N.D. Ojha, J. - (1.) IT has been urged by counsel for the tenant applicant that the applicant was entitled to the benefit of Section 39 of the U.P. Urban Buildings (Reg. of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) inasmuch as ten years from the completion of the building occupied by the applicant expired during the tendency of the suit and the Act became applicable to the building in question on the expiry of ten years as aforesaid. A similar plea was raised before the Judge Small Causes also, but has been repelled on the ground that since the applicant had not deposited the costs of suit, the requirement of Section 39 of the Act had not been fulfilled and consequently the applicant could not be given the benefit of that Section. In my opinion no exception can be taken to the view of the trial court in this behalf inasmuch as on a plain reading of Section 39 of the Act it is apparent that the benefit of that Section can be given to a tenant only if he makes the necessary deposit contemplated by the said Section which includes costs of the suit.
(2.) IT was then urged that when on the expiry of ten years from the Completion of the building during the tendency of the suit, the Act became applicable to the building in question, the provisions of Section 20 of the Act also became applicable and consequently the suit could not be decreed unless one of the grounds contemplated by Section 20 of the Act was made out. Suffice it to say so far as this submission is concerned that the bar created by Section 20 is with regard to the institution of a suit for eviction from a building and will apply only to a suit which is to be instituted after the date on which the Act became applicable to the building concerned. In the instant case when the suit was instituted the Act was not applicable to the building in question. In Man Singh v. Bishambhar Singh : 1975 AWC 337 it was held by a Division Bench of this Court that Section 20 of the Act is prospective and is a bar merely to the institution of suits after the coming into force of the Act and that a suit which was already pending on the date when the Act came into force is not liable to be dismissed on the mere ground that its continuance is barred by Section 20 of the Act. No other point has been pressed.
(3.) IN the result I find no merit in this revision. It is accordingly dismissed.;