- (1.) The Judgment of the Court was as follows: These two matters, by the administrative order dated 12th September, 2011, have been referred to this Court by the Hon'ble Chief Justice for decision on the question as follows: Whether provisions of section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963 would be applicable for condoning the delay in presentation of a time barred petition under section 7(2) of the Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997. In CO. 3443 of 2011 (Subrata Mukherjee v. Bisakha Das). , learned single Judge of this Court (hereinafter referred to as the Referring Court), while entertaining a revisional application faced with a legal issue as to whether the time-barred deposit as mentioned in section7 of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997, can be accepted on an application being made by the tenant, beyond the period stipulated therein or not.
(2.) Another learned single Judge, in the case of C. O. 4216 of 2006 (Md. Safique v. Chowdhury Abdul Kader @ Abdul Kader Chowdhury and Ors. ) held that the provisions of section 5 of the Limitation Act could not be made applicable, by necessary implication that the time limit prescribed in section 7(2) of the said Act of 1997 is rigid and Court has no power to condone the delay.
(3.) The learned referring Court could not accept the aforesaid decision and was of the view that there is scope for applicability of section 5 of the Limitation Act, 1963. This view is also reiterated by the same Court subsequently in C. O. 3054 of 2011 (Pratap Singh Bengani and Ors. v. M/s. Calcutta Tent Industries).;