9911796707
TMI Blog1956 (12) TMI 48X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... upation and had terminated the tenancy by a notice to quit. Subsequently, the sixth plain tiff was transferred to the category of defendants. The trial court found that the requirement of the plaintiffs had been established and decreed the suit. On an appeal by the tenant the appellate court held that three of the plaintiffs did not re quire the house for their own occupation and therefore the suit must fail, because, in the Court's view, where there were more landlords- than one, Proviso (h) to Section 12(1) of the Act of 1950 contem plated that the requirement must be the require ment of all of them. The landlords then prefer red the present second appeal to this Court which came up for hearing before P. N, Mookerjee, J., but was referred by him to a Division Bench. It next came up for hearing before a Division Bench, constituted of Das Gupta and Guha, JJ., on the 21st of May, 1956. By that time, the Act of 1950 had already been repealed. 3. In the Letters Patent Appeal, No. 1 of 1956, the facts are that the owner of a house served on the tenant on the ground floor a notice to quit and then sued him in ejectment on the allegation that she required the ground floor for h ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... 2) of the Rent Act of 1950 and the Rent Controller re-fixed it at an amount which was accepted by both the parties. But the month from which the standard rent, so re-fixed, was to take effect became the subject of controversy. Both the Rent Controller and the learned Judge of the Small Cause Court on appeal held that under Section 17(1), the re-fixation would take effect from the month next after the month when the Act had come into i'orce and not from the month next after the month when the application had been made. That decision did not satisfy the landlord who moved this Court under Section 32(4) of the Act and obtained a Rule. The Rule came up for hearing before Bachawat, J., sitting singly, who referred it to a Division Bench. It next came up for hearing before a Division Bench, constituted of Das Gupta and Guha, JJ. on the 5th June, 1956 when also it was riot decided. The learned Judges thought that the Act of 1950 having already been repealed, the question of the continuance of the operation of Section 32(4) after the repeal of the Act itself was a matter of considerable difficulty and importance which was likely to arise in a large number of similar cases and therefore ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ing that language, it must be presumed that the Legislature knows the accepted vocabulary of legislative bodies and so knows what words are requirec and considered apt to effect a particular result. If it has not made a provision or used words from which a particular result can properly be found, Courts will not be Justified in finding it, simply because a contrary decision would cause hardship to the public. It is true that one must not expect in a statute the completeness and elaboration of a deed and where the minimum required to make a particular meaning which la obviously intended is found, effect must given to such meaning. But Courts' cannot dispense with even the minimum. Where even such minimum is absent, Courts must declare the deficiency and let it have its effect rather than strain themselves to make it good. Thereby, not only will the Courts prevent themselves from taking up the functions of the Legislature but the Legislature may also profit, because it may take care to avoid such deficiencies in future. 8. Taking now the question referred in the first two cases, it will be noticed that it contains no enquiry as to the continuance of the proceedings themselves. ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... was published in an extraordinary issue of the Gazette on the 31st March, 1956 and therein it. was stated that the Governor had appointed the 3lst March, 1956 to be the date on which the Act would come into force. By virtue of that notification and Section 6(2) of the Bengal General Clauses Act, the Act of 1956 came into force immediately on the expiration of the 30th March, 1956 and it was on that date that the Act of 1950 was actually repealed. Thus, immediately after the midnight of the 30th March, 1956, the life of the Act of 1950, which had but one day of its allotted span, left, was brought to an end. 10. The question before us is whether after the Act was thus repealed instead of being allowed to expire, it continued to remain alive for the purposes of proceedings pending at the date of the repeal. The repealing provision which is Section 40 of the Act of 1956 contains no saving clause. But it may be conceded that the Legislature was not mindless of the fact that the Act of 1950 was due to expire on the 31st of March, 1956 and that if it was left to expire in the ordinary course, certain consequences would follow and it wanted to avert those consequences and bring into op ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... al General Clauses Act. The next question is what the effect of those provisions has been upon and after the repeal. 