications on the ground that the predecessors of the present tenants had made similar applications before the Civil Judge, Junior Division, Thana, and that there was an order fixing the standard rent based on the consent of the parties. It was contended that the judgment in those cases operated as judgment in rem and, therefore, the applications by the present tenants were barred. That contention was upheld and the applications were dismissed by the trial Judge. Applications, in revision, were filed to the full court of the Small Causes Court, which summarily dismissed the applications. That is why the tenants have now approached this Court in revision.

(2.) NOW , the rent agreed upon between the landlord and the previous tenants was Rs. 50 p.m. for each of the premises. In the applications filed by the previous tenants the rent came to be reduced to Rs. 40 p.m. in respect of each of the premises. This was in 1952. The present tenants entered into the premises in 1954 agreeing to pay a monthly rent of Rs. 40 in respect of each of the premises. It is in the background of these facts that the question as to whether the present applications are barred by virtue of the decision in the previous proceedings is to be determined.

(3.) IN the Courts below reliance was placed on the decision of Setalvad J. in Chapsi v. Keshavji (1920) 23 Bom. L.R. 133. The only question that arose for consideration in that case was whether there could be different standard rent as between the landlord and the tenant on one hand and the tenant and the sub -tenant on the other and it was held that there could not be different standard rent for the same premises as between the landlord and the tenant on one side and the tenant and the sub -tenant on the other. Incidentally, reference was made to the decision of the Court of Appeal in King v. York (1919) W.N.K.B. 69. It was observed in King v. York that the provisions of the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest Act, 1915, applied to houses, not to persons. The Act operated in rem, not in personam. It stereotyped the rent of a house. This observation was cited with approval and Setalvad J. observed that ; the standard rent is to be fixed in relation to premises and not in relation to persons, and can, therefore, be only one and not varying as between different individuals(p. 138). I do not think that this case is an authority for the proposition that the decision regarding the standard rent taken in earlier proceedings operates as judgment in rem.