N. D. Ojha, J. - (1.) RESPONDENTS 2 and 3 are the landlords of an accommodation of which the petitioner is the tenant. A suit was instituted by respondents 2 and 3 for ejectment of the petitioner on the ground that he was in arrears of rent for more than period of four months and had not paid the same notwithstanding a notice of demand having been served on him and consequently he was liable to be evicted from the accommodation in question in view of section 20 (2) (a) of the U. P. Urban Buildings (Regulation of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972 (hereinafter referred to as U. P. Act XIII 1972). The petitioner contested the suit. He also claimed immunity from ejectment on the ground that he had deposited on the first date of hearing the entire amount contemplated by Section 20 (4) of the Act. The Judge, Small Causes, found that the petitioner was in arrears of rent from 1-9-75 as alleged by respondents 2 and 3. He also found that the amount deposited by the petitioner on the first date of hearing was not the entire amount contemplated by Section 20 (4) of the Act and was deficient by Rs. 95/-. However, taking the view that the requirements of Section 20 (3) of the Act had been substantially complied with the Judge, Small Causes, relieved the petitioner of the liability for ejectment and required him to deposit the deficient sum of Rs. 95/- within seven days. On a revision filed by respondents 2 and 3 the order of the Judge, Small Causes, has been set aside by respondent no. 1 on the ground that the entire amount contemplated by Section 20 (4) of the Act having admittedly not being deposited by the petitioner the benefit of that section was not available to him and the Judge, Small Causes, had no jurisdiction to extend the time for depositing the required amount. It is this order which is sought to be quashed in this writ petition.
(2.) IT has been urged by counsel for the petitioner that Section 20 (4) of the Act was in pari materia with Section 39 of the Act and since in D. C. Gupta v. K. N. Seth, 1976 ALJ 124 it was held that benefit of Section 39 of the Act could be given to a tenant who had made substantial compliance of its requirements the view taken by the Judge, Small Causes, was correct and respondent no. 1 has committed a manifest error of law in taking a contrary view. IT was also urged that Section 20 (4) was enacted for the benefit of the tenant and in case of any doubt in the matter of its interpretation on the doubt should be resolved in favour of the tenant as was the rule of interpretation of a beneficient piece of legislation. Reliance was also placed on Bimal Chord Jain v. Sri Gopal Agrawal 1981 AWC 529 where it has been held by the Supreme Court that if there was material on record justifying extention of time for making the necessary deposit under Order XV Rule 5 CPC the court had discretion to extend the time and was not bound to strike off the defence. For the landlord respondents 2 and 3 it has on the other hand been urged by their counsel that unlike the provisions of Order XV Rule 5 CPC neither Section 20 (4) nor Section 39 of the Act gave any discretion to the Judge, Small Causes, to condone the default made by the tenant and extend the time granted by the statute. For the proposition that requirements of Section 20 (4) of the Act had to be strictly complied with reliance was placed by counsel for respondents 2 and 3 on Sri Chand Gupta v. Madan Lal, 1973 ALJ 635, Bhola Nath v. Pyare Lal, 1975 AWC 489=1976 ALJ 147, Nathoo v. llnd Addl. District Judge, 1981 UPRCC 87 and Mrinalini B. Shah v. B. M. Shah, AIR 1980 SC 954 paragraphs 11 & 12. It was also urged that suits to which Section 20 (4) of the Act had been made applicable were such where the tenant had failed to pay arrears of rent of a period of more than four months notwithstanding a notice of demand having been served on him and the landlord was driven to file the suit. According to counsel, on the requirements of Section 20 (2) (a) being established the landlord acquired a right to get the defaulter tenant evicted and the effect of the benefit of Section 20 (4) being extended to the tenant was to deprive the landlord of that right and since it involved deprivation of this right of the landlord Section 20 (4) of the Act had to be strictly construed. Section 20 (4) of the Act only gave the tenant one more chance to get himself relieved of the liability of ejectment subject to his complying with the requirement of the said section namely depositing the "entire" amount contemplated by the said section on the first date of hearing of the suit. It was urged that in this background the well settled principle enunciated in Ram Chandra v. Govind, AIR 1975 SC 915 and a catena of earlier decisions that when a statute required a thing to be done in a particular manner it had to be done in that manner or not at all and other methods of performance are necessarily forbidden was attracted and the right of the landlord was not to be taken away by introducing the theory of substantial compliance particularly when unlike Order XV Rule 5 CPC, Section 20 (4) of the Act did not confer any jurisdiction on the court to extend