Case: K. Balakrishna Rao and Others Vs. Hazi Abdulla Sait and Others

Haji Mohamed Hussa in Sait, the father of the plaintiff, Haji Abdulla Sait was the owner of a building situated in the city of Madras. He leased it out in favour of the defendant, K. Seetharama Rao under a lease deed dated July 8, 1940 for the purpose of Running a restaurant known as Modern Cafe in it for a period of three years with effect from July 15, 1940 on a monthly rent of Rs. 950/-. The agreed h period of lease expired in July, 1943 but the defendant continued to be in possession of the building as a tenant holding over. On the coming into force of the Madras Non-residential Buildings Rent Control order in 1946, the defendant became a statutory tenant of the said building and fair rent in respect of it was fixed under that order in th e year 1946 at Rs. 1, 680/- per month. The aforesaid order was replaced by the Madras Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act. 1949 which was also applicable to the said building. On the death of the landlord Haji Mohamed Hussain Sait in 1955, under a partition amongst his heirs the plaintiff became the owner of the building. The protection which the defendant was enjoying under the Act of 1949 came to an end on the passing of the principal Act by virtue of section 35 thereof which repealed the Ac t of 1949 and section 30(iii) thereof which provided that nothing contained in the principal Act was applicable to any non-residential building, the rental value of which on the date of the commencement of the principal Act as entered in the property tax assessment book of the municipal council, district board, panchayat or panchayat union council or the Corporation of Madras exceeded Rs. 400/- per mensem. The defendant, however, continued to be in possession of the building by paying the rent every month.The plaintiff issued a notice to the defendant terminating the tenancy with effect from the expiry of February 29, 1964 and as the building was not governed by the principal Act at that point of time, he instituted a suit in Civil Suit No. 730 of 1964 on the file of the City Civil Court, Madras on March 2, 1964 for eviction and for damages at the rate of Rs. 6000/- per month. The defendant filed his written statement on May 2, 1964 before the City Civil Court. On June 10, 1964, the Amending Act came into force. The relevant part of it is reproduced below:-"2. Amendment of section 30, Madras Act XVlII of 1960.-In section 30 of the Madras Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1960 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act)-        (i) in clause (ii) the word "or" occurring at the end shall be omitted;        (ii) clause (iii) shall be omitted;        (iii) in the Explanation, for the words, brackets and figures "clauses (ii) and (iii) ", the word, brackets and figures "clause (ii)" shall be substituted3. Certain pending proceedings to abate.-Every proceeding in respect of any non-residential building or part thereof pending before any court or other authority or officer on the date of the publication of this Act in the Fort St. George Gazette and instituted on the ground that such building or part was exempt from the provisions of the principal Act by virtue of clause (iii) of section 30 of the principal Act, shall abate in so far as the proceeding relates to such building or part. All rights and privileges which may have accrued before such date to any landlord in respect of any non-residential building or part thereof by virtue of clause (iii) of section 30 of the principal Act, shall cease and determine and shall no t be enforceable:Provided that nothing contained in this section shall be deemed to invalidate any suit or proceeding in which the decree or order passed has been executed or satisfied in full before the date mentioned in this section."The statement of objects and reasons appended to the Bill which ultimately became the Amending Act read as follows:-        "The Madras Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1960 (Madras Act 18 of 1 960), relates to the regulation of the letting of residential and non-residential buildings and the control of rents of such buildings and the prevention of unreasonable eviction of tenants therefrom in the State of Madras. Under section 30 of the said Act, certain buildings are exempted from the provisions of the said Act. Any non-residential building or part thereof occupied by any one tenant if the monthly rent paid by him in respect of that building or part exceeds four hundred rupees is one such building or part is exempted under the said section 30. It has been brought to the notice of the Government that the landlords of such non-residential buildings, taking advantage of the exemption, referred to above, demand exorbitant rents from the tenants of such buildings, who mostly belong to the business community, and threaten to evict the tenants when the latter do not concede to the demands for such rents. In order to provide relief to such tenants and to ensure that the interests of trade and industries do not suffer by demands of landlords for unreasonable and exorbitant rents. the Government consider that the exemption now available to any non-residential building or part thereof fetching a monthly rent exceeding four hundred rupees should be withdrawn. At the same time, the Government cons ider that there is no need to take away the exemption available at present to any residential building or part thereof fetching a monthly rent exceeding Rs. 250/-.        