MODI, J. - (1.) THIS is a defendant tenant's second appeal in a suit for eviction and raises an interesting question as to the interpretation of Sec. 13 (1) (a) of the Rajasthan Premises (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1950 (Act No. XVII of 1950) (hereinafter referred to as the Act of 1950 ). The question appears to be one of first impression so far as this Court is concerned.
(2.) IN order to bring out the points in controversy, the relevant facts leading up to this appeal are these. The defendant Harnarain admittedly took on rent the suit premises from the plaintiff Badridas at a monthly rental of Rs. 81/- under a registered rent-note from the 1st Dec, 1953, Ex. 1, the tenancy being for a fixed term of five years. One of the condition of this tenancy was that the tenant would pay rent every month under a receipt and another condition was that should the tenant fail to pay the rent for a period of three months in succession, the landlord would be entitled to have the premises vacated and to recover the rent for the remainder of the term of the tenancy. It is common ground between the parties that rent had been paid without any trouble upto the 31st October, 1957. Thereafter, according to the plaintiff, the defendant defaulted in the payment of rent for the period extending from the 1st November, 1957, upto the 30th November, 1958, that is, for a period of 13 months and he paid the rent for this period by a cheque dated 2nd December, 1958, for Rs. 1053/-which was accepted by the plaintiff. It is alleged that on the expiry of the term of the tenancy by efflux of time, the defendant was asked to hand over possession of the suit premises but he did not do so. The defendant is alleged to have defaulted in the payment of rent upto the 2nd May, 1959 as well. The plaintiff's case also was that the defendant had failed to pay house tax amounting to Rs. 145/2/- to the Municipal Council, Jaipur. Consequently, he instituted the present suit for the recovery of a sum Rs. 410/3/- as rent upto the 2nd May, 1959, and Rs. 145/2/- as house-tax and a further sum of Rs. 14/6/-as interest, in all amount-ting to Rs. 570/ -. The plaintiff also claimed the relief of ejectment on the ground that the defendant had committed more than three defaults of two months each during the period of 18 months next preceding the suit. The defendant contested the suit mainly on the point of default. His case was that no rent was really outstanding against him as he had already sent the cheque for Rs. 1053/-for rent upto the 30th November, 1958, and for the next following five months, his case was that he had sent a money-order Ex. A-1 for two months' rent on the 4th February, 1959. and that he had sent another money-order Ex. A-2 for three months' rent on the nth March, 1959, hut the plaintiff had refused these money-orders and, therefore, the position taken up by the defendant was that he was not at all a defaulter. It may also be mentioned at this place that defendant deposited a sum of Rs. 648/- in court on the first day of hearing to be paid to the plaintiff and this had also been accepted by him. On these pleadings, the parties proceeded to trial court and the court came to the conclusion that the defendant was not a defaulter at the date of the suit as he had remitted the rent for five months by money-orders to the plaintiff for the period subsequent to 30th Nov. , 1958, and the rent for the period preceding that had been accepted by the plaintiff. That court did not give any clear finding whether the defendant was guilty of three defaults in the payment of rent of 2 months each during a period of 18 months within the meaning of the proviso of sec. 13 (4) of the Act of 1950; but it was apparently of the view that even if three defaults were there, these could not help the plaintiff because the tenant had either paid or tendered the amount of rent which was payable by him and nothing was really due from him at the date of the suit. In this view of the matter, the trial court dismissed the plaintiff's suit for ejectment. On appeal, the learned Senior Civil Judge Jaipur reversed the judgment of the trial court and allowed the plaintiff's appeal and decreed his suit for eviction. It is against this judgment and decree that the defendant has now come up in second appeal to this Court. The principal question around which the controversy has centered in the courts below and which has also been hotly canvassed before this Court is whether the defendant was a defaulter within the meaning of Sec. 13 (1) (a) at all. If he was not, there would be an end of the matter; but if he was then, a further question would have to be canvassed whether he was not entitled to the protection of Sub-Sec. (4) of Sec. 13 because of his having made defaults in the payment of rent on three occasions within the period a of eighteen months. Now taking up the first question first the submission of learned counsel for the defendant was that Sec. 13 (1) (a) of the Act of 1950 would have to be satisfied before the plaintiff landlord could have any cause of action for ejectment on the ground of default, and that this section could not possibly be satisfied if no rent was really due by the defendant to be paid to the plaintiff at the date of the suit either because he had paid it, or tendered it (according to law), before the suit comes to be filed. Fully expanded, the submission of learned counsel is that so long as the tenant had paid or tendered the entire rent due from him to the plaintiff landlord by or before the date of the suit, no matter howsoever delayed the payment was, no court could pass a decree for ejectment in favour of the landlord, because in such a case it could not be said that the tenant had neither paid nor tendered the amount of rent payable by him for any two months when the suit came to be filed. It was further submitted that in such a case no question of the application of sub-sec. (4) or of the proviso thereto could properly arise. Yet another submission made by learned counsel was that the 13 months' rent from the 1st November, 1957, to the 30th November, 1958, which was sent to the plaintiff by the defendant by a cheque dated the 2nd December, 1958, had been accepted by him, and, therefore, the plaintiff had waived the defaults arising during that period and that being so under no circumstances the defendant could be considered to have been guilty of three defaults within a period of eighteen months next preceding the suit. Now, before I address myself to the decision of the question set out above, let me quote Sec. 13 of the Act of 1950 as amended by Act No. 24 of 1958 in so far as it is relevant for our present purposes: - (13) Eviction of tenents.