Civil Appeal No 2981 of 1987
From the Judgment and Order dated 2311985 of the Allahabad High Court in Civil Revision No 155 of 1984
Anil Dev Singh and Mrs Shobha Dikshit for the Appellants
Anil Kumar Gupta for the Respondent
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by RANGANATHANJ
Special leave granted
This is an appeal to this Court from the judgment of a Single Judge of the Allahabad High Court in a civil revision petition filed by 952 the appellant CRP 155 of 1984
The result of the judgment was to restore a decree passed against the appellant by the trial court in a suit for eviction instituted by the respondent in 1980
The main ground on which the appellant had resisted the suit was that the suit was barred by the provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Public Buildings Regulation of Letting Rent and Eviction Act 1972 which we shall hereinafter briefly refer to as the Rent Act 
It is the correctness of this ground of defence that it in issue in this appeal
The appellant the State of Uttar Pradesh took on lease a premises at Barabanki belonging to the respondent for the purpose of running a Laprosy Training Centre
The respondent was thus the landlord and the appellant the tenant in respect of the premises within the meaning of section 3a of the Rent Act
This Act has been enacted to provide in the interests of the general public for the regulation of letting and rent of and the eviction of tenants from certain classes of buildings situated in urban areas and for matters connected therewith
 Section 20 of the Act bars the institution of a suit for the eviction of a tenant notwithstanding the termination of his tenancy except on the grounds specified in sub section 2 of that section but none of these grounds were pleaded by the respondent
section 21 of the Act enables a prescribed authority to order the eviction of a tenant in two situations subject to certain conditions and limitations
These situations are a where the landlord requires the premises for his own use and b where the building being in a dilapidated condition he desires to demolish the same and put up a new construction
These situations also do not prevail here
The Landlord however gave a notice of termination of tenancy under section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act and filed a suit for recovery of possession
The appellant claimed that the suit was not maintainable and that the respondent s remedy if any was only to seek eviction in the circumstances and in the manner outlined in the Act
The respondent sought to overcome this hurdle by contending that the premises in question are not one of the classes of buildings covered by the Rent Act
In support of this contention he relied upon an exclustion clause incorporated in section 21a of the Act
Since the whole case turns on a proper interpretation of this clause and since the clause has undergone changes from time to time it is necessary to refer to these in some detail to facilitate a proper appreciation of the stands of the parties
a In the Rent Act as originally enacted and brought into force 953 on 1571972 this sub section ran thus Nothing in this Act shall apply to a any building belonging to or vested in the Government of any State or any local authority or b any tenancy created by grant from the State Government or the Government of India in respect of a building taken on lease or requisitioned by such Government b UP Act No 28 of 1976 amended section 21 to substitute new clauses in place of the above clauses
The amended sub section insofar as is relevant for our present purposes reads thus Nothing in this Act shall apply to a any public building or b any building belonging to or vested in a recognised educational institution the whole of the income from which is utilised for the purposes of such institution cx x x x dx x x x ex x x x fx x x x A definition of public building  was inserted in section 3 which reads o public building  means any building belonging to or taken on lease or requisitioned by or on behalf of the Central Government or a State Government including the Government of any other State and includes any building belonging to or taken on lease by or on behalf of any local authority or any public sector corporation
These amendments were made effective from 571976
954 c It appears that the above provisions were sought to be amended by UP Ordinance No 11 of 1977 promulgated on 2741977 with retrospective effect from 571976 by substituting the following as clause a of section 21 of the Rent Act 21a any building of which the Government or a local authority or a public sector Corporation is the landlord section 30 was left unamended
However the above Ordinance was allowed to lapse
Thus the amendment had become inoperative by the time the suit in the present case was instituted
d The next amendment of the Rent Act was by UP Ordinance No 28 of 1983 promulgated on 1851983
This revived the amendment made by the 1977 Ordinance which had been allowed to lapse
This time this amendment was not allowed to lapse on the expiry of the ordinance but was kept alive by five successive Ordinances No 43 of 1983 dated 121083 No 6 of 1984 dated 24384 No 8 of 1984 dated 7584 No 20 of 1984 dated 221084 and finally No 9 of 1985 dated 26485
All these amendments were made effective from 1851983 in so far as the provision presently under consideration is concerned
The last of these it may be noted was promulgated subsequent to the judgment of the High Court presently under appeal
e Finally the UP Legislature enacted Act No 17 of 1985 on 20885 regularising the spate of legislation by ordinances
By sections 1 and 2 of this Act the amendment made to section 21a by the 1977 Ordinance and kept alive by the Ordinance of 1983 and 1984 was made effective from 1851983
In this legislative background the appellant contended successfully before the Additional District Judge but unsuccessfully before the trial court and High Court that the premises in question was not a public building  within the meaning of section 3o read with section 21a of the Rent Act as amended from 5776 and hence the respondent s remedy for eviction of the appellant was not by way of suit in a civil court
What is the correct interpretation of this clause This is the question before us