The Bill seeks to achieve the above object."The result of the amendment was that the buildings which had been exempted from the operation of the principal Act under clause (iii) of section 30 came within the scope of the principal Act and the relationship between landlords and tenants of such buil dings was to be regulated thereafter in accordance with the provisions of the principal Act. Apparently in order to give protection to tenants of such buildings against whom proceedings for eviction had been instituted in civil courts, sectio n 3 of the Amending Act provided that such proceedings should be treated as having abated. The proviso to section 3 of the Amending Act however provided that nothing contained in that section should be deemed to invalidate any suit or proceeding i n which the decree or order passed had been executed or satisfied in full before the date mentioned in that section, the said date being, June 10, 1964. This by necessary implication, section 3 of the Amending Act was applicable even to the case of a building in respect of which a decree for eviction had been passed but had not been executed or satisfied in full before June 10, 1964. In view of the above provision, the City Civil Court dismissed the suit as having abated by its orde r dated December 4, 1964. The plaintiff filed two applications before the City Civil Court in March, 1965-one under order 9 Rule 9 of theCode of Civil Procedure to set aside the order dated December 4, 1964 dismissing the suit as having abated and another under section 5 of the Limitation Act for condoning delay in filing the application, under order 9, Rule 9 of theCode of Civil Procedure. He also filed an appeal in A.S. No. 266 of 1965 on the file of the High Court of Madras against the order of the City Civil Court dated December 4, 1964. Both the above applications were allowed by the City Civil Court on August 3, 1965. On August 13, 1965, the defendant filed an additional written statement before the City Civil Court raising the plea that the suit had actually abated by virtue of section 3 of the Amending Act. He also filed two revision petitions against the order passed by the City Civil Court allowing the two applications on August 3, 1965. In the meanwhile, on an application made under section 24 of theCode of Civil Procedure by the plaintiff, the suit was withdrawn to the file of the High Court and it was renumbered as C.S. No. 218 of 1965. It should be mentioned here that owing to the alteration of t he pecuniary jurisdiction of the City Civil Court, the suit stood transferred to the file of the High Court on May 1, 1964 itself. The defendant died on January 15, 1968. He had made will on January 7. 1968 appointing executors and administrators in respect of his assets and issuing directions regarding the manner in which his assets should be disposed of. By an order dated July 20, 1970 made by the High Court, defendants Nos. 2 to 10 who had been appointed executors an administrators were impleaded as legal representatives of the defendant (who was shown as defendant No. 1 thereafter). The two civil revision petitions filed by the defendant! against the order passed on August 3, .1965 by the City Civil Court and the Appeal Suit No. 266 of 1965 filed by the plaintiff against the order of the City Civil Court dated December 4, 1964 were disposed of by a Division Bench of the High Court of Madras by a common order on June 28, 1972, the relevant part or which read ast is seen from the foregoing dates that at the time of the dismissal of the suit, the lower court had no jurisdiction to deal with suit and in that view the counsel appearing on both sides represent that the order dismissing the suit as having abated may be set aside and the suit may be tried on the original side of this Court. We accordingly allow the appeal and set aside the order of dismissal of the suit on the ground that the City Civil Court had no jurisdiction to deal with the same on the date of dismissal and direct the suit to be posted on the original side for being dealt with."It may be mentioned here that as stated earlier, the suit had al ready been withdrawn to the file of the High Court under section 24 of theCode of Civil Procedure and had been numbered as Civil Suit No. 218 of 1965. In July, 1973, the plaintiff sought an amendment of the plaint praying for relief against defendants Nos. 2 to 10 on the ground that after the death of the original defendant No. 1, they were not entitled to continue in possession of the building as statutory tenants and the plaintiff was entitled to a decree against them in that very suit. The above contention was based on the definition of the expression "tenant" in section 2(8) of the principal Act as it stood then. After the amendment of the plaint, fresh written statements were filed by defendants Nos. 2 to 10 raising several pleas including the pleas which had already been raised in the written statements filed by defendant No. 1 before the City Civil Court. On the basis of the pleadings, the trial court framed the following issues:-"1. Is the suit maintainable ?        