MATHRA DAS Vs. OM PARKASH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition raises the question whether a Tribunal constituted under the provisions of the Urban Rent Restriction Act is at liberty to follow the principles embodied in the Code of Civil Procedure.

(2.) One Shiv Parshad who is the owner of a house situate in Ambala presented an application under the provisions of the Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act and secured an order for the eviction of his tenant Mathura Das. The landlord died shortly after the passing of the order and the property belonging to him came to vest in his three sons. The tenant who was dissatisfied with the order of the Rent Controller presented an appeal to the District Judge, and impleaded the sons as respondents both in their capacity as owners of the house in question and it, their capacity as legal representatives of their father. The learned District Judge declined to proceed with the case on the ground that in the absence of a specific provision in the Rent Restriction Act, similar to the provisions contained in Order 22 of the' Code of Civil Procedure, it was not within the competence of the tenant to implead, or of the Court to proceed against, the legal representatives of a landlord who had died before the presentation of the appeal. The tenant is dissatisfied with the order and has come to this Court under Article 227 of the Constitution.

(3.) Mr. C. L. Aggarwal, who appears for the legal representatives of the deceased landlord, has invited my attention to a number of authorities which appear to lay down the proposition that an administrative tribunal acting in a quasi-judicial capacity possesses no inherent powers such as are conferred upon a civil Court, by section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure (In the matter of compensation for the life of Karam Dad, 1930 AIR(Lahore) 657 , and that in the absence of incorporation of the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure in the rules or procedure for the tribunal in question there is no justification for the application of the principles of those provisions (Sha Devi Chand Moolchand v. Sha Dhanraj Kantilal, 1949 AIR(Mad) 53 N.K. Segu Abdul Khadir Hadjiar v. A.K. Murthy, 1948 AIR(Mad) 235 and Ruplal Sitaram v. Sheo Shankar Awasilal, 1953 AIR(Nag) 191 .