We have set out above the definition of public building  in section 3o after the 1976 amendment
The language of this definition is very wide
It takes in three categories of buildings i buildings belonging to that is owned by the Central or State Government ii 955 buildings not belonging to the Government but taken on lease or requisitioned by it or on its behalf and iii buildings belonging to or taken on lease by or on behalf of any local authority or any public sector corporation
In the present case the building in question is one taken on lease by the State Government and so it falls squarely within the definition of public building 
It is therefore exempt from the application of the Act by reason of section 21 as it stood at the relevant time
It would follow therefore that the respondent s remedy to recover possession lay under the general law and had to be enforced by a suit for recovery of possession which is exactly what he has done
Prima facie therefore the trial Judge and the High Court were right in decreeing his suit
It is however contended on behalf of the appellant that section 3o should not be given such a wide meaning
The argument runs thus The intention of the Legislature was to exclude from the purview of the Rent Act only buildings in respect of which the Government was either the owner or the landlord
This is clear from the previous history as well as the subsequent legislations
UP Act No 3 of 1947 which preceded the 1972 Act was amended by Ordinance No 5 of 1949 with effect from 26949 to exclude from its purview any premises belonging to the Central or State Government and any tenancy or other like relationship created by a grant from the Government in respect of premises taken on lease or requisitioned by the Government
The language section 21a of the Rent Act as it stood before its amendment in 1976 left no doubt in any one s mind that the legislature intended only to exclude buildings belonging to the Government or any local authority and those taken on lease or requisitioned by Government and rented out by it to others
The only object of the 1976 amendment was to extend the above exclusion also in buildings owned or let out by local authorities and public sector corporations
This was sought to be done by providing that the Act would not apply to public buildings  and inserting a definition of that expression in section 3o
That definition was no doubt phrased somewhat broadly
But having regard to the previous history as well as the language of the subsequent legislation already referred to above there can be no doubt that the legislature never intended to exclude the operation of the Rent Act vis a vis premises of which the Government and hereinafter this expression will take in also a reference to local authorities and public corporations was neither the owner nor the landlord but merely a tenant
Support of the above restricted construction is also sought from 956 the phraseology of section 218 of the Rent Act
As has been mentioned earlier
section 21 empowers the prescribed authority on an application from a landlord to evict a tenant on two grounds a need of the premises by him for his self occupation and b need to demolish the building and reconstruct it
Sub section 8 enacts a restriction in respect of the first of these grounds
It reads 8 Nothing in clause a of sub section a shall apply to a building let out to the State Government or to a local authority or to a public sector corporation or to a recognised educational institution unless the Prescribed Authority is satisfied that the landlord is a person to whom clause ii or clause iv of the Explanation to sub section 1 is applicable
 It is submitted that this sub section places it beyond doubt that the Act does apply also to buildings in which a State Government local authority public sector Corporation or recognised educational institution is a tenant and proceeds to restrict the scope of an application under section 21 of the Act in such cases
It is pointed out that if the definition in section 3o is given a wide meaning so as to exclude from the application of the Act even buildings in which these bodies are mere tenants the result would be to render section 218 redundant and otiose
Such a construction of the statute it is submitted should not be favoured
The above line of argument found favour with a Full Bench of the Allabahad High Court dealing with a batch of petitions filed by a number of public sector corporations resisting suits for eviction instituted against them Punjab National Bank vs Suganchand This Full Bench decision was rendered on 291184 but was apparently not available to the learned Judge who decided the present case on 23185
Learned counsel for the appellant urges that we should approve of the Full Bench decision and reverse the judgment under appeal
We are unable to accept the appellant s contention
The interpretation placed by the Full Bench of the High Court on section 3o equates the position under the statute after the amendment of 1976 to the position both as it stood prior to the 1976 amendment and also as it 957 stood after the 1983 Ordinance
Such an approach fails to give any effect at all to the change in language deliberately introduced by the 1976 amendment
No doubt prior to the amendment only buildings of which the Government was owner or landlord were excluded from the Act
But the Legislature clearly intended a departure from the earlier position
If the intention was merely to extend the benefit to premises owned or let out by public corporations it could have been achieved by simply adding a reference to such corporations in section 21a and b as they stood earlier
Reading section 21a  b as they stood before amendment and the definition in section 3o side by side the departure in language is so wide and clear that it is impossible to ignore the same and hold that the new definition was just a reenactment of the old exemption
The exclusion was earlier restricted to buildings owned by the Government and buildings taken on lease or requisitioned by Government and granted by it by creating a tenancy in favour of some one
The amendment significantly omitted the crucial words present in the earlier legislation which had the effect of restricting the exclusion to tenancies created by the Government either as owner or as landlord
