JAINARAIN Vs. MEENA DEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision application has been filed against the appellate order passed by the Civil Judge, Bikaner on November 22, 1978.

(2.) THE facts, which have given rise to this revision application, briefly are that a suit for ejectment was filed by the plaintiff opposite party on Oct. 21, 1970 in the court of Munsif, Bikaner on the grounds of defaults in payment of rent and bona fide personal necessity for the suit promises and of nuisance. The defendant could not be served with summons for almost a pried of seven years for some reason or the other But on July 12, 1977 his counsel appeared before the trial court and a copy of the plaint was delivered to him On August 9, 1977, the defendant filed his written statement in which he denied the existence of the relationship of landlord and tenant between the. parties and claimed that he hid taken the premises on rent from one Smt. Magi, widow of Chaturbhuj and after the death of Smt. Magi he did not know who was his landlord The trial court, by its order dated February 9, 1978 held that as the defendant disputed the relationship of lard lord and tenant between him and the plaintiff, a determination of arrears of rent under the provisions of Sub -section (3) of Section 13 of the Rajasthan Premises (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1950 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act') could not be made until the relationship of landlord and tenant between the parties is established Thus, according to the trial court, it was not necessary in such a suit to determine the arrears of rent and interest under Sub -section (3) of Section (3) of the Act, where the defendant denied the relationship of landlord and tenant between the parties to the suit. The view of the trial court appears to be that Sub -section (3) of Section 13 of the Act would be applicable only to such cases in which the tenant admitted the relationship of landlord and tenant between the parties.

(3.) IN this revision application, three questions have been raised. The first question argued in this case is that as the suit was pending since 1970 the provisions of Sub -section (3) of Section 13 as amended by the Amending Act of 1975 could not be applied to the present suit, but the suit should be governed by the provisions of the Act as they existed on the date of the institution of the suit It is true that ordinarily a suit should be governed by the laws prevailing at the time of its institution but this proposition cannot be extended to procedural laws. As the provisions of Sub -section (3) of Section 13 of the Act are procedural in nature, they would be applicable to ail suits in which a written statement was not filed before the Amendment Act of 1975 came into force or the first date of hearing was fixed after the aforesaid amendment was brought about in the Act Although the suit in the present case was filed in the year 1970, Yet the written statement was filed on August 9, 1977, after the Amendment Act of 1975 had already come into force. The provisions of Sub -section (3) of Section 13 of the Act direct the trial court to provisionally determine the amount of arrears of tent and interest on the first date of bearing of the suit or on any other date, as the court may fix for that purpose, which should not be mote than three months after the filing of the written statement and such date should be before the framing of issues. In the present case, the issues have not been framed as yet. After the written statement was filed on August 9, 1977, the trial court should have proceeded to determine the amount of arrears of rent and interest, under the provisions of Sub -section (3) of Section 13, within three months of the finding of the writ ten -statement bat it failed to do so on the alleged ground that the aforesaid provisions was not applicable to cases where the defendant in his written statement denied the relationship of landlord and tenant between the parties In the aforesaid circumstances, the provisions of Sub -section (3) of Section 13 are clearly attracted to the present case, as even the written statement was not filed in this case before the Amending Act of 1975 came into force.