2. Has the plaintiff given proper notice of termination of the suit premises ?        3. Does the suit abate by reason of Act XI of 1964 ?        4. Are not the defendants entitled to protection under the Madras Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1960, as amended by Act 23 of 1973 ?        5. Whether the tenancy came. to an end upon the death of K. Seethararma Rao ?        6. Whether the defendants have no legal interest in the premises and consequently liable to be rejected ?        7. To what reliefs are the parties entitled ?At the conclusion of the trial, the learned Judge held on issue No. 1 that the suit was maintainable, on issue No. 2 that the notice to quit had validly terminated the tenancy, on issue No. 4 that the defendants were not entitled to protection under the Madras Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1960; on issue No. S that the tenancy had come to an end even on March 1, 1964 and on issue No. 6 that the defendants had no legal interest in the premises. He, however, declined to record any finding on issue No. 3 which related to the question whether the suit had abated ar not on June 10, 1964 by virtue of section 3 of , ; the Amending Act. The learned Judge proceeded to dispose of the suit as if it was a fresh suit instituted after the death of the original defendant No. 1 on January 15, 1968 even though there was no specific issue on the question whether it cd be treated such. This appears to be so in view of the following observations made by the trial Judge in the course of his judgment:-"Under the above circumstances, if the plaintiff files a suit today against the defendants he is entitled to get an executable decree for possession (without the necessity of going to the Rent Control Court) inasmuch as defendants 2 to 10 had never become tenants under the Act. Therefore even if the suit filed in. the City Civil Court is held to have abated, under the peculiar circumstances of this case, I see no reason why I should not treat the suit before me to be a fresh one. I t is to be seen that the application under section 24 of theCode of Civil Procedure for transfer of the suit from City Civil Court to this court was consented by the defendants. In A.S. No. 266 of 1965, apart from setting aside the order of abatement passed by the City Civil Court, this Court directed that the suit be tried on the original side of this Court. Even if the City Civil Court had no pecuniary jurisdiction to deal with the matter and record abatement, the defendants could have pressed in A.S. No. 266 of 1965 for an order by this Court that the suit had abated. It is need less to point out that the order that was under appeal was one by which the City Civil Court held that the suit had abated. No doubt that was passed without jurisdiction, inasmuch as the pecuniary jurisdiction of that Court had been reduced. But it is open to this Court to have held in the said appeal itself that the suit had abated. But the order was that the suit was to be tried on the original side. The suit had been originally filed in 1964, that is more than 12 years ago. Under such circumstances, I think it is wholly unnecessary to drive the plaintiff to a freshn the basis of the findings recorded by him, the learned trial Judge passed a decree for possession and damages for use and occupation. The quantum of damages was directed to be determined under order 20, Rule 12 of theCode of Civil Procedure. Defendants Nos. 2 to 10 were, however, allowed three years time to deliver vacant possession of the premises. Aggrieved by the decree passed by the trial Court, the plaintiff filed O.S.A. No. 23 of 1977 and defendant No. 2 filed O.S.A 75 of 1977 on the file of the High Court of Madras. The plaintiff in his appeal questioned the decree of the trial court only to the extent it granted a period of three years to the defendants to deliver possession of the premises. Defendant No. 2 in his appeal questioned the entire decree. Both the appeals came up for hearing before a Division Bench of the High Court. In the course of its judgment, the Division Bench formulated the following points for its consideration:-"1. What was the status of late Seetharama Rao after the termination of the tenancy-whether he was a trespasser or a tenant holding over or a tenant at sufferance ?        2. Did the suit building come within the purview of the Act and did late Seetharama Rao become a tenant as defined in the Act, on the coming into force of the Tamil Nadu Act XI of 1964 ?        3. Whether the suit instituted by the plaintiff abated in view of section 3 of the Tamil Nadu Act XI of 1964 ?        4. Whether the "tenancy" came to an end upon the death of Seetharama Rao ?        