Case: Moti Ram Vs. Suraj Bhan &amp; Others

Respondent 1 purchased the shop of June 15, 1956, and soon thereafter he applied to the Rent Controller for the eviction of the appellant under S. 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 (3 of 1949) (hereinafter called the Act). This application was based on four grounds. It was urged that the appellant was a habitual defaulter and was in arrears of rent, that the return of the money invested by respondent 1 in the purchase of the shop was not adequate, that respondent 1 apprehended that the godown and the shop of which he was in possession as a tenant would be sold off and he may be dispossessed therefrom, that it why he would require the shop in the present proceedings for his personal use and that respondent 1 wanted to reconstruct the shop for which necessary sanction had been obtained by him from the Municipal Committee of Gurgaon and the plan prepared in that behalf had been duly approved. This claim was resisted by the appellant who disputed the correctness and the validity of all the pleas taken by respondent 1. The Rent Controller upheld the contentions of the appellant and rejected all the pleas made by respondent 1. In regard to the plea that the respondent wanted to reconstruct the shop the Rent Controller found that the evidence adduced by respondent 1 in support of the said plea "had been created as a camouflage and that the said plea was a false pretext to obtain the eviction of the appellant. On the findings these application made by respondent I for evicting the appellant was dismissed2. Respondent 1 then appealed to the District Court against the said decision. His appeal, however, failed since the appellate court confirmed all the findings made by the Rent Controller. In respect of the last plea raised by respondent 1 about the rebuilding of the shop the appellate court observed that respondent 1 had got the plan approved and had also got the sanction from the Municipal Committee to reconstruct the building so as to be able to make a ground for getting the appellant ejected from the shop3. This appellate decision was challenged by respondent 1 by his revisional application in the High Court of Punjab at Chandigarh. The High Court confirmed the finding of the courts below on the first three pleas raised by respondent 1. The last plea raised by respondent 1, however, was upheld by the High Court with the result that the revisional application preferred by respondent 1 was allowed and his claim for evicting the appellant was decreed. It is this decree which is challenged before us by the appellant in the present appeal.

Court's reasoning:
The appellants case is that under S. 15, sub-s. (4) as it stood at the time when the present proceedings commenced, the decision of the appellate authority was final, and it could not be questioned in suit or other proceedings by way of appeal or revision. In other words, a revisional application against the appellate decision was expressly excluded. If at the time when the present proceedings commenced the decision of the appellate authority was final in the eyes of law the subsequent amendment by which a revisional application has been allowed cannot affect that position. It was the appellants right as a party to the proceedings to claim the benefit of the finality of the appellant order so far as the present proceedings are concerned. Put in a different form the contention is that the provision for a revisional application which has now been made by the amending Act cannot retrospectively affect the proceedings which were pending at the time when the amending Act was passed8. That takes us to the other contention that the amended provision of S. 13(3) (a) (iii) applies. There is no doubt that if this amended provision applied to the present case respondent 1 would not be entitled to obtain an order of ejectment. It is plain that by the amendment Legislature has imposed rigorous limitations on a landlords right to recover possession in the case of any building or rented land. The question is whether this amendment can be said to be retrospective in operation. It is clear that the amendment made is not in relation to any procedure and cannot be characterised as procedural. It is in regard to a matter of substantive law since it affects the sub-stantive rights of the landlord. It may be conceded that the Act is intended to provide relief to the tenants and in that sense is a beneficial measure and as such its provision should be liberally construed; but this principle would not be material or even relevant in deciding the question as to whether the new provision is retrospective or not.It is well-settled that where an amendment affects vested rights the amendment would operate prospectively unless it is expressly made retrospective or its retrospective operation follows as a matter of necessary implication. The amending Act obviously does not make the relevant provision retrospective in terms and we see no reason to accept the suggestion that the retrospective operation of the relevant provision can be spelt out as a matter of necessary implication. We ought to add that Mr. Bindra has not argued that the initial provision in S. 13 (1) which is retrospective is attracted in interpreting the amended provision in S. 13 (3) (a) (iii). Such a contention would of course be wholly untenable9. There is another consideration to which reference may be made. If the new provision is held to be retrospective in its operation what would be the consequence? Inevitably all pending actions in which landlords may have applied for possession of their buildings let out to the tenants under the provisions of S. 13 (3) (a) (iii) as it stood before the amendment would automatically fail because they would not satisfy the tests imposed by the amended provision. If such a drastic consequence was really intended by the Legislature it would certainly have made appropriate provisions in express terms in that behalf.Where the Legislature intends to make substantive provisions of law retrospective in operation it generally makes its intention clear by express provisions in that behalf. We are, therefore, satisfied that S. 13 (3) (a) (iii) as amended cannot apply to proceedings which were pending either before the Controller or before the appellate authority at the time when the amendment was made.In this connection we ought to add that when the revisional application was argued before the High Court it was admitted by the appellant that it was the old law which was in force before the date of the amendment that applied to the case. Even so we have allowed Mr. Bindra to raise the point before us but we see no substance in it10. There is one more point which remains to be considered. Mr. Bindra has argued that the High Court was in error in coming to its own conclusion as to whether the requirements of S. 13 (a) (iii) has been satisfied. As we have already pointed out the finding of the Rent Controller and the appellate authority was that the claim made by respondent 1 that he required the shop for the purpose of reconstruction was not bona fide. The High Court has reversed this conclusion and Mr. Bindra challenges the correctness or the propriety of the said conclusion.The revisional power conferred upon the High Court under S. 15 (5) is wider than that conferred by S. 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Under S. 15(5) the High Court has jurisdiction to examine the legality or propriety of the order under revision and that would clearly justify the examination of the propriety or the legality of the finding made by the authorities in the present case about the requirement of the landlord under S. 13 (3) (a) (iii).The High Court no doubt has accepted the appellants argument that the requirements in question must be bona fide but it has observed that there was no legal evidence on which it could be said that the landlords requirement was not bona fide. Indeed it is obvious that the tests applied both by the Rent Controller and the appellate authority in dealing with the question were based on the assumption that the amended provision of S. 13(3) (a) (iii) applied to the present proceedings. Otherwise it was irrelevant to enquire whether the property in question had become unsafe or unfit for human habitation as they have done. All the relevant evidence available on the records on this point clearly sustains the view taken by the High Court that the case made by the landlord under S. 13 (3) (a) (iii) was bona fide. Soon after he purchased the house he decided to reconstruct the building, moved the Municipality with his plan and obtained its sanction. It is difficult to understand how on these facts it would be permissible to hold that the landlord is acting mala fide. That is the view which the High Court took and we see no substance in the argument that in taking the said view the High Court had acted either irregularly or improperly.