Narain Dutt Ojha, J. - (1.) Respondent No. 4 Jamil Ahmad is the landlord of an accommodation of which Respondents 5 and 6 were the tenants. Respondent No. 4 filed a suit for ejectment of Respondents 5 and 6. The suit was decreed. Before, however, even an application for execution of the decree was made by Respondent No. 4 an application was made by Respondent No. 5 before the Rent Control & Eviction Officer intimating him that he was going to vacate the accommodation aforesaid. It appears that another application was made by the Petitioner for allotment of the said accommodation. An order of allotment was passed by the Rent Control & Eviction Officer in favour of the Petitioner on December 21, 1971. Coming to know of the order of allotment Respondent No. 4 made an application before the Rent Control & Eviction Officer on January 4, 1972 for setting aside that order. As is apparent from the order of the Rent Control & Eviction Officer dated August 25, 1972, a copy of which has been filed as Annexure IV to the writ petition, the said application had been made on the ground that the accommodation in question was neither vacant nor was likely to fall vacant and that the Petitioner and Respondents 5 and 6 were in collusion and by practising fraud obtained the order of allotment referred to above. This application was contested by the Petitioner and was dismissed by the Rent Control & Eviction Officer by the aforesaid order dated August 25, 1972. Against that order Respondent No. 4 filed an appeal before the District Judge under Sec. 18 of the U.P. Urban Buildings (Regulation of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972. The appeal was allowed on July 19, 1973, on the finding that the accommodation in question was neither vacant nor was likely to fall vacant on the date when the order of allotment was passed in favour of the Petitioner and consequently the said order was without jurisdiction. It is this order of the District Judge which is sought to be quashed in the present writ petition.
(2.) Three submissions were made by counsel for the Petitioner - (1) that the order of allotment having been passed on December 21, 1971, i.e., before the coming into force of the U.P. Urban Buildings (Regulation of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972, no application for review was maintainable inasmuch as under the old Act, viz., U.P. (Temporary) Control of Rent and Eviction Act, 1947, (U.P. Act III of 1947) there was no provision for filing an application for review against an order of allotment. As such the application which had been made by Respondent No. 4 on January 4, 1972, could not have been treated to be an "application or proceeding" within the meaning of Sec. 43(2)(b) of the new Act and could not be decided in accordance with the procedure laid down in Sec. 43(2)(b); (2) Even the appeal which was filed before the District Judge under Sec. 18 of the new Act was not maintainable; and (3) that the finding of the District Judge that the accommodation in question was neither vacant nor was likely to fall vacant was erroneous.
(3.) I will deal with these submissions seriatim.;