5. Whether defendants 2 to 10 are entitled to protection against eviction from the suit property by virtue of the Act as amended by the Tamil Nadu Act 23 of 1973 ?"The Division Bench held that the status of the defendant, Seetharama Rao from March 1, 1964 was that of a trespasser and he was liable to pay profits or damages for use and occupation to the plaintiff; that the defendant, Seetharama Rao was not entitled to the benefit of the principal Act by the coming into force of the Amending Act as the building itself was outside the scope of the principal Act and even if the building was within its scope, he was not a tenant as defined in the principal Act; that section 3 of the Amending Act did not apply to the suit in question and hence it did not abate on June 10, 1964 and that after the death of the defendant, Seetharama Rao, defendants 2 to 10 were not entitled to the protection against eviction under the principal Act as amended by the Tamil Nadu Act No. 23 of 1973. Accordingly, it dismissed the appeal filed by defendant No. 2. The appeal filed by the plaintiff was also dismissed as a period of 2.6 years out of the period of three years  time granted by the trial court had expired by the time the judgment in appeal was delivered. Aggrieved by the decree passed by the Division Bench, defendants 2 to 4 and 10 have filed the above appeal by special leave in this Court.The principal contention urged in support of the appeal before us was that the suit having abated on the coming into force of the Amending Act, it was not open to the trial court to treat the proceedings before it as a new suit instituted after t he death of the defendant, Seetharama Rao against defendants Nos. 2 to 10 and to pass a decree. In the instant case, as noticed earlier, the trial court did not decide the question whether the suit abated on the coming into force of the Amending Act. The Division Bench of the High Court has held that the provisions of section of the Amending Act were not applicable to the suit and, therefore, the question of its abatement did not arise.The undisputed facts in this case are: (1) Seetharama Rao held the suit property as a lessee before the institution of the suit; (2) that the lease had been terminated by the issue of a notice in accordance with section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act; (3) that a suit for ev iction of Seetharama Rao was filed on March 2, 1964 before the City Civil Court, Madras which was competent to try it on the date of its institution; (I) that by virtue of alteration of the pecuniary jurisdiction of the City Civil Court and consequential provisions made in that connection, the suit stood transferred to the file of the original side of the High Court with effect from May 1, 1964 and that the suit was, therefore, deemed to be pending in law on the file of the High Court on June 1 0, 1964 on which date the Amending Act was published in the official Gazette even though in fact the file was Lying on that date with the City Civil Court. The other proceedings which have been referred to above in some detail are not relevant for the purpose of deciding the question whether the suit abated on the publication of the Amending Act in the official Gazette.Section 2 (ii) of the Amending Act repealed clause (iii) of section 30 of the principal Act. Consequently a ny non-residential building, the rental value of which on the date of the commencement of the principal Act as entered in the property tax assessment book of the municipal council, district Board, panchayat or panchayat union council or the Corporation of Madras, as the case may be exceeded four hundred rupees per mensem was also brought within the scope of the principal Act and the relationship between the landlord and tenant of such building came to be regulated by it with effect from June 10, 1964.        Section 3 of the Amending Act consists of three parts. Under the first part, it directed that every proceeding in respect of any non-residential building or part thereof pending before any court or other authority or officer o n the date of the publication of the Amending Act in the Fort St. George Gazette and instituted on the ground that such building or part was exempt from the provisions of the principal Act by virtue of clause (iii) of section 30 of the principal Act abated in so far as the proceedings related to such building or part. Under the second part, it provided that all rights and privileges which might have accrued before such date to any landlord in respect of any non- residential building or part thereof by virtue of clause (iii) of section 30 of the principal Act would cease and determine and would not be enforceable. The proviso to section 3 which is the third part of that section provided that nothing contained in section 3 should be deemed to invalidate any suit or proceeding in which the decree or order passed had been executed or satisfied in full before the date mentioned in that section.On behalf of the plaintiff, three contentions were urged in the appeal before the High Court in support of his case that section 3 of the Amending Act was inapplicable