12. The function of Section 8 of the Bengal General Clauses Ar:t which corresponds to Section 6 of the Indian General Clauses Act is to attach a saving Clause in terms of its provisions to even such repealing Acts as do not contain a saving clause, except where the repealing Act makes it rlear that no saving is contemplated. But the effect of the provision is only to save and not to add or enact anything new. What it saves from is extinction by the repeal and what it saves are rights and liabilities accrued under the repealed Act, including the right under that Act to institute proceedings in lespect of them and proceedings already instituted. The scope of the provision is thus confined, as the scope of all saving provisions must by their very nature be, to the original scope of what is saved. It is not wider. The section does not extend any repealed Act as regards its duration, nor enlarges any such Act as regards its scope, but only preserves accrued rights and liabilities as they were under the .repealed Act, and proceedings, so far as they might be commenced o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... hat date for the purposes of such rights, liabili-ties and proceedings. But once that cate has passed, Section 8 will have spent itself. The tempor-rary Act will then have expired under its own terms and the position in regard to rights and liabilities, accrued and incurred under it before its reyeal and in regard to proceedings under the Act respecting them, whether pending or intended, will then be as in the case of an expired temporary statute. Whether or not such rights and liabilities can still be claimed and enforred and whether proceedings under the Act in regard to them can still be instituted or continued, will depend on the general incidents of temporary statutes and the construction of the particular Act. 14. I expressed this view of Section 8 in connection with a similar repeal of the Act of 1948 by the Act of 1950 in the Pull Bench case of T.S.R. Sarma v. Nagendra Bala Debt ; and earlier, sitting with P. N. Mookerjee J., I expressed the same view in N. K. Dey and Sons v. Eastern Stock and Agency Ltd., Civil Rule No. 1749 of 1951, D/- 9-8-1951 (Cal) (C). I heard nothing in the course of the arguments in the present cases which I find to require me to modify that view ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the purposes of such matters by Section 8. it will always be in force. But where the repealed Act was a temporary Act, a difficulty must arise after the date when it was due to expire, because Section 8 would maintain it only upto the end of its original life and no further. But it was also contended that such was not the effect of Section 8, because the words as if the repealing Act had not been passed were attached only to the general clause at the end of the section, speaking of proceedings and penalties, and not to any of the designated clauses, particularly not to Clause (c). It is true that, grammatically, the words go only with the general clause, but the effect is not for that reason any the different. A mere declaration of a right without provision of means to enforce it is futile. Clauses (c) to (e) of the section therefore declare the savings and the general clause provides the machinery for giving effect to them. Clause (c) says that the repeal shall not affect any right, privilege, obligation or liability acquired, accrued or incurred under the repealed Act. Clause (d) says that it shall not affect any penalty, forfeiture or punishment incurred in respect of any o ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... He next proceeds to a discussion of certain further matters, obviously: drawn from Craies on Statute Law, but its relevancy to the point he was considering is not too apparent. 16. In my view, although the Legislature interposed a repeal of the Act of 1950 Just on the last day of its life, presumably intending thereby to save rights and liabilities accrued arid incurred under the Act before its repeal absolutely, so as to enable them to be enforced at any time and also to make provision for the commencement or continuation, without regard to time, of proceedings in regard to them, it failed to achieve that object. It is true that when an Act is repealed, the savings mentioned in Section 8 of the General Clauses Act shall take effect, unless the repeal-ing Act shows a contrary intention and it is also true that no such Intention is shown by the Act of 1956. But Section 6 has its own limitations. When calling it into operation, the Legislature appears to have overlooked the fact that the Act it was repealing was a temporary Act and that such Acts had certain incidents inherent in their very nature and peculiar to them. The only effect of the repeal was that the Act was maintai ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... he President of the Calcutta Improvement Tribunal under Section 18 of the Act. The appeal was preferred on the 25th of November, 1922, but it did not come up for hearing till the 3rd of August, 1924. On that date the President disposed of the appeal by holding that in as much as the Act had in the meantime ceased to apply to the premises before him, he had no longer any jurisdiction to determine the matter involved in the appeal. On an application being made to this Court in revision, the order was affirmed, the learned Judges proceeding on principles applicable to an expiry of a temporary statute. 