Full effect must be given to the new definition in section 3o and to the conscious departure in language in reframing the exclusion
The subsequent legislation also reinforces the same conclusion
The 1976 amendment had come up for judicial interpretation and certain decisions referred to in the Full Bench decision as well as the judgment presently under appeal had given the above literal interpretation to section 3o
If they had run counter to the rule legislative intent one would have expected the repeated Ordinances since 1983 and the ultimate Amendment Act of 1985 to have placed the position beyond doubt by a retrospective amendment
Though the Ordinance of 1977 made its amendment retrospective from 5776 these later amendments are all specifically given effect to from 1851983
The effect of the decisions rendered remained untouched till then
The fact that the the 1976 amendment marked a departure from the more restricted exclusion available earlier and the fact that the said restriction exclusion was again restored with effect only from 1851983 militate against the correctness of adhering to this narrow interpretation even during the interregnum from 551976 to 1851983
It may now be considered whether the above interpretation renders section 218 redundant
As pointed out by the Full Bench of the High Court not much thought has gone into the framing of this subsection which has failed to notice that clauses ii and iv of the 958 Explanation to sub section 1 which are referred to in it had been omitted by an earlier clause of the same section of the same Act
The Ordinance of 1977 sought to remedy this position by deleting the words unless the Prescribed Authority is satisfied  is applicable used in the sub section but this Ordinance was allowed to lapse and the subsequent Ordinances and Amendment Act paid no heed to section 218
Nevertheless despite this clumsy drafting one would certainly hesitate to give an interpretation to the definition clause in section 30 which may have the effect of rendering this sub section otiose
But luckily that is not the position
As pointed out by counsel for the respondent sub sections 1 1A and 8 of section 21 have to be read together
Though section 21a excludes public buildings which we have interpreted to include buildings in which the Government is only a tenant section
211A incorporates an exception to this exclusion
Nothwithstanding anything contained in section 2 it permits an application for eviction being moved under section 211a of the Act by a landlord against any tenant but in the limited circumstance set out in that sub section viz that the landlord has been in occupation of a public building but had to vacate it as he had ceased to be in the employment of the Government local authority or Corporation
In other words the landlord of a building in which the Government is a tenant could have moved an application under section 211a read with section 211A
This is what is prohibited by section 218 absolutely in view of clauses ii and iv of Explanation 1 to sub section 1 being non existent
section 218 makes it clear that while a landlord who is compelled to vacate a public building occupied by him due to cessation of his employment can proceed under the Act to evict any tenant occupying his property so that he may use his own property for his residential purposes he will not be able to do so where his tenant is the Government a local authority or a public Corporation
Thus reads
218 does not become otiose or redundant by accepting the wider interpretation of section 3o
This objection of the appellant is not therefore tenable
The Full Bench of the High Court has referred to one general aspect which appears to have considerably influence it in preferring a narrower interpretation of section 3o
It referred to the increasing difficulties faced even by Government and other public bodies in securing proper accommodation for their functioning and the nearimpossibility even for them of securing alternative accommodation at comparative and non exorbitant rates once they are compelled to vacate their existing tenancies
The Court posed to itself the question whether the Legislature can be said to have intended to exclude them from the benefits of the Act and throw them open to eviction by suits 959 following a mere termination of tenancy by notice section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act at the mere whim and caprice of their landlords
This the Court thought was unlikely particularly when prior to the Amendment Act of 1976 as well as subsequent to 1983 they could have been evicted only on one or other of the grounds available under section 20 or section 21 of the Act and more so because the Amendment manifests an intention to extend to public corporations benefits previously available only to a Government and to a local authority
The object of the exclusion in section 21a it is said was to remove in respect of buildings where the government or local authority was the landlord either as a owner or principal lessee or requisitioning authority the shackles imposed on other landlords but not to deprive these bodies when they are mere tenants of the protection available to other tenants under Act
Having regard to these considerations the Full Bench of the High Court has invoked a line of decisions of this Court and others which advocate that in certain situations importance should be attached to the thrust of the statute rather than to the literal meaning of the words used to justify their refusal to give the words of section 3o full effect
It is true that there are situations in which Courts are compelled to subordinate the plain meaning of statutory language
Not unoften Courts do read down the plain language of a provision or give it a restricted meaning where to do otherwise may be clearly opposed the object and scheme of the Act or may lead to an absurd illogical or unconstitutional result
But we think that this mode of construction is not appropriate in the context of the present legislation for a number of reasons
In the first place such an interpretation does not fit into the legislative history we have traced earlier
It does not explain why the legislature should have while enacting the 1976 amendment omitted certain operative words and used certain wider words instead
