Prasenjit Mandal, J. - (1.) THIS application is at the instance of the defendant and is directed against the Order No.28 dated June 30, 2008 passed by the learned Civil Judge (Junior Division), Barrackpore in Title Suit No.296 of 2005 thereby rejecting an application under Section 151 of the CPC for repair of the premises in suit.
(2.) THE plaintiff/opposite party herein instituted a suit being Title Suit No.296 of 2005 against the petitioner for recovery of possession and other reliefs. THE defendant/petitioner is contesting the said suit and he filed an application under Section 151 of the CPC praying for giving necessary direction upon the plaintiff to repair the suit premises. That application was rejected by the impugned order. Being aggrieved, this application has been preferred. Now, the question is whether the impugned order should be sustained. Upon hearing the learned Counsel for the parties and on goring through the materials-on-record, I am of the view that the learned Trial Judge has committed a mistake by holding that the Court (Trial Court) does not have the jurisdiction to pass any order regarding the prayer of the defendant under Section 151 of the CPC.
(3.) IN a catena of the decisions like Somnath Mukherjee v. Mamata Rani Saha reported in 2006(3) CHN 213, Kartick Chandra Bhandari v. Ashim Kumar Samanta reported in 2008(2) CLJ (Cal) 20, Manisha Roy & Ors. Biplab Sengupta & Ors. reported in 2007(2) CHN 636, this Hon'ble Court has held that in spite of the specific provision empowering the Rent Controller to take such measures, when a suit under Section 6 of the 1997 Act is pending, the Civil Court is quite competent to entertain such application. On the other hand, learned Counsel for the opposite party has referred to the decision of Dipak Kumar Singh v. State of West Bengal & Ors. reported in 2008(2) CHN 943 and Bollepanda P. Poonacha & Anr. v. K.M. Madapa reported in AIR 2008 Supreme Court 2003 and thus, he submits that the concerned Controller is empowered to entertain the dispute in fixation of fair rent, etc and if the party has any grievance against the Order of the Rent Controller, remedy lies before the Land Tribunal. Accordingly, the petitioner ought to have approached the Tribunal first against the order of the learned Civil Judge. It is also submitted that since, there is an express bar in the Act of 1997, according to the decision of AIR 2008 Supreme Court 2003, this Hon'ble Court should not exercise such jurisdiction.;