- (1) Notwithstanding anything contained in any law or contract, no court shall pass any decree, or make any order, in favour of a landlord, whether in execution of decree or otherwise evicting the tenant so long as he is ready and willing to pay rent therefor to the full extent allowable by this Act, unless it is satisfied: - (a) that the tenant has neither paid nor tendered the amount of rent due from him for any two months;. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (2 ). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (3 ). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (4) In a suit for eviction on the ground set forth in clause (a) of sub-sec. (1), the court shall on the first day of hearing thereof by order determine the amount of rent due from the tenant, which is in arrears, up to the date of such order as also the amount of interest thereon at the rate of six percent per annum and of the costs of the suit allowable to the landlord and direct the tenant to pay the aggregate of the amounts so specified on or before a date fixed thereby, which shall not be beyond the fifteenth day from, but exclusive of, the date thereof. If on or before the date so fixed for payment, the tenant deposits in court the aggregate of such amounts, the suit shall be dismissed and the sum so deposited shall be paid to the landlord; Provided that a tenant shall not be entitled to the benefit of protection against eviction pro vided by this sub-section if he has made default in the payment or tender of the amount of rent due from him for any two months on three occa sions within a period of eighteen months. (5) If, on the first day fixed for the hearing of such a suit, the tenant expresses his inten tion to contest the same or if he fails to make the payment referred to in sub-Sec. (4), the court shall proceed with the hearing of the suit and may, on the application of the landlord made at any stage of the suit, and after giving an opportunity to the parties to be heard, make an order, requiring the tenant to deposit in court month by month the rent at the rate at which it was last paid. On his failure to deposit the rent for any month by the 15th day of the next foliowing month, the court shall order the defence against eviction to be struck out and the tenant to be placed in the same position as if he had not defended the suit. " Now, the question is what is the precise meaning of S. 13 (1) (a ). Does it mean, as contended by learned counsel for the defendant, that there should be a subsisting default at the date of the suit in the sense that there must be a default of payment of rent for two months outstanding against the defendant at the date of the suit before the provision contained in this section can be availed of by the plaintiff landlord? Or the true import of this section is that it does not necessarily require that a tenant should continue to be a defaulter right upto the date of the suit in the sense that rent must remain due from him upto that date, and that all it really requires is that the tenant should have failed to pay or tender the rent for any two months prior to the suit at the proper time, when such rent was payable either according to the contract entered into between the parties or according to law. The contention of learned counsel for the defendant is that the object of the Act of 1950 was to give protection to the tenants from eviction at the hands of exacting or oppressive landlords, and, therefore, that intention of the Legislature would be best fulfilled if the meaning suggested by him were put on the provision in question. I have given my very careful and anxious consideration to the submission made by learned counsel but I am unable to hold that the Act gives an unlimited or an unconditional protection to the tenants as a class. Indeed this would be obvious from the other provisions contained in S. 13 of the Act of 1950, as also certain other sections to be found in it. I feel tempted to quote what was stated in a Bench decision of this Court in Shambhuram Vs. Kanhiyalal (1) to which I was a party, to bring out the correct position: "it was submitted to us that object of the Act was mainly to afford protection and relief to tenants from the rapacious activities of the land lords created or accentuated by dearth of housing accommodation and that our interpretation of the Act must be solely guided by this paramount consideration. We consider that this is true so far as it goes. But, we cannot accept the view that if the plain intention and meaning of some of the provisions contained in the Act is to afford certain reasonable facilities to landlords also within certain limitations we should strain the meaning of these provisions and stretch them against the landlords and in favour of the tenants. It appears to us that while one of the man objects of the Act was certainly to afford security of their tenancy rights and protection against excessive rents to the tenants, the framers of the Act also intended that the landlords may not be denied some increase in the rents which were fixed years ago, say in 1942 or 1943 or earlier, and had become entirely out of harmony with the prevailing conditions in 1950. " Now it deserves to be mentioned at this place that, under the general law, a landlord was and would be entitled to get back the possession of his property from a tenant by merely terminating his tenancy by a notice to quit. And it is a matter of history that owing to the conditions brought into existence, during the Second World War, in some of our cities and towns, and perhaps owing to the increase of population therein, the Legislatures in our country thought it necessary to give special protection to the tenants