KAILASHCHANDRA Vs. DISTRICT JUDGE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioners in this case pray that a writ of certiorari be issued for quashing a decision of the Court of the District Judge, Bhopal, in an appeal against an order of the Rent Controlling Authority, Bhopal, fixing the fair rent of two shop premises belonging to the applicants.

(2.) A preliminary point has been raised in this case that the petitioners should have filed a revision petition under Section 115 of the Civil Procedure Code against the decision of the Court of District Judge, and that as they did not avail themselves of the alternative remedy this application under Article 226 should not be entertained. In our opinion, this objection must prevail. Section 12 of the M. P. Accommodation Control Act, 1955 says:

(3.) THE law on this point is clearly established by the decisions of the Privy Council in Secretary of State v. C. Rama Rao, AIR 1916 PC 21, Hem Singh v. Basant Das, air 1936 PC 93, Adaikappa v. Chandrasekhara, AIR 1948 PC 12 and of the supreme Court in National Sewing Thread Co. Ltd. v. James Chadwick and Bros. Ltd. , AIR 1953 SC 357. In all these cases, the rule laid down in National Telephone co. Ltd. v. Post Master General, AIR 1913 AC 546, was quoted with approval. That rule was stated by Viscount Haldane L. C. in these terms: 'when a question is stated to be referred to an established Court without more, it, in my opinion, imports that the ordinary incidents of the procedure of that Court are to attach, and also that any general right of appeal from its decisions likewise attaches. ' in AIR 1916 PC 21 (supra) the Privy Council considered a case in which an appeal was provided to the District Court against an order of the Forest Settlement Officer rejecting a claim made to a land in a reserved forest. The Forest Act did not provide for any further appeal. The Privy Council held that when proceedings reached the District Court that Court was appealed to as one of the ordinary courts of the country with regard to whose procedure, orders, and decrees the ordinary rules of the Civil Procedure Coda applied. This decision of the Privy council makes it abundantly clear that in the present case also the question of appeal or revision against the order of the Court of the District Judge made under section 12 of the Accommodation Control Act would be governed by the Civil procedure Coda. Under Section 12 the appeal that is provided to the Court of the district Judge is to one of the ordinary and established Courts. We are aware that in Shrikrishna v. Badrilal, Madh B LR 1953 Cir 144, it was field with reference to the analogous provision contained in Section 9 (3) of the Madhya bharat Sthan Niyantran Vidhan that Section 9 (3) confers special jurisdiction on the Court of the District Judge and that an appeal to that Court was not 'as a part of its ordinary jurisdiction or as an extension of it but as a Court of special jurisdiction'. We do not think this view is sound. The learned Judge of the Madhya bharat High Court failed to notice that the Sthan Niyantran Vidhan did not create a special Court or tribunal of appeal when it provided that an appeal shall lie against an order of the Rent Controlling Authority to the Court of the District Judge. The appeal was to a Court of ordinary jurisdiction and it was to a Court already established. We have no doubt that the decision given by the Court of the District judge under Section 12 is one to which the ordinary incidents of the procedure of that Court apply.