MAMAN CHAND RATILAL AGARWAL Vs. JAYSINGH JAIRAM TYAGI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS case and the group of connected cases is referred to this division Bench. It raises an important question as to the true interpretation of Section 3(4) of the Cantonments (Extension of Rent Control Laws) Act being Act No. 46 of 1957 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Central Act'), as amended by Amendment Act No. 22 of 1972. The question is whether fresh notification under amended Section 3 of the Central Act extending the Act retrospectively is necessary to validate the decrees, etc. passed before the prospective extension of the Rent Act under earlier notification dated December 27, 1969?

(2.) THE petitioner is the landlord. His suit for eviction under the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, 1947, hereinafter referred to as the Rent Act' against his tenant, the respondent, from a house in a cantonment area in Kirkee, was decreed on March 12, 1967 in the belief that the Rent Act applied to the said area.

(3.) THE Parliament, however, appears to have thought otherwise and passed the Central Act. It is a short enactment consisting only of five sections. Rather than itself legislate on the topic directly, it empowers the Central Government, under Section 3 thereof to extend the concerned State Rent Acts to the Cantonment areas, lying within the said State as in force 'on the date of Notification'. The Central Government did not exercise this power, qua Cantonment areas in the State of Maharashtra, till Supreme Court by its decision dated April 29, 1969, in Indu Bhusan v. Rama Sundari : [1970]1SCR443 over -ruled A.C. Patel's case (supra) and laid down that not the State Legislature but the Parliament alone was competent to legislate in this behalf. The Central Government then extended the Rent Act to the Cantonment areas on December 27, 1969 with certain modifications which are not relevant in this case. However, this extension was prospective with effect from December 27, 1969. Section 3 of the Central Act, as it then stood, did not authorise retrospective extension. The proceedings initiated and the orders and decrees passed under the Rent Act, prior to such extension, on the assumption of it being effective in such areas, had become ineffective and void as a result of Indu Bhusan's judgment. Act No, 46 of 1957 came to be amended on June 2, 1972 under Act No. 22 of 1972 to revive and validate the same. Admittedly no fresh notification under amended Section 3 extending the Rent Act with retrospective effect is issued till this day.