against enhancement of rent and ejectment, and, consequently, there was an emergency legislation during the war period which continues in the shape of various rent control or rent restriction Acts; and the position, generally speaking, is that where such Acts are still in force, the landlord cannot obtain possession of his property because of the special provisions contained in such Acts. I am unable to accept, however, that the object of the various Rent Control Acts was to encourage unpunctuality in payment of rent among tenants in the sense that such enactments have thrown the door wide open for the tenants to pay rent for the premises occupied by them at their sweet will and pleasure until they come face to face with the stage of a suit being filed against them. In fact,it seems to me that our Act, as many others, fashioned after the same pattern, offers protection to tenants who, broadly speaking, regularly pay the rent as and when it falls due and at any rate who do not bring themselves into the category of defaulters, within the provisions contained in such Acts. It is in this setting that we must consider the provision contained in S. 13 (1) (a) of our Act. Sub-sec. (1) pre-emptorily lays down that in spite of anything which may have been contained in any other law,no court shall pass any decree or make an order to evict a tenant so long as he is ready and willing to pay rent therefor to the full extent allowable by this Act. And then it proceeds to lay down as many as 12 clauses where such protection would not be available, and the first among these twelve contingencies is where the tenant has neither paid nor tendered the amount of rent "due from him for any two months". Not much reflection is required to show that the protection available under this clause by itself would not be available to bad tenants by which I mean tenants who would allow the rent due from them to fall in arrears for any two months. I further think that a provision like this would be meaningless if the Legislature failed to insist that the rent must be paid regularly so as not to fall in arrears for any two months, and it seems to me to be implicit under the provision that to avoid this disability, the tenant must pay or tender the rent to the landlord when it becomes due. As I have hinted above, rent would become due by a tenant to a landlord at a time which may be fixed by agreement between them or in the absence of such agreement we may have to see the general law contained in the Transfer of Property Act in this connection. Thus clause (1) of S. 108 of this Act clearly provides that the lessee is bound to pay or tender, at the proper time and place, the premium or rent to the lessor or his agent in this behalf. This is of course subject to a contract between the parties. Thus, where the rent-note stipulates that the rent should be paid at a particular time, the lessee is bound to pay it at the time so specified, and where no such time is specified in the deed, the rent will become due at the close of the period in respect of which it is agreed to be paid. It clearly seems to me hat it is in this connotation that the word "due" has been used in S. 13 (1) (a) of Act of 950. Where, therefore, the tenant fails to pay or tender rent which was payable by him having fallen due for any two months to the landlord, there is nothing in this provision which should stand in the way of his bringing a suit. The expression for any two months which is inseparably connected with the adjective "due" is also a pointer in the same direction. Again the phrase "any two months" is quite general and is not qualified at all and it should not have been difficult for the Legislature to particularise it if the intention was hat the rent which would give the plaintiff a cause of action for a suit on the ground of default must pertain to two months next preceding the date of the institution of the suit. This it has not done, and it is a well established principle of the interpretation of statutes that it is not the business of the courts to introduce words into a statute which do not find place there. he plain meaning of this provision, therefore, is that where a tenant has failed to pay or tender the rent which he was required to pay for any two months in accordance with the agreement between him and the landlord or in accordance with the general law of the country as contained in the Transfer of Property Act or perhaps in the Contract Act, the would be outside the protection afforded to him by sub-sec. (1) of S. 13 of the Act of 1950, and he would immediately fall within the mischief of clause (a) thereof. This brings us to sub-sec. (4) which contemplates such a suit. This sub-section, in my opinion, has to be read with S. 13 (1) (a) in order to bring out its proper meaning. Sub-sec. (4), however, affords the tenant a further opportunity of relief against eviction. This provision lays down that the court shall on the first date fixed for the hearing of the suit determine the amount of rent due from the tenant which is in arrears upto date of such order together with interest and the costs and order the tenant to pay the aggregate of all those amounts on a date to be fixed for the purpose but which must not be beyond the fifteenth day from the date of the order; and where the tenant complies with the order of the court, the suit for eviction must be dismissed. To this provision the proviso added to it is a very important exception and that in my opinion furnishes a valuable key to the interpretation of clause (a) of S. 13 (1 ). This proviso lays down that the protection from eviction afforded by sub-sec. (4) shall not be available to a tenant if he has defaulted in paying or tendering the rent due from him for any two months on three occasions within a period of eighteen months. In other words such a tenant would not be able to resist eviction under any circumstances. The proviso talks of the non-payment or tender of the amount due from a tenant for any two months on three occasions within a period of eighteen months. It is quite obvious that such defaults must be antecedent to the suit and further that they are irremediable. The only qualification is that they must have arisen