to the present case. They were (i) that section 3 of the Amending Act had no reference to a suit at all; (ii) that even if it had any reference to a suit, it did not apply to a suit of the present nature and (iii) that even if it applied to a suit of the present nature still on the pleadings of the plaintiff. the present suit was not affected by the said provision. The Division Bench rejected the first contention of the plaintiff that section 3 had no reference to a suit at all but it, however, upheld me case of the plaintiff on the basis of the other two contentions. Relying upon the language of section 10( l) of the principal Act which provided that a tenant was not liable to be evicted whether in execution of a decree or otherwise except in accordance with the provisions of that section or sections 14 to 16 and the decision of the Madras High Court in Theruvath Vittil Muhammadunny v. Melepurakkal Unniri &Anr. and the decision of this Court in B.V. Patankar &ors v. C.G. Sastry, the Division Bench held that it was settled law that the principal Act itself did not prohibit the filing of a suit by a landlord for recovery of possession of the property from a tenant but only a decree passed in the said suit could not be executed except in accordance with the provisions of the principal Act and if that was the true legal position in respect of the buildings to which the principal Act applied from its commencement there was no justification whatever for the Legislature making a contrary provision in respect of non-residential buildings to which the principal Act became applicable by virtue of the Amending Act. The Division Bench, therefore, held that section 3 of the Amending Act was not applicable to the case on hand. We are of the view that the above conclusion of the Division Bench is erroneous. It is not for the Court to ask whether there was any justification for the Legislature to make a contrary provision in respect of the suits of the present nature. It was not the contention of the plaintiff that section 3 of the Amending Act was unconstitutional. In that situation, the High Court had no option but to apply the provision in question to the case on hand without going into the question whether there was any justification for enacting it. We are, however. Of the view that in the circumstances in which the Amending Act came to be enacted, there was every justification for enacting section 3 in order to give protection to tenants against whom suits for eviction had been filed from buildings which were brought within the scope of the principal Act by deleting clause (iii) of section 30 of the principal Act.The third contention of the plaintiff in support his plea that section 3 of the Amending Act was inapplicable was formulated thus: The provisions of the aforesaid section 3 would apply only when the three conditions viz. (i) that there should be a proceeding in respect of a non-residential building or part thereof; (ii) that proceeding should be pending before any court or other authority or officer on the date of the publication of the Amending Act in the Fort St. George Gazette; and (iii) that proceeding should have been instituted on the ground that such building or part thereof was exempt from the provisions of the principal Act by virtue of clause (iii) of section 30 of the principal Act, existed. It was argued that since the present suit did not satisfy the third requirement referred to above as the plaintiff had not referred to clause (iii) of section 30 of the principal Act in the plaint, section 3 of the Amending Act should be held to be inapplicable to it. The Division Bench upheld the above contention observing that in order to attract section 3 of the Amending Act, there should be an allegation in the plaint that the building in question was exempt from the provisions of the principal Act by virtue of clause (iii) of section 30 of the principal Act. In order to arrive at the above conclusion, it relied upon the decision of the Madras High Court in M/s. Raval &Co v. K. G. Ramachandran &Ors. and the decision of this Court in P. J. Gupta Co. v. K. Venkatesan Merchant &ors. The passage in the case of M/s. Raval &Co (supra) on which the Division Bench relied was follows:"It has to be immediately conceded that the wording of this section can by no means be described as happy, or free from any cloud of ambiguity. It is not very clear how a proceeding could have been instituted on the ground that such building or part was exempt from the provisions of the principal Act by virtue of clause (iii) of s. 30, or what is the precise scope of the rights and privileges which may accrue to the landlord, and which are to cease and determine.e do not think that in the context in which section 3 of the Amending Act was enacted, it could be said that it was not possible to identify the proceedings to which that provision referred. In the case of P. J. Gupta &Co. (supra ), the effect of section 3 of the Amending Act is set out as follows:-follows:-        "Theobvious result of section 30(iii) of the Act, as it stood before the amendment, was that, if the rental