19. On an appeal to the Privy Council, their Lordships held that the view taken by this Court that the effect of the proviso was to make the Act a temporary Act ending at March, 1924, as regards the higher valued premises, but an existing Act until 1927 as to other premises was erroneous. Having so held, they naturally held further that the discussions as to the different effects of a repealing Act on the one hand, and an expiring Act on the other, which bulk largely in the judgments given were really beside the point . The Privy Council was thus holding that, the case was not at ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the appeal before him on the 24th of February, 1927 and made a similar order on the 28th of January, 1928 in the next case of the Karnani Industrial Bank Ltd. v. Satya Niranjan Shaw, 32 Cal WN 1093: (AIR 1928 PC 227) (F), it must be regarded as having held by implication that proceedings under the Act might be validly continued even after its expiry. I am unable to see that that argument proves anything. In the first place, it cannot be proper to infer from a judgment a decision on a point which was never argued or considered. The respondent was not represented in the first case and the second case merely followed the first, without any question being raised as to considerations arising from a total expiry of the Act. In the second place, the orders made by the Privy Council, assuming they can be read as containing a decision that proceedings under the Act might be validly continued even after its total expiry, do not and cannot establish that, in the view of the Privy Council, the principles relating to the effect of the expiry of temporary statutes did not apply in India. It is not that, according to those principles, the expiry of a temporary statute inevitably brings proceeding ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... Ordinance were re-enacted. In March 1948, when the Ordinance was still in force, one Mohar Singh filed a claim which, on-subsequent investigation, was found to be false. Thereupon on the 13th May, 1950, a prosecution was started against him under Section 7 of the Act, which was in the same terms as Section 7 of the Ordinance, and he was convicted and sentenced under the provisions of the Act in July, 1951. The question before the Supreme Court was whether, the offence having been committed during the currency of the ordinance, the conviction for it made in a proceeding commenced after the Ordinance had been repealed, was legal. 24. The Supreme Court applied Section 6 of the Indian General Clauses Act, corresponding to Section 4 of the Punjab General Clauses Act, and held that the conviction had been validly made. By virtue of Section 88(2)(a) of the Government of India Act, 1935, the Ordinance, even if it had not been repealed, would have ceased to operate at the expiration of six weeks from the reassembly of the Legislature. Actually, the Legislature reassembled in April, 1948, as shown by the passing of the repealing Act in that month, The prosecution, started in May, 1950, w ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... orollaries attached to the filing of a claim, as laid down in the Act, must necessarily follow. The truth or falsity of the claim has to be investigated in the usual way and if it is found that the information given by the claimant is false, he can certainly be punished in the manner laid down in Sections 7 and 8 of the Act ..... We think that the provisions of Sections 4, 7 and 8 make it apparent that it was not the intention of the Legislature that the rights and liabilities in respect of claims filed under the Ordinance shall be extinguished on the passing of the Act, and this is sufficient for holding that the present case would attract the operation of Section 6 of the General Clauses Act. 26. The judgment then proceeded to affirm the conviction. What the decision amounts to, therefore, is that there being no contrary intention in the repealing Act, the liability incurred under the Ordinance for an offence committed against it, survived its repeal by virtue of the Provisions of Section 6 of the General Clauses Act, but it also happened that the repealing Act, by one of its provisions, took over that liability and made it a liability under itself and therefore the offender ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s, liabilities and remedies under the Act after its expiry, but all that it did was to provide by a proviso to Section 1(4) that the expiry of the Act would not make any sum irrecoverable under it recoverable, nor make any sum recoverable by a tenant irrecoverable. No other saving was made and it is therefore reasonable to presume that no other saving was intended. The Legislature itself seems to have taken the same view, because