Case: Vinod Kumar Chowdhry Vs. Narain Devi Taneja

2. The landlady had sought eviction of the tenant from the premises in dispute on the ground covered by clause (e) of the proviso to Sub-section (1) of Section 14 of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958 (hereinafter referred to as the Act), namely, that she required them bona fide, for occupation as a residence for herself. Her application being triable in accordance with the procedure laid down in Section 25B of the Act, the tenant sought the Con-troller?s leave to contest it on grounds which were stated in his affidavit. The leave was granted and thereafter the tenant filed a written statement contest-ing his eviction which was ultimately disallowed. The learned Controller held that although the landlady had proved that she required the premises bona fide for her own occupation, she was disentitled to the relief claimed by her for two reasons which were (1) that she had not proved service on the tenant of a notice under Section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act, and, (2) that her application claimed eviction only in respect of a part of the premises let out which was not legally permissibleThe landlady went up in revision to the High Court and the learned Single Judge reversed both the findings which had been decided by the Controller against her. Two other points were raised before the High Court on behalf of the tenant. It was contended, firstly, that the petition for revi-sion was incompetent in view of the provisions of Sub-section (8) of Section 25B of the Act and that only an appeal as contemplated by Section 38 thereof should have been instituted before the Rent Control Tribunal (hereinafter called the Tribunal). The contention was negated with the observation that a petition for revision as envisaged by Sub-section (8) above-mentioned lay against an order accepting or rejecting an eviction application, and against such an order alone, as laid down in Devi Singh v. Chaman Lal, (1977) Rajdhani Law Reporter 566, U.K. Parikh v. Uma Verma, ILR (1978) II Delhi 786, Bhagwati Parshad v. Om Parkash, 15 (1979) DLT 126  ) Rajdhani Law Reporter 26 and Mahavir Singh v. Kamal Narain, 15 (1979) DLT 232) Rajdhani Law Reporter 159. The second contention was that the lease deed on which the landlady relied in support of the alleged tenancy was unstamped and therefore inadmissible in evidence. This contention was repelled for the reason that although the said deed was taken on the file subject to the objection made on behalf of the tenant, the objection was never pressed at the time of argument before the Controller. It was also observed by the learned Single Judge that the contention was practically meaningless as the tenant had never denied the tenancy in questionIn the result the learned Single Judge passed the impugned order directing the eviction of the tenant and, as already stated, that is the order impugned before us.

Reasoning: Our reasons in this behalf are two-fold. Firstly, if an order in favour of the landlord alone was meant to be covered by Sub-section (8), an order refusing such relief would be liable to be called in question by way of an appeal or second appeal under Section 38 so that there would be two pro-cedures for the end-product of the Controller?s proceedings being called in question; one when the same is in favour of the landlord, and another whenit goes against him, which would obviously entail discrimination and make the Sub-section suffer from a constitutional invalidity. It is an accepted rule of interpretation that if a provision can be construed in a manner which upholds its legal or constitutional validity it should if possible be so construed rather than the other way round. We do feel that the language used is not happy but then it would not be doing violence to it if it is construed as just above statedSecondly, the scheme of the Act and the object of the introduction of Section 14A and Chapter IIIA into it by the Amending Act make us form the opinion that Sub-section (8) of Section 25B is exhaustive of the rights of appeal and revision in relation to the proceedings held under that Chapter. Before the enforcement of the Amending Act. All disputes between a land-lord and his tenant were liable to be dealt with according to a uniform pro-cedure before the Controller as also in appeal and second appeal. No distinction was made between one kind of dispute and another. When it was felt that the procedure prescribed in the Act defeated, by reason of the delay involved, the very purpose of an application made under Clause (e) of the proviso to Sub-section (1) of Section 14, especially in the case of landlords who themselves held accommodation allotted by the Government or a local authority which they were required to vacate. Section 14A and Chapter III were introduced by the Amending Act so as to cut down the time-factor drastically, so much so that a tenant was required to obtain leave from the Controller for contesting an application for his eviction before he could put up his defence, and the Controller was given the power to refuse leave and straightway pass an order of eviction if he found that the grounds disclosed by the tenant in support of his right to dispute the landlord?s claim were not such as would disentitle the landlord from obtaining an order of eviction. Sub-section (7) further simplified the procedure on contest being allowed, even though Sub-section (2) of Section 37 itself provided for a procedure far simpler than ordinarily obtains in proceedings before a civil Court. Then there is Sub-section (8) which provides for the abolition of the right of appeal and second appeal and replaces it by a power in the High Court to revise an order passed by the Controller. That provision, as a part of the overall picture painted, must necessarily be construed as laying down procedure exclusive of that provided in Sections 38 and 39, and we hold that the four cases relied upon by the High Court in rejecting the contention raised on behalf of the tenant were correctly decided8. In the way of the above interpretation of Sub-section (8) of Sec-tion 25B, the provisions of Sub-section (10) thereof do not pose a hurdle. All that Sub-section (10) States is that the procedure for the disposal of an application for eviction covered by Sub-section (1) shall be the same as the procedure for disposal of other applications by Controllers, except as provided in Chapter IIIA. Sub-section (8) as interpreted by us governs an applica-tion covered by Sub-section (1) of Section 25B and expressly takes away the right of appeal or second appeal, while providing the remedy of revision instead. As we have held the provisions of Sub-section (8) to be exhaustive of the remedies available to a person aggrieved by an order passed by the Controller in applications triable under Chapter IIIA, such applications fall outside the category of those which can be disposed of like other applications under-Sub-section (10) read with the provisions contained in other Chapters of the Act9. As a result of the above discussion we hold that the remedy of the landlady against the order of the Controller in the present case was by way of revision (and revision only) of that order by the High Court as laid down in the proviso to Sub-section (8) of Section 25B, even though it was an order not directing, but refusing, recovery of possession of the premises in disputeNow this Sub-section does not at all require that an order for the recovery of possession of any premises should contain a direction of the type above mentioned. On the other hand, the Sub-section itself declares that such an order would not be executable before a certain period has expired. The declaration is part of the law of the land and would be operative as such so that the landlady would not be entitled to execute the order made by the High Court in her favour before the expiry of six months from the date thereof notwithstanding the fact that the terms of Sub-section (7) have not been made a part of that order.