SUDHA SAKHARAM GOVANDALKAR Vs. KRISHNA PANDURANG KODE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE writ petitioners are in occupation of certain premises owned by the respondents (original applicants ). The respondents filed an ejectment application before the Court of Small Cause at Bombay under section 41 of the Presidency Small Cause Courts Act, 1882 for recovery of possession of the same from the petitioners. The said application, which was filed in the year 1974, was numbered as Ejectment Application 262-E of 1974. On receipt of notice of the said application, the petitioners appeared before the Small Cause Court and filed their reply claiming, inter alia, that they were tenants of the applicants within the meaning of the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, 1947 (Bombay Act LVII of 1947) and in consequences thereof entitled to the protection of that Act.

(2.) AFTER the issues were framed by the Court, the original applicants (respondents herein) filed an application on 5th October, 1984 praying for framing of a preliminary issue to decide the above claim of the occupants (original respondents ). This application was opposed by the original respondents (petitioners herein) on the ground that no preliminary issue could be framed as envisaged by section 42-A of the Presidency Small Cause Courts Act, as the said section stood deleted with effect from 1st July, 1976 consequent to the substitution of Chapter VII of the said Act (which contained section 41 to 46 including section 42-A) by the Maharashtra Act, IX of 1976. The Small Cause Court did not accept this objection and fixed the case on 23rd January, 1985 for framing the preliminary issue.

(3.) AGGRIEVED by the above order, the petitioners (original respondents) filed a revision application in the Court of Small Cause. The said revision application was rejected and the order of the trial Court fixing the case for framing of the preliminary issue as envisaged by section 42-A of the Presidency Small Cause Courts Act was affirmed on the ground, inter alia, that the amendment of Chapter VII was not applicable as the ejectment application in this case had been prior to 1976. The petitioners seek to challenge the above revisional order on the ground, inter alia, that no preliminary issue can be framed after 1st July, 1976 after the deletion of section 42-A.