unless it thought that if the Act of 1950 was allowed to expire, no rights, liabilities or remedies under it would survive, it is not intelligible why it should have repealed the Act just on the last day of its existence. The step must have been taken with a view to averting the consequence of an extinction of all rights, liabilities, remedies and proceedings under the Act which, it was thought, would follow, if the Act was left to expire and for bringing into existence the savings provided for in Section 8 of the Bengal General Clauses Act. But the enquiry in the present context is not as to the intention of the Act of 1956 but as to the intention of the Act of 1950. With reference to the Act of 1948 which was also a tempo-rary Act, I was able to find an ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... to remain alive after its exviry. Of how such an intention can be indicated, the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, 1939, considered to the case of Wicks v. Director of Public Procecu-tions (1947) AC 362 (sic) cited before us, is an apt example. There the temporary Act provided as follows: The expiry of this Act shall not affect the operation thereof as respects things previously done or omitted to be done . 29. It was next contended that even if there was no survival of such rights, liabilities and proceedings by the force of anything contained in the Act of 1950 itself, the Act of 1956 kept them alive. In support of that contention, reference was made to Section 8(1)(c) of the latter Act. An argument of a general nature was also advanced to the effect that when Courts interpreted an Act so as to find in favour of the continuance of accrued rights, they really procesded on extraneous considerations of justice and equity. It was therefore proper to refer to the surrounding cir-cumstances as well and not to limit oneself to the strict terms of the Act in order to ascertain and give effect to the true legislative intention. The general import of the Act of 1956 as continuing the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ch as proceedings for ejectment of the tenant. Even within the expressly limited scope of the clause, the question of its true import presents an apparent difficulty by reason of the provisions of Section 10(i) of the Act. That section provides that the Controller shall, on an application made to him, fix the fair rent referred to in Section 8 . It may plausibly, be argued that since Section 10(i) refers to 8. 8 in general terms, necessarily including thereby all its clauses, the 'fair rent' referred to in Clause (c) of Section 8(1) must also be a rent fixed by the Controller which must mean the Controller appointed under the Act--on an application being made to him. If such be the effect of Section 10(i), Section 8(1) (c) can only mean that where proceedings for the fixation of rent under the Act of 1950 were pending at the date of the Act of 1956, the Tair rent' shall be such rent as may be fixed by the Controller appointed under the new Act by applying the provisions of the Act of 1950. I am, however, prepared to concede that Section 10(i) does not compel that construction of Section 8(1)(c). In the first place, there would seem to be no scope in a pending proceedin ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... s and even if they are. they will not be Controllers appointed under the new Act. Even if no fresh appointments ere made and Section 26(1) cf the Act of 1956 is taken as a re-enactment of Section 28(1) of the Act of 1950. the old officers shall, by virtue of the provisions of Section 25 of the Bengal General Clauses Act, be deemed to have been appointed under the re-enacted provision in the new Act. That Act gives no power to Controllers appointed under it to deal with pending proceedings initiated under the Act of 1950, nor does the Act of 1950 give power to deal with proceedings initiated under it to anyone other than a Controller appointed under its own provisions. It follows that Section 8(1) (c) of the Act of 1953, in so far as it purports to authorise the continuance of pending proceedings for fixation of rent initiated under the Act of 1950 beyond the life of that Act, is an abortive provision and will not work. The enactment of the section must be taken along with the fact that the Act of 1856 was repealing the Act of 1950, and the real position appears to be that the Legislature enacted that section, relying on the repeal and counting on the continuance of the proceedings ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... f pending proceedings as well, the High Court still can, and indeed must, apply it in an appeal in the case by reason of the provisions of the clause. Indeed, it would be strange if a provision, laying down for one of the Courts in the hierarchy of Courts what law it was to apply in exercising its appellate jurisdiction, could have the effect of keeping alive an otherwise expired law for the purposes of that Court alone. Since its expiry, the Act of 1950 is, for the purposes of accrued rights, incurred liabilities and pending proceedings, either alive or not alive. Whether or not it