MALLADI SEETHA RAMA SASTRI Vs. MALLALA SOBHANACHALAPATHI RAO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This petition arises out of a suit to recover arrears of rent due by the defendant to the plaintiff in respect of a dwelling house in Bezwada. The plaintiff sued for rent payable between 9 July, 1941, and 8 November, 1942. Up to 25 July, 1941, the rent agreed was apparently Rs. 22 per month and there-after Rs. 35. The suit was decreed on 15 October, 1943. In January, 1944, the defendant successfully prayed the Court to be allowed to pay in instalments. He paid three sums which in all amounted to Rs. 347.

(2.) On 17 March, 1944, an application was made to the Rent Controller, under the Madras House Rent Control Order, 1941, who fixed the fair rent of the property in question, and he fixed the rent at Rs. 21. Despite this, the plaintiff applied to the Court in execution of the balance due under the decree. The Court held that as the Rent Controller had fixed the fair rent his order must be taken as superseding the amount ordered by the decree. On the footing that Rs. 21 was only payable per month, the rent due in accordance with the Controller's order has been fully paid by the instalments referred to, and the decree was therefore satisfied.

(3.) Against that order the plaintiff appears in revision. He says that the defendant never objected in his written statement to the payment of the rent demanded and accepted the situation because after the decree he asked to be allowed to pay by instalments. Further he contended that the Controller's order fixing the fair rent was not retrospective or, at all events, did not extend beyond 17 March, 1942, when the Madras House Rent Control Order was applied to the mofussil.