ISHER DASS TARA CHAND Vs. HARCHARAN DASS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ON 4th March, 1954, Harcharan Das applied to the Rent Controller, Gurdaspur, for ejectment of his tenant Ishar Das. under Section 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, on the plea inter alia that the rent from the 1st of November, 1953, to 1st March, 1954, at the rate of Rs. 40 per menensem had fallen in arrears and had not been paid. The first date of hearing of the application was the 3rd of April, 1954. On that day, the tenant deposited Rs. 183 -4 -0 on account of arrears of rent claimed in the application calculated up to 31st of March, 1954, plus interest thereon and costs. The learned Controller held that in view of this payment, the landlord was not entitled to an order for ejectment on the ground of non -payment of rent. In appeal the District Judge sitting as Appellate Authority did not agree with this finding and held that in order to save the tenant from the consequences of non -payment of rent, he should have paid the arrears of rent calculated up to the date of deposit, i.e., 3rd of April, 1954, which was the first date of hearing of the application for ejectment and not merely up to the date of the application. Accordingly, he accepted the landlord 's appeal and ordered the tenant 's eviction. The matter came up in revision before Kapur, J. (now Hon'ble Mr. Justice J. L. Kapur of the Supreme Court), who, in view of the importance of the question involved and its frequent occurrence, referred it to a Division Bench for an authoritative interpretation of the relevant provisions of law. We are thus called upon to interpret the proviso to Clause (i) of Sub -section (2) of Section 13 of the East Punjab Rent Restriction Act and the question for our consideration is: Whether the arrears of rent referred to in the proviso to Clause (i) to Sub -section (2) of Section 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, which a tenant is required to pay or tender on the first hearing of the application, should be computed up to the date of the first hearing or only up to the date of the application ?

(2.) AT the time the reference order was made by Kapur, J., the matter does not appear to have come up for interpretation before this Court, but subsequently the question arose before Bhandari, C.J., in Civil Miscellaneous No. 159 of 1955 (Jagdish Parshad v. Beni Parshad), decided on the 17th of 'May, 1955. The argument that the arrears of rent, which a tenant is required to deposit under the proviso to Section 13 (2) '(i) of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act to save himself from the forfeiture of the tenancy, should be calculated up to the date of the first hearing, was repelled with the following observations: - I regret I am unable to concur in this contention. * * * * ***** The law, however, requires a tenant not to pay all the rent which is claimed by a landlord, but only the rent which is due up to the date on which the application for ejectment is made.

(3.) THIS is the only decision of this Court which has come to our notice regarding the interpretation of the proviso to Clause (i) to Sub -section (2), to Section 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act. An identical provision was, however, contained in Ordinance No. VIII of 2006 Bk. of erstwhile Pepsu State, and a similar question came up for consideration before Mehar Singh, J., in Civil Miscellaneous No. 175 of 1954, Gopal Mai v. Firm Dwarka Das and Company, while he was sitting as a Judge of the Pepsu High Court. Mehar Singh, J., took a view different from that which Bhandari, C.J., has expressed in the Punjab case and interpreted the proviso to Sub -Section 2(i) to Section 13 of the Pepsu Ordinance as laying down that the amount of arrears of rent which a tenant was required to pay under that provision of law to avoid forfeiture of his tenancy should be calculated up to the date of the first hearing and not merely up to the date of the application for ejectment. This decision was, however, overruled by a Division Bench of this Court in Basant Ram v. Gurcharan Singh and Anr., 61 P.L.R. 591, to which my learned brother, Falshaw J., was a party. In that case, dealing with the proviso to Section 13(2)(i) of the Pepsu Ordinance referred to above, it was held that the arrears of rent that a tenant was required to pay or tender on the first hearing to avoid his ejectment were to be computed up to the date of the filing of the application for ejectment and not up to the date of its first hearing. The decision of Bhandari, C.J., in Jagdish Parshad 's case was approved.