is alive depends upon its own provisions and the law relating to the duration of statutes. If under those provisions and that law it is no longer alive, it cannot still be alive for the purpose of appeals pending in the High Court by virtue of Clause 21 of the Letters Patent but not alive for the purposes of appeals or proceedings pending in other Courts to which the Letters Patent do not apply. It is not necessary to pursue that absurdity further, because Clause 21 of the Letters Patent does not bear the meaning which the learned Advocate would attribute to it. 32. The third question referred to us ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ts original intention, stood on a different footing. In the second case, where a proceeding started when the Calcutta House Rent Control Order, 1945, was in force was heard after the Act of 1948 had come into operation, it was held, on the principle that ordinarily a suit is to be tried by the law as it stood at the date of its institution, that the House Bent Control Order of 1945 and not the Ordinance of 1946 or the Act of 1948 would apply. The incidents of temporary statutes were not considered. 34. For reasons which I have endeavoured to give at some length, I would render an answer in t he negative to the questions referred in each of the three references. 35. The judgment I have so far read was trepared and made ready for delivery on the 7th of August last and the references were in fact included in the Cause List for that day for judg-ment. In the morning of that very day, however, was suddenly called away from the Court to other duties with the result that the judgment could not be delivered. Nor could it be delivered during my absence under the provisions of Order 49, Rule 4 of the Code in view of the nature of the office to which I had been called and which I was ho ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... peal of the said Act: (a) any proceeding pending on the 31st day of March, 1956, may be continued, or, (b) any proceeding or remedy in respect of any right, privilege, obligation, liability penalty, forfeiture or punishment under the said Act and relating to the period before such repeal may be instituted, as if the said Act had been in force: Provided that for any of the purposes aforesaid, a Controller, an Additional Controller or a Deputy Controller appointed under this Act shall be deemed to be a Controller, an Additional Controller or B Deputy Controller appointed under the said Act. Explanation.--In this section 'proceeding' includes any suit, appeal, review or revision, application for execution, or any other proceeding whatsoever under the said Act. (3) In computing the period of limitation for the institution of any proceeding under the said Act, the period beginning with the 31st day of March, 1956 and ending with the 30th dsy after the commencement of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy (Amendment) Act, 1956, shall be excluded. 37. It is clear that the Legislature is no longer relying on what I have called the standard saving clause, as contained ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... expression it cannot be said that it really carried a sense of the present tense and that its use of the past Perfect tense is an idiom of the English language. I think, however, that although the language used in the Sub-section (2) of the Act is infelicitous and inaccurate, it is not difficult to gather the intention. When it says that any remedy may be 'en-tuted , it means that any remedy may be 'enforced, and when it says as if the said Act had been in force , it means as if the said Act is still in force . 39. We are really concerned in these references only with Clause (a) of Sub-section (2) of the amending Act which purports to save pending proceedings, 'Proreeding' is a general term and a term of wide connotation. It has been used in Sub-section 2(a) without any limitation of any kind as to the nature of the proceedings contemplated. If Sub-section (2) had stood alone, Clause (a), taken along with the last words of the sub-section. might be construed without much difficulty as meaning that notwithstanding the repeal of the Act of 1950, any pending proceeding, whether a proceeding under that Act or a proceeding under some other law but having some conce ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... the words any suit , occurring in the Explanation. There could be no suit under the Act of 1950, because that Act did not authorise the institution of any suit. 41. Mr. Ray who appeared for the respon-dent in the seme appeal but supported the appellant submitted that even if the words under the said Act in the Explanation attached to all the various types of proceedings specifically mentioned earlier and even if the words meant authorised by the Act , Sub-section 2(a) could still be construed as saving proceedings under other laws as well. It was pointed out that the Explanation began with the word 'included' so that it gave only an illustrative and not exhaustive definition of 'proceeding'. All that the Explanation did was to say expressly that among the proceedings covered by the general and comprehensive word proceeding , proceedings authorised bv the Act were in laded, but the effect of the Explanation, so expressed, was not to exhaust the connotation of the term 'proceeding'. Other proceedings covered by the term according to its natural meaning still remained and since the term had been used in Sub- section 2(a) without any qualification, pend ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... se. The context of an object to save pending proceedings from the effect of the repeal of the earlier Act points to that meaning and the phrase any other proceeding whatsoever expresses it. If the Legislature was providing for the saving of pending proceedings, as it undoubtedly was, and if the words under thee said Act attach to all the various kinds of proceed-ings mentioned in the Explanation, as Mr. Ray as-sumed, then, in his construction, the Legislature was saying generally by Sub-section 2 (a) that pending proceedings might be continued and when saying by way of an explanation of its meaning that such pending proceedings would include proceedings authorised by the Act itself. I can see no point in an explanation of that kind. If the Act though repealed, was being kept in force for the purposes of pending proceedings, proceedings authorised by the Act itself would be the first to be saved and indeed would be saved automatically. No explanation, declaring or clarifying the intention to save them would be required. In my opinion, whatever the true import of the Ex-planation, it is intended to give an exhaustive definition of the word 'proceeding', as used in the sec ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ature different from the nature of the proceedings specifically men-tioned. if any such proceedings under the Act can at all be conceived of. In that view of the Explanation, the words under the said Act would not attach to the various types of proceedings specifically mentioned earlier. 46. That such is the proper construction of the Explanation will appear, if it is sought to be applied to Sub-section (3) of the section. The Explanation purports to be an explanation of the term proceeding in this section and therefore it applies to Sub-section (3) as well. That sub-section lays down a special rule of limitation and provides for the exemption of a certain period for the institution of any proceeding under the said Act . If the words under the said Act in the Explanation are taken to attach to all various types of proceedings-mentioned therein and if, as a result, the word 'proceeding', as used in the section, is to be taken as a proceeding under the said Act , the curious result of applying that explanation or definition to Sub-section (3) would be that the words any proceeding under the said Act would have to be read as any proceeding under the said Act unde ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... tion that the Legislature had different intentions with respect to pending proceedings and new institutions. Its intention with regard to new institutions is perfect-ly clear from Clause (b) of Sub-section (2) and the same intention must be read in Clause (a), though the language used in that clause is not equally clear and has been further obscured by the Expla-nation Since the language in Clause (a) is 'continued', it presupposes that the proceedings should be pending at the date of the amending Act as well. 48. I am sensible that the construction I am adopting does not He on the surface of the section and indeed involves some strain on its language. But the language is not wholly incapable of bearing the construction. This is not a case where the Legislature has altogether failed to say a cer-tain thing and by adopting the construction. I have proposed, the Court would be making good that total omission. This is a case whe.e the Legislature has made what it intended to say clear, has tried to say it, but in making the attempt to express its mind, has been able to achieve only a confused utterance. In my view, in such a case the Court may properly put the confused spee ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ding on the 31st day of March, 1956, may be continued notwithstanding the repeal of the 1950 Act as if the said Act had been in force. If that were all, I do not think there could be any doubt, in spite of the fact that the 1950 Act would nave died a natural death only a few hours later if it had not been repealed, that for the purpose of proceedings of whatever nature pending before the Courts of law on the 31st day of March, 1956. the Courts could apply the provisions of the 1950 Act. In the absence of any definition clause, it would be reasonable to interpret the word 'proceeding' to include all suits whether for ejectment or for other reliefs in any civil Court, any appeal from the decrees passed in any suit, or from any order, any application for execution, or for any other relief. The Legislature has however thought fit to add a definition clause of the word 'proceeding' in the form of an explanation in these words: proceeding includes any suit, appeal, review or revision, application for execution, or any other proceeding whatsoever under the said Act. There cannot be any doubt that though the word includes has been used, it should be interpreted as i ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e 1950 Act. I am unable to see any reason, however, why such suits or appeals should not be said to be 'under the 1950 Act'. I am not aware of any authority where the words 'a suit under the Act' or 'appeal under the Act', has been judicially interpreted, and one has been shown to us. An appeal is a creature of statute, so that it would not be inappropriate to speak of an appeal as being 'under' the statute which creates it. With certain exceptions a suit, however, is not a creature of statute. Some suits, it is true, are brought on the strength of specific provisions of a statute. This. Section 9 of the Specific Relief Act provides that under certain circumstances, if any person is dispossessed, he may by suit recover possession. Here, it may reasonably be said that the suit is the creature of that statute. It is worth noticing that this section itself speaks of suit under the section . There are undoubtedly some other cases also where a suit can be said to be a creature of statute. In the majority of the suits which come before the Courts, however, the suits are brought without any specific provision in law that such a suit will He. Such suits are ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... it can reasonably be held that where a suit is in respect of a right, privilege, or liability, created by a statute, the suit is often said to be under the statute. Even if such use be thought a departure from the pure use of the word 'under', I cannot see anything improper in such use. It may be further pointed out that a suit for ejectment which involves the application of the provisions of the West Bengal Premises Rent Control Act, 1950. had to be brought, in view of the provisions of Section 16(1) of the Act, in accordance with the snecial provisions laid down in that Act itself in Schedule B thereto. Even if it was right, therefore, to put a limited interpretation on the word 'under' it would, I think, be right to describe all suits for ejectment brought in accordance with the provisions of Section 46 of the 1950 Act as suits 'under the Act'. 59. My own view however is that it is not necessary and proper to put such a limited interpretation on the word 'under' and that reasonably interpreted the words 'under the said Act' in the Explanation mean in respect of rights, privileges, or liabilities created by the said Act . 60. I have ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ressions used in the earlier part of the said section, in respect of any right or obligation under the Act . In my opinion, Sub-section 2(b) gives the clue as to the meaning of the said Explanation. 67. I. therefore, reach, although by a different process of reasoning, the same conclusion at which my Lord the Chief Justice has arrived as to the effect of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy (Amendment) Act. 1956. Sarkar, J. 68. I agree with what my Lord the Chief Justice has said in his judgment with regard to the effect on the questions referred to this Bench, of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1956, (Act XXII of 1956) as it stood before it was amended by the West Bengal Premises Tenancy (Amendment) Act. 1956 (Act XVIII of 1956). On the amending Act, however, I wish to say a few words. 69. The amending Act substituted a new Section 40 in the principal Act with retrospective effect. By Sub-section (2) (a) of the new Section 40, it is provided that a proceeding pending on'the 31st day of March, 1956, might be continued, notwithstading the repeal by the principal Act of' the West Bengal Premises Rent Control (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1950 (Act XVII of 1950), ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... h the statute itself does not mention anything about the right being enforceable by a suit. 73. I feel strengthened in this view of the matter by a consideration of the Explanation in Sub-section (2) itself. It contemplates suits and applications for execution under the Act of 1950. Now I do not find anything in the Act of 1950 which ran be said to authorise a suit or an application for execution. Therefore the suits and applications for execution under the Act cannot be such as are authorised bv the Act. If it were so. the words used in the Act would have been meaningless. It seems to me therefore that when the Explanation talks of suits and application for execution under the Act it must mean these proceedings in which rights given by the Act are concerned. If such is the proper meaning to be given to the words under the Act that mean-ing must apply in the case of appeals, review or revision. 74. As the proceedings before us are concerned with the rights given by the Act of 1950 and as they were pending on March 31, 1956. for the reasons earlier stated, I agree with the answers given by my Lord the Chief Justice to the questions referred to the Pull Bench. - - TaxTMI ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
|