the time granted for compliance with its requirements. It was also urged that the argument of counsel for the petitioner that Section 20 (4) of the Act had to be construed as a beneficient piece of legislation for the benefit of the tenant ignored a very vital circumstance that quite a fair percentage of persons branded as "landlords" comprised of widows, orphan children, old, infirm, disabled and destitute persons whose only or at any rate the main source of livelihood was the rent of the accommodation which had been let out to a person who turned out to be a defaulter in payment of rent and who persisted in not paying the rent notwithstanding a notice of demand being served on him leaving no option for the helpless landlord but to file a suit. According to counsel for respondents 2 and 3 in most of such cases the financial status of the tenant was better than that of the landlord and courts should not lose sight of this aspect of the matter while considering the sentimental argument that provisions of U. P. Act XIII of 1972 should invariably be construed in favour of a tenant, whatever his conduct may be, on the supposed footing that tenants as a class constituted weaker section of the society and the landlords as the affluent. It was also pointed out that the observations made in D. C. Gupta's case relied on by counsel for the petitioner were merely obiter dicta, that the decision of this court in Sri Chand's case (supra) was not brought to the notice of the learned Judge who decided D. C. Gupta's case and that even after referring to D. C. Gupta's case it has been held in Nathoo's case (supra) that if the entire amount contemplated by Section 20 (4) of the Act was not deposited by the tenant he could not be given the benefit of the said section. According to counsel the matter has been clinched by the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Mrinalini B. Shah. In the alternative it was urged that even if the principle contained in D. C. Gupta's case relied on by counsel for the petitioner was applied the petitioner is not entitled to the benefit of Section 20 (4) of the Act and the view taken by respondent no. 1, is unassailable.
(3.) HAVING heard counsel for the parties I am of opinion that on the facts of the instant case it is not necessary to go into the question as to whether there is any conflict in the decision in D. C. Gupta's ease relied on by counsel for the petitioner on the one hand and the decisions relied on by counsel for respondents 2 and 3 on the other and if so its effect. The reason for taking this view is that the writ petition deserves to be dismissed even if the observation made in D. C. Gupta's case supra on which reliance has been placed by counsel for the petitioner, which as would presently be shown was really in the nature of obiter dicta, is applied to the facts of the instant case. In D. C. Gupta's case the Civil Judge had taken the view that since the tenant had not deposited Rs. 100/- towards the cost of the suit representing counsel's fee and Rs.10/- odd towards interest he was not entitled to the benefit of section 39 of the Act. The learned Judge who decided D. C. Gupta's case agreed with the Civil Judge that since Rs.100/- counsel's fee had not been deposited by the tenant he was not entitled to the benefit of section 39 of the Act. While dealing with the argument whether the sum of Rs. 10/- odd towards interest not deposited by the tenant on the first date of hearing could be permitted to be made good after the expiry of the statutory period he observed : "The point is not material for the decision of the appeal because the tenant had failed to deposit the Advocate's fee and thus the "full costs of the suit" so as to entitle him to the relief under Section 39, but since the point has been canvassed at the Bar, I must say a few words...." Thereafter the learned Judge referred inter alia to the maxim deminimis non curat lex (Law does not concern itself with trifles) and certain observations in the case of Fredco Estates Ltd. (details of which are given in the report) where presumbly due to inadvertance or a mutual misunderstanding, or for some other like reason, there was an error of one penny in the figures upon which the calculation was based and held: ''Applying the principle, the deficiency of the kind aforementioned must be subject to deminimis rule and it could not possibly render the deposit invalid for the purpose of Section 39 of the Act." In D. C. Gupta's case the total deposit made on the first date of hearing was Rs. 2,509/- and the default was in depositing a sum of Rs. 100/- as Advocates fee besides Rs. 10/- odd towards interest. Even so the deposit of Rs. 2509 was not treated as substantial compliance of the requirements of section 39 of the Act. In the instant case the petitioner had deposited Rs. 1675.50 on the first date of hearing and the default was in the sum of Rs. 95/-. Such a default could not obviously be ignored by applying the rule contained in the maxim deminimis non curat lex. And it is for this reason that I am of the view even applying D. C. Gupta's case the petitioner cannot be given the benefit of Section 20 (4) of the Act.;