Harbans Lal, J. - (1.) THIS order will dispose of Civil Revision Nos. 1056, 1656, 1320, 1669, 1714, 1720 and 1799 of 1977, as similar questions of fact and law arise from the orders against which the revision petitions have been filed. In order to properly appreciate the contentions of the parties, facts relating to Civil Revision No. 1056 of 1977 are briefly narrated.
(2.) THE order of eviction was passed by the Rent Controller on April 27, 1977, against the Petitioner on the application of the Respondents under Section 13 -A of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 (hereinafter called the Act), as amended by the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction (Chandigarh Amendment) Ordinance (No. 14 of 1976), (hereinafter called the Ordinance). Thereafter, execution proceedings were taken for dispossessing the Petitioner from the premises, in dispute. The Petitioner filed objections under Section 47, read with Section 151, Code of Civil Procedure, contending that the Ordinance had lapsed and had ceased to operate with effect from May 9, 1977. Consequently, the order of eviction had also lapsed and was inexecutable. This was challenged by the decree -holders, Respondents. The objections were dismissed by the Subordinate Judge, First Class, Chandigarh, - -vide impugned order. The present revision petition is directed against the said order. The executability of the order of eviction passed against the Petitioner has been challenged mainly on the following grounds: (1) that the order of eviction, dated April 27, 1977, was valid at the time it was passed, but the same exhausted itself and became lifeless after the Ordinance under which the same had been passed lapsed on May 9, 1977; (2) that even if the eviction order was valid, after the expiry of the Ordinance the same was inexecutable under Section 13 of the Act; and (3) that the eviction order was passed under Section 13A, as introduced by the Ordinance in the Act, but no machinery had been provided for execution of such orders. The same could not be executed under Section 17 of the Act. It has been contended by Mr. H. L. Sarin and Mr. G. C. Mittal, the learned Counsel for some of the revision Petitioners, that before the enforcement of the Ordinance on December 17, 1976, the order of eviction could be passed by the Rent Controller on the grounds as. mentioned in Section 13 of the Act. Through the Ordinance, Section 13A was introduced after Section 13 of the Act. Under this provision, if a landlord who was in occupation of any residential building allotted to him by the Central Government or any other local authority had been ordered to vacate the same on the ground that he was owner of a residential or scheduled building either in his own name or in the name of his wife or dependent child in the Union Territory of Chandigarh, he was conferred the right to recover immediate possession of the residential building leased out by him to the tenant in accordance with the procedure as laid down in Section 18B. The order of eviction under Section 13A was, thus, based on entirely different considerations from those as prescribed in Section 13 of the Act. The Ordinance under which Sections 13A and 18B and other provisions had been introduced in the principal Act, remained in existence for six months in accordance with the Constitution. The same lapsed on May 9, 1977, as the Parliament did not pass any statute extending the provisions of the Ordinance, nor was its life extended under any provision of the Constitution. After the expiry of the Ordinance, which was obviously a temporary law, all orders of eviction passed under its provisions also lost their life and vitality and were exhausted. The rights conferred under any statute and having, become vested continue to remain operative in favour of the persons concerned only under Section 6 of the General Clauses Act, but the said provision was applicable only to those statutes and laws which were repealed by a repealing or amending Act and the same was not applicable to those which were for a temporary period and ceased to exist by merely efflux of time. Reliance was placed on B. Bansgopal v. Emperor, A.I.R. 1933 All 669, Jatindra Nath Gupta v. Province of Bihar : A.I.R. 1949 FC 175, S. Krishnan and Ors. v. The State of Madras and Anr. : A.I.R. 1951 S.C. 301, and Gopi Chand v. Delhi Administration : A.I.R. 1959 S.C. 609.
(3.) IT was held in S. Krishnan's case (supra) by Patanjali Sastri, J. (as he then was), who spoke for the Court, that the general rule in regard to a temporary statute is that in the absence of special provision to the contrary, proceedings which are being taken against a person under it will ipso facto terminate as soon as the statute expires. This principle of law was approved in Gopi Chand's case (supra). However, in all the cases, mentioned above, the question was whether the trial of the accused for the offence which had been created by a temporary statute could be proceeded against after the expiry of the statute, and it was held that the trial proceedings come to an end on the expiry of a temporary statute.;