value of a non-residential building, , as entered in the property tax book of the Municipality exceeded Rs. 400/-per mensem, a description which applies to the premises under consideration before us the landlord would have no right to proceed against the tenant for eviction under section 10(2) (ii) a) of the Act. Section 3 of the Amending Act, on the face of it, applies to two kinds of cases. Its heading is misleading in so far as it suggests that it is meant to apply only to one of these two kinds. It applies: firstly, to cases in which a proceeding has been instituted "on the ground" that a non-residential building "was exempt from the provisions of the principal Act" and is pending; and secondly, to cases where "rights and privileges, which may have accrued before such date to) any landlord in respect of non- residential building by virtue of clause (iii) of section 30 of the principal Act" exist. In the kind of case falling in the first category, the amendment says that the pending proceedings shall abate. As regards the second kind of case, the amendment says that "the rights and privileges of the landlord shall cease and determine shall not be enforceable."Proceeding further, this Court observed:"It is not necessary, for the purposes of the case before us, to speculate about the types of cases which may actually fall within the two wings of the obviously inartistically drafted section 3 of the Amending Act. It is enough for us to conclude, as we are bound to on the language of the provision, that the case before us falls outsidee above observations were made by this Court in a case where a proceeding had been initiated before the City Rent Controller in December, 1964 by a landlord for eviction of his tenant from a non-residential building situated in the city of Madras which had been leased at Rs. 600/- per month on the ground that the building had been sub-let. The City Rent Controller ordered the eviction of the tenant. In appeal, the Court of Small Causes at Madras allowed the tenants appeal holding that the tenant had the right under the original lease of August 21, 1944 to sub-let, and also because even violation of a clause of the subsequent lease of April 3, 1963, prohibiting subletting, did not entail a forfeiture of tenancy rights under the provisions of the Transfer of Property Act. Its view was that, in the case of what it described as "a contractual tenancy" the provisions of the Transfer of Property Act applied to the exclusion of the remedies provided by the principal Act so that unless the lease deed itself provided for a termination of tenancy for sub-letting in addition to a condition against subletting, the tenancy right itself could not be forfeited or determined by such a breach of the contract of tenancy. In exercise of its revisional jurisdiction, under section 25 of The principal Act, the High Court of Madras reversed the judgment and order of the Small Cause Court holding that the rights of the landlord and tenant were governed on the date of the application for eviction by section 10(2) (i i) (a) of the principal Act which contained a prohibition against sub- letting which involved parting with possession. On appeal to this Court, the decision of the Madras High Court was affirmed holding that the effect of the amendment was that th e landlord acquired a new right to evict a tenant under section 10(2) (ii) a). This Court held that by virtue of section 3 of the Amending Act, all rights and privileges which might have accrued before the date of publication of the Amending Act in the official Gazette to any landlord in respect of any non-residential building or part thereof by reason of clause (iii) of section 30 of the principal Act alone became enforceable. But the right to seek eviction of the tenant Under section 10(2) (ii) (a) was unaffected even though the sub-letting of the building had taken place prior to the enactment of the Amending Act.From a reading of he above decision, it is obvious that This Court held that the right which the landlord acquired under section 10(2) (ii) (a) to evict the tenant was a now right and was not a pre-existing right which could possibly be affected by section 3 of the Amending Act.

Court's reasoning:
We have already referred to the object with which the Amending Act was passed and that was to give relief against unreasonable evictions and demands for unconscionable rates of rents to tenants of buildings which had been originally exempted from the operation of the principal Act. It is clear that while doing so t he Legislature gave relief also to persons against whom suits had been filed. WE think that the words "instituted on the ground that such building or part was exempt from the provisions of the principal Act by virtue , of clause (iii) of section 30 of the principal Act" should be construed in the context in which they appear as referring to a proceeding which had been instituted in the light of section 30(iii) of the principal Act which granted exemption in respect of the buildings referred to therein from the operation of the principal Act and any other construction would defeat