SUBBA RAO, - (1.) THE following Judgment of the court was delivered by :
(2.) THESE two appeals, on certificate raise the same points and arise out of a common order made by the High court. of judicature at 'Madras in Writ Petitions Nos. 829 and 830 of 1960. Both of them may conveniently be disposed of together. The facts in Civil Appeal No. 228 of 1962 are briefly as follows : The first appellant is a limited company carrying on transport business. The second appellant is its managing director. The first appellant took over the business of Swami Motor Service Company, of which the second appellant was the Managing Partner. In his capacity as Managing Partner of the said company, the second appellant took a lease of a vacant site, being survey No. 2770, belonging to the first respondent. After the first appellant took over the business of the said partnership company' including its leasehold interest in the said site, the first respondent recognized him ;is his tenant and was receiving the rent from him. It is alleged that the appellants constructed many valuable structures on the said site. The first responder i.e.,' Sri Sankaraswamigal Mutt, through its trustee, filed a suit, O. S. No. 103 of 1953, in the court of the District Munsif, Tanjore. for evicting the appellant company from the site; and on 30/07/1954 a compromise decree for eviction was made therein giving six month's time for the appellant-company to vacate the site. The decree holder filed an execution petition in the. said court against the first appellant for executing the decree. Pending the execution petition, Madras Act XIX of 1955 was passed empowering the State government to extend the Madras City Tenants' Protection Act, 1921 (III of 1922), hereinafter called the 'Principal Act', to any municipal town by notification in the Fort St. George Gazette. In exercise of the powers confer-red by Act XIX of 1955, the government made an order notifying the Town of Tanjore to have come within the purview of the Principal Act. Under the provisions of the Principal Act, the appellants filed Original Petition No. 39 of 1956 in the said court for an order directing the execution of a conveyance of the said site in favour of the company on payment of a price fixed by the court. Those proceedings took a tortuous course mainly, it is alleged, on account of obstructive tactics adopted by the respondents in anticipation of ,-an expected legislation withdrawing the benefits conferred on tenants of non-residential buildings in the Town of Tanjore. As anticipated the State Legislature passed Act XIII of 1960, amending the Principal Act : the effect of the amendment was to withdraw the protection given to tenants of non-residential buildings in the municipal town of Tanjore and certain other towns. Under the provisions of the impugned Act, proceedings instituted under the provisions of the Principal Act relating to non-residential buildings 'situated in towns other than those ,preferred would abate. The appellants filed a petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution in the High court of judicature at Madras for the issue of a writ of mandamus directing the District Munsif to dispose of the petition in accordance with the provisions of s. 9 of the Principal Act, as it stood before its amendment by Act XIII of 1960. In Civil Appeal No. 229 of 1962 the subject matter is a site, being survey No. 74, Railway Road, Tanjore belonging to the first respondent to this appeal. The appellant's father executed a lease deed in favour of the first respondent in respect of some parts of the said site; the lease deed contained a clause giving an option to the tenant to renew the lease for a further period of 10 years. It is alleged that the appellant's father had erected substantial structures at heavy cost on the site even before the said lease as he was in possessions of the said site as a tenant under the predecessor of the first respondent. After the expiry of 10 years, the appellant's father. exercised the option and continued to be in possession of the property as tenant. The first respondent filed a suit (O. S. No. 315 of 1950) in the court of the District Munsif, Tanjore, for evicting the appellant from the property, and obtained a compromise decree dated 10/01/1952. Under the compromise decree the tenancy was extended to 12 years from 1/01/1952 and after the expiry of that period the first respondent was entitled to execute the decree and take possession of the site after removing the superstructures. Subsequently as already noticed, the provisions of the Principal Act were extended to the Town of Tanjore. Thereupon the appellant's father filed O. P. No. 43 of 1956 in the court of the District Munsif, Tanjore, for an order directing the first respondent to convey the site in his favour on payment of the price to be fixed by the court. As in the first case, in this case also the proceedings dragged on till the Act of 1955 was passed. The appellant filed a petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution in the High court of judicature at Madras for the issue of a writ of mandamus directing the District Munsif, Tanjore, to dispose of the application in accordance with the provisions of the Principal Act prior to its amendment by Act XIII of 1960.
(3.) IN both the petitions the appellants attacked the constitutional validity of Act XIII of 1960. The High court, by a common order, upheld the constitutional validity of the said Act following the decision of a, division bench of the same court, in Suaminathan v. Sundara (1). These two appeals, as aforesaid, have been preferred on certificate issued by the High court. Mr. A. V. Viswanatha Sastri, learned counsel for the appellants in both the appeals, raised before us the following points: (1) The 1960 Act infringes the fundamental right of the appellants under Art. 14 of the Constitution for two reasons, namely, (i) while the object of enacting the 1960 Act was for safeguarding' tenants from eviction from residential buildings, its provisions introduce a classification between non-residential buildings in different municipal areas and gives relief to tenants of non-residential buildings in some towns and refuses to give the same relief to similar tenants of such buildings in other towns in the State and such a classification has absolutely no relevance to the object sought to be achieved by the Act; and (ii) the 1960 Act makes a distinction between non-residential buildings in Madras, Salem, Madurai, Coimbatore and Tiruchirappalli on the one hand and those in other towns, including Tanjore, on the other and gives protection to the tenants of such buildings in the former group and denies the same to tenants of similar buildings in the latter group, though the alleged differences between the two sets of localities have no reasonable relation to the object sought to be achieved, namely, the protection of tenants who have built substantial structures from eviction. (2) The 1960 Act also offends Arts. 19 (1)(f) and 31(1) of the Constitution as it is not a reasonable restriction in the interest of the public on the proprietary rights acquired by the appellants under the earlier Act XIX of 1955.;