- (1.) THE petitioner is the defendant in a suit for eviction. An application under Section 7(2), West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997 filed by him has been disposed of by the learned trial Judge by her order dated October 29, 2011. THE learned Judge was of the opinion that the petitioner is a defaulter in payment of rent from December, 2004 till September, 2011 @ Rs. 100/- per month in respect of the shop room occupied by him and, therefore, is in arrears in a sum of Rs. 8,200/-. A direction was issued for payment of the said sum together with statutory interest by December 13, 2011. Liberty was also given to the petitioner to withdraw deposits made by him on account of rent for the period in question in the office of the Rent Controller in accordance with law.
(2.) THE said order dated October 29, 2011 is impugned in this revisional application under Article 227 of the Constitution of India. Mr. Das, learned senior advocate appearing for the petitioner, contended that the learned Judge grossly erred in arriving at the finding that the petitioner was a defaulter in payment of rent. It has been contended by Mr. Das that the petitioner was a tenant initially under Smt. Kamala Chatterjee (since deceased), then under Smt. Mrinalini Chatterjee (since deceased), thereafter under Smt. Kalyani Chatterjee (since deceased) and now he is a tenant under the opposite parties. There were two tenancies, one in respect of the western portion on the ground floor of premises no. 25, Sahitya Parishad Street, Kolkata ? 700 006 comprising two rooms, one kitchen, one store room and a bath and privy at a monthly rental of Rs. 125/- per month payable according to English calendar month (used by the petitioner for residential purpose) and the other in respect of a shop room situated on the ground floor of the said premises at a monthly rental of Rs. 100/- per month payable according to Bengali calendar month.
(3.) ACCORDING to him, the learned Judge in the trial Court erred in holding that the rent in respect of the suit shop room was payable according to English calendar month and that rent deposited by the petitioner for the period in question in the office of the Rent Controller according to Bengali calendar month are invalid deposits. Relying on the decisions of this Court reported in 61 CWN 467 (Carrara Marble & Tarrazo Co. Ltd. v. Charuchandra Guha), AIR 1971 Calcutta 383 (Rameshwar Chand & anr. v. Sadhan Chandra Dey & ors.), AIR 1974 Calcutta 362 (Lalbhai Ramjibhai v. A.V. Seth) and 87 CWN 5 (Saroj Kumar De & ors. v. Radharani Saha & ors.) it was contended that there being no agreement between the landlord and the tenant in respect of alteration of the month of tenancy from Bengali to English calendar and there being no evidence to the effect that rent for the broken period of the particular calendar month was either paid or adjusted and rent was paid from month to month according to English calendar, finding of the learned Judge that the rent in respect of the suit shop room was payable to the landlords according to English calendar is perverse and, therefore, the deposits that had been made by the petitioner in the office of the Rent Controller ought not to have been treated as invalid. ACCORDINGly, it has been prayed that the order impugned be set aside. Per contra, Mr. Chakraborty, learned advocate for the opposite parties contended that the order impugned does not merit interference having regard to the limited grounds on which judicial review under Article 227 is available. He reminded the Court that findings in an order passed on an application under Section 7(2) of the Act are treated as tentative, which do not operate as res judicata at the stage of final hearing, unless of course a decision is given upon framing of an issue. In the case at hand, the learned Judge was not urged to give her decision on any issue and, therefore, regard being had to the nature of the order and particularly in view of the fact that the learned Judge while directing the petitioner to make payment of Rs. 9200/- had granted liberty to him to withdraw the amount that he had deposited in the office of the Rent Controller, there has been no miscarriage of justice for which interference of this Court, in exercise of its supervisory jurisdiction, would be warranted. It has also been contended that the decision given by the learned Judge on the basis of the materials on record before her is a plausible one and that the revisional Court may not substitute its view for the view taken by the learned Judge, since it is not an absurd view.;