RAMJI SHARAN Vs. KRISHNA CHAND KHANNA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner claiming to be the lessor in respect of stall no. 5 on municipal survey plot no. 709, holding no. 424A/4 of the Patna Municipal Corporation, having granted a lease for a period of two years beginning from 1st of July, 1967, filed an application purporting to be under Sec. 12(3) of the Bihar Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1947 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) against the opposite party, the lessee, on 5th of July 1969, praying for a direction on the opposite party to deliver vacant possession of the said stall and also to pay the compensation for the period after the expiry of the lease on the ground of the expiry of the specified period of the lease. A notice of the application filed by the petitioner as aforesaid was served on the opposite party on 1st of August, 1969 and the date fixed for his appearance was 16th of August, 1969. The opposite party, however, did not enter appearance on 16th of August, 1969. The learned Munsif passed an order on that date holding, that, in view of General Letter No. 3 of 1958, dated 3rd of November, 1958 issued from this Court, the petitioner's application will be registered as a title suit. It is against this order that the petitioner has come up to this Court in revision. It appears that when this case was placed before a learned single judge of this Court, the question whether the application was filed by the petitioner purporting to be under Sec. 12(3) of the Act was maintainable or not was debated at length, and it was for a decision of that question that the case was referred to a Division Bench. In our opinion, however, the question of the maintainability of the petitioner's application purporting to have been filed under Sec. 12(3) of the Act does not arise at the present stage; if and when the opposite party raises that question formally before the court below, the matter will have to be gone into. Accordingly, though the question was sought to be agitated before us as well, we do not think that a decision on that question is called for at the present stage.

(2.) In our opinion, however, in passing the impugned order, the learned Munsif has lost sight of the provisions of Sec. 2(3) of the Act, and has thus misdirected himself in holding that the application filed by the petitioner has to be registered as a title suit. General Letter No. 3 of 1958 dated 3rd of November, 1958 may have been issued by this Court for statistical purposes. But it is clear that the said General Letter cannot override the provisions of the Act. Sub -section (3) of Sec. 12 reads as under: