STATE OF WEST BENGAL Vs. BENODE BEHARI GUPTA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Premises No. 2, Motilal Nehru Road, Calcutta, was requisitioned under the West Bengal Premises Requisition and Control (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1947, and possession was taken on the 16th Dec., 1949. As there was no agreement between the owner and the requisitioning authority as to the monthly compensation payable, a reference was made to the Arbitrator under section 11 of the Act above mentioned. Evidence was led on behalf of the claimant as also the State before the Arbitrator. According to the State the proper monthly compensation is to be Rs. 250 per mensem; according to the claimant Rs. 500; and the Arbitrator has fixed Rs. 423-8 as monthly compensation inclusive of taxes and costs of normal repair. The State has come up on appeal, and before us it has been contended that the monthly compensation should have been fixed at Rs. 250. Cross-objection also has been filed on behalf of the claimant, but the same was not pressed. The compensation as fixed by the Arbitrator was on the basis of rent which had been fixed by the Rent Controller in respect of the same premises. It has been contended before us that the order passed by the Rent Controller after the requisition had been given effect was not binding on the State, and in any view, the evidentiary value of such fixation was very little. It will be necessary to refer to the circumstances under which this rent was fixed by the Rent Controller before we deal with the legal objections raised before us.

(2.) The premises in question had at the time of the requisition been in the occupation of a tenant. He was paying rent at the rate of Rs. 170 per month. Before the date of requisition in March, 1949, an application was filed by the landlord for the standardisation of rent with effect from the date of the application. This application remained pending either before the Rent Controller or after its disposal by the latter before the Additional District Judge in appeal till the 25th May, 1950. It was on this day that the standard rent was fixed at Rs. 385 per month in accordance with the provisions of the West Bengal Premises Rent Control (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1950, with retrospective effect from April, 1949.

(3.) As already stated, the premises had in the mean time been requisitioned and possession was obtained by the State on the 16th December, 1949. The tenant had not during the hearing of the appeal before the Additional District Judge entered appearance although he had contested the claim of the landlord before the Rent Controller. Subsequently a suit for the recovery of arrears of rent was filed by the landlord against the tenant who had been in occupation up to the date of requisition. In this suit the claim of the landlord was decreed and at the rent fixed by the Additional District Judge from April 1949, to the 16th Dec., 1949.