the object of the Amending Act. lt is seen that in the instant case, the original plaint was filed on the basis that the tenancy had been terminated with effe ct from the expiry of February 29, 1964. The plaintiff prayed for eviction of the original defendant and also for a decree for damages for use and occupation at the rate of Rs. 6000/- per month from the date of the plaint till delivery of the vacant p ossession on the assumption that after the termination of the lease the original defendant No. 1 was not a tenant and was liable to pay damages and not the rent of Rs. 1, 680/- per month which was the fair rent fixed in respect of the building in a former proceeding under the rent control law in force then. The suit in the above form could be filed for the relief referred to above only because of the exemption granted by clause (iii) of section 30 of the principal Act because in the absence of such exemption, no effective decree for ejectment could be passed by the City Civil Court in view of section 10 of the principal Act which provided that no tenant could be evicted from a building except in accordance with the provisions o f section 10 and section 14 to 16 thereof. The plaintiff could not also have asked for a decree for damages at Rs. 6000/- per month which he had claimed in the plaint but for such exemption. We are, therefore. Of the view that section 3 of the Amendi ng Act was applicable to the suit in question as it was a proceeding instituted in the City Civil Court on the ground that the building in question was exempt from the provisions of the principal Act by virtue of clause (iii) of section 30 thereof although no express allegation was made in the plaint to that effectBe that as it may, we are of the view that having regard to our finding that the suit stood abated on June 10, 1964 by virtue of the provisions of section 3 of the Amending Act, the original defendant, Seetharama Rao became a statutory tenant of the premises in question and he could not be evicted from the premises except in accordance with the procedure specified in the principal Act. The position would not have been different even if a decree for eviction had been passed against him before June 10, 1964 and the decree had not been executed or satisfied in full on that date. The several decisions on which reliance was placed by the Division Bench for determining the character of possession of the original defendant, Seetharama Rao after the expiry of the notice given under section 106 of the Transfer of Property Act were not relevant for the purpose of this case because in none of them there was any occasion to consider the effect of a provision similar to section 3 of the Amending Act. We, therefore, do not agree with the finding of the Division Bench that t he original defendant was a trespasser in possession of the premises in question after June 10, 1964We also find it difficult to agree with the finding of the Division Bench that the premises in question was not a building as defined in sect ion 2(2) of the principal Act. The reason given by the Division Bench for holding that the building in question was not a building within the meaning of section 2(2) of the principal Act was that it was not a building which was either let or to be let separately for residential or non-residential purposesIt is no doubt true that in the decision referred to above, this Court permitted the t parties to file fresh pleadings and to prosecute the proceedings after the disposal of the case by t his Court having regard to the delay which had already ensued. It was possible for this Court to do so in that case because there was no legal impediment as we have in the present case. To repeat, in the present case, the suit abated by reason of an ex press provision in a statute on June 10, 1964, the new cause of action on which the plaintiff depended accrued on January 15, 1968 i.e. the date of the death of the original defendant, the plaint itself was amended in the year 1973 claiming relief against defendants Nos. 2 to 10 not as legal representatives who inherited the tenancy right of the original defendant but as persons who had not inherited the said right . It is thus seen that there was no proceeding in the eye of law rending after June 10, 1964, the cause of action on the basis of which relief was claimed was totally different and the persons against whom the relief was sought were also different. Parties could not either by consent or acquiescence confer jurisdiction on court when law had taken it away.In these circumstances, we feel that the only course which we can adopt is to set aside the findings of the trial court and of the Division Bench on issues relating to the claim of the plaintiff to get possession of the property from defendants Nos. 2 to 10 on the ground that they were not statutory tenants i.e. issues Nos. 4 and 6 and to leave the questions involved in them open reserving liberty to the parties to agitate them in appropriate proceedings. In view of our finding on issue No. 3, we hold that the decree passed by the trial court and the appellate court are unsustainable.