As we have pointed out earlier if the idea had only been to add to the exclusion buildings owned or let out by public sector corporations that result could have been achieved by a minor amendment to section 21a as it stood earlier
A conscious and glaring departure from the previous language must be given its due significance
Secondly the Rent Act is a piece of legislation which imposes certain restrictions on a landlord and confers certain protections on a tenant
It could well have been intention of the legislature that the Government local bodies and public sector corporations should be free not only from the restrictions they may incur as landlords but also that they need not have the protection given to other ordinary tenants
To say that the legislature considered the Government qua landlord to be in a class of its own and 960 hence entitled to immunity from the restrictions of the Act but that qua tenant it should be on the same footing as other tenants will be an interpretation which smacks of discrimination
The legislature could have certainly intended to say that the Government whether landlord or tenant should be outside the Act
Thirdly while it is true that the result of the interpretation we favour would be to facilitate easy eviction of Government local authorities and public corporations there is nothing per se wrong about it because with their vast resources or capacity augment their resources these bodies would not be in as helpless a position as ordinary tenants for whose benefit the legislation is primarily intended
On the other hand the ultimate result of the interpretation accepted by the Full Bench will be to practically deny a landlord who has given his premises on rent to these bodies any remedy to get back possession of his premises
The contingencies for which eviction is provided for in section 20 are hardly likely to arise in the case of such tenants section 211a is taken out by s218 and virtually the only ground on which eviction can be sought by a landlord of such a building against such a tenant on the interpretation urged by the petitioner would be the one contained in section 211b
It is debatable whether the legislature could have contemplated such a situation either
Fourthly in this case the legislature has applied its mind to the situation more than once subsequently
If its intention in carrying out the amendment had been misunderstood by the High Court or found ambiguous the legislature was expected to rectify the situation by a piece of retrospective or declaratory legislation
The 1977 Ordinance was but the later Ordinances and the 1985 Act are not of this nature
They neither are nor purport to be declaratory or retrospective from 5776
At least if the 1985 Act had been made retrospective from 5776 one could have thought it was a clarificatory piece of legislation
But the Legislature has advisedly given these enactments effect only from 1851983
This means that the amendment of 1976 was intended to be effective between 5775 and 18583 and it also means that the amendment of 1983 onwards is not intended to be read back for that period
Lastly in any event the interpretation given by us will create no lasting difficulties for the Government and other organisations which are tenants only since after 1851983 they will be in a position to claim all the immunities available to other tenants under the Act
For the reasons discussed above we overrule the decision of the Full Bench of the Allahabad High Court in Punjab National Bank vs Sugan Chand on this point
In the result this appeal is dismissed
We however make no order regarding costs
NVK Appeal dismissed


Summary:
 The appellant passed the Bachelor s examination in law with 545 per cent marks
He applied for admission to the Master s Course in law
The university had prescribed a minimum of 55 per cent marks for admission to the course
The appellant claimed weightage on certain grounds on the strength of a precedent
The admission was however refused
The appellant filed a writ petition
A Division Bench of the High Court heard the writ petition and dictated the judgment in the open court allowing the petition and directing the university to admit the appellant but soon thereafter before the judgment was signed the appellant s matter was again put in the hearing list to be heard afresh
The Division Bench which had allowed the writ petition released the case from its list and directed the same to be listed before another Division Bench
On the matter being so listed the Second Division Bench dismissed the petition
The appellant appealed to this Court by special leave against the order of dismissal passed by the High Court
Allowing the appeal and directing the university to admit the appellant the Court  HELD The provisions of Order 20 rule 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure give power to the Court to make alterationsadditions in a judgment so long as the judgment has not been signed but that power should be exercised judicially sparingly and for adequate reasons
When a judgment is pronounced in the open court the parties act upon it and conduct their affairs on the basis that it is in judgment of the court and that the signing of the judgment is a formality to follow
A judgment to be operative does not await the signing thereof by the court
If what is pronounced in the court is not acted upon the litigants would be prejudiced their confidence in the judicial process would be shaken
A judgment pronounced in the open court should be acted upon unless there be some exceptional feature like soon after the judgment 942 is declared in the open court a feature not placed for consideration before the court earlier is brought to its notice by either party to the cause or the court discovers some new facts from the record or the court notices a feature which should be taken into account or a review is asked for which is granted
In such a situation the court may take up the matter again for further consideration and it has to give good reasons if the judgment delivered by it is not to be operative
946B D H 947A Since the writ petition of the appellant had first been allowed by pronouncement of the judgment in the open court and there is nothing on record to justify why it was not acted upon the appeal succeeds
947E F Surender Singh and others vs The State of Uttar Pradesh  relied upon