CHOWRINGHEE, PROPERTIES LTD., LANDLORDS Vs. BENGAL STORES LTD.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) On the applications of both the landlord and the tenant, the rent of premises consisting of a shop room in 8A, Chowringhee Place, Calcutta, has been fixed at Rs. 1,2651-per month by an order of the Chief Judge, Court of Small Causes, Calcutta, on the 10th June, 1952. The learned Judge also ordered that the rent thus fixed would be payable from the month of Aug., 1949. The applications were filed in 1949, and on the 5th Jan., 1950, the Rent Controller passed an order fixing the rent at Rs. 1,820.00 with effect from the 1st July, 1949. On the 2nd June, 1950, the Fifth Judge, Small Causes Court, Calcutta, who heard the appeals filed by both the landlord and the tenant, fixed the rent at Rs. 1,820.00 with effect from the 1st July, 1949, and at Rs. 1,495.00 with effect from May, 1950. These orders were ultimately set aside and the order mentioned earlier was passed on the 10th June, 1952. The tenant, however paid to the landlord the entire amount that would be due for July, 1949 to April 1950, at the rate of Rs. 1,820.00 per month on the basis that the order passed by the Rent Controller was binding and valid in law; and then the entire amount, that would be due from May, 1950 to June, 1951, on the basis that the rent had been validly fixed at Rs. 1,495.00. When thereafter the rent for these periods, in consequence of the order of the learned Chief Judge of the 10th June, 1952, was found to be payable at Rs. 1,265.00 per month, the tenant applied to the Rent Controller for refund of Rs. 8,215.00. The application has been allowed and the appeal therefrom has been dismissed.

(2.) The present Rule was obtained against the order dismissing the appeal.

(3.) It is contended before us on behalf of the landlord that the Court which heard the appeal had no jurisdiction to do so. This is based on the argument that the appeal was under section 32 of the West Bengal Premises Rent Control (Temporary Provisions) Act of 1948, which will be referred to hereafter as the 1948 Act. If the appeal lay under the 1948 Act, the position in law would no doubt be that it could be heard only by the Chief Judge or the other persons appointed by the local Government under sub-section (2) of section 32 of that Act to hear appeals. Admittedly Sri R.N. Datta, who heard the appeal had not been so appointed. So it is argued that he had no jurisdiction to hear appeals.