LALLA RAM Vs. NARESH CHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a defendant's application for revision of the judgment and decree dated 11-6-1951 of the learned District Judge of Mahasu and Sirmur.

(2.) The plaintiff-respondent filed two suits on one and the same date, 27-9- 1950, in the Court of the Subordinate Judge of Solan for recovery of sums of money due as arrears of rent in respect of a shop, one for Rs. 125/- for the period 1-1-1948 to 31-12-1948, and the other for Rs. 500/-for the period 1-1- 1949 to 31-12-1950, at Rs. 250/-per annum, on foot of an agreement dated 22-3-1948. The former was registered as suit No. 87/1 and the latter as suit No. 88/1 of 1950 in the Register of Civil Suits of that Court. During the pendency of the two suits the defendants, the tenants of the shop, filed an application before the Controller for determination of fair rent of the shop under Section 4 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act (III (3) of 1949), and the suits were stayed. The Controller decided the tenants' aforesaid applications on 23-2-1951 and fixed Rs. 130/- per annum as the fair rent of the shop, and this amount was modified to Rs. 137/8/- per annum on 22-5-1951 by the District Judge acting as appellate authority under Section 15 of the said Act. On 17-3-1951, i.e. after the disposal of the aforesaid application by the Rent Controller on 28-2-1951, but before the decision of the appellate authority dated 22-5-1951, the Subordinate Judge disposed of the two rent suits, decreeing the first one for Rs. 21/4/- on the basis of the fair rent fixed by the Controller but dismissing the second as barred under Order 2, Rule 2(2), C. P. Code. It may be stated here that the Subordinate Judge of Solan had pecuniary jurisdiction to try suits upto Rs. 500/- only. The plaintill filed two appeals, one in the Court of the Senior Subordinate Judge against the judgment and decree of the Subordinate Judge in suit No. 87/1, and the other in the Court of the District Judge against the judgment and decree in suit No. 88/1. The District Judge transferred the former appeal to his own Court and disposed of both the appeals by a single judgment dated 11-6-1951, against which the present revision has been filed. The learned District Judge decreed each of the two suits 'in toto' holding that the plaintiff was entitled to recover the rent at the agreed rate as the Controller's decision had no retrospective effect, and that the second suit was not barred under Order 2 Rule 2(2), C. P. Code, since the two suits had been filed simultaneously.

(3.) There was a preliminary objection taken by the learned counsel for the plaintiff-respondent that the revision was not competent. In order to understand the true import of this objection it is necessary to dispose of the aforesaid two questions of law which form the basis of the decision of the lower appellate Court. I have therefore to follow this course even though in the result my views on the aforesaid questions of law might amount merely to 'obiter dicta'. I am inclined all the more to express my views on the said question of law, even though those views be 'obiter dicta' so far as the present suits are concerned, because an, authoritative pronouncement on those questtions, especially on the one under the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, for the guidance of the Courts in this State is urgently called for to obviate mistakes in future.