HARSHABARDHAN MONDAL Vs. BHABANI PRASAD CHATTOPADHYAY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A short but interesting question arises for determination in this revision, but the question, far from being res Integra, is squarely covered by a series of decisions of the Supreme Court and also of this Court. The question is whether a tenant-defendant governed by the provisions of the West Bengal premises Tenancy act, 1956, having been a party to a compromise resulting in a decree for ejectment, can still turn round and resist execution thereof on the ground that the compromise was recorded and a decree was passed by the court without any advertence to and without being satisfied as to the existence of any of the grounds of ejectment as mentioned in Section 13 (1) of the Action which alone ejectment can be decreed, and was therefore a nullity. The learned Munsif has found the impugned compromise decree to bs such a nullity and has struck out execution thereof. Hence this revision by the landlords.

(2.) THERE should be no doubt that Section 13 (1) of the West Bengal premises Tenancy act by providing that notwithstanding anything contrary in any other law, no decree far the recovery of possession of any premises shall be made by any court in favour of the landlord against a tenant exception one or more of the grounds specified therein. las put a clear embargo on the jurisdiction of the court to decree eviction unless any of those grounds, which alone can vest the court with the requisite jurisdiction, is found to exist in fact. A decree for eviction, therefore, whether on contest or on consent, would be a nullity if the records of the case go to demonstrate the absence of any material to found such a ground. However solemnly a tenant may agree to suffer a decree of ejectment on compromise, the executing court would still relieve him of the decree if the materials on record do not indicate or disclose any ground of ejectment, under the Act.

(3.) FOR quite sometime, the decisions of the Supreme Court in Smt. Kaushalya Devi (AIR 1970 SC 83s) and in Ferozi Lal Jain (AIR 1970 sc 794) were assumed to be authorities for the proposition that in order to sustain a decree of ejectment on compromise, the records must show that the court was satisfied as to the existence of a permissible ground of ejectment and did not decree ejectment merely on the ground that the parties, and the tenant in particular, agreed thereto. But in the later decisions in K. K. Chari (AIR 1973 SC 1311), in Nagindas Ramdas (AIR 1974 SC 471) and then in Roshan Lal (AIR 1975 SC 2130), the question was considered by the Supreme Court in more depth and it was held that, if it could be shown that at the time of recording the compromise and passing the decree thereon, there was some material before the Court on the basis of which the Court could be prima facie satisfied as to the existence of a statutory ground of eviction, it would be presume that the Court was duly satisfied as to its existence and decreed eviction on such; satisfaction, even though the decree or the order, far from recording such satisfaction, might give an apparent impression that it was granted solely on the basis of the compromise. This, in effect, would be applying the presumption under Illustration (e)to Section 114 of the Evidence Act to the effect that judicial acts have been regularly performed. The; two yet later decisions of the Supreme court in Nai Bahu (AIR 1978 SC 22) and in Suleman Noormohamed (AIR 1978 SC 952) have again reinforced the position. And the position emerging from a conspectus of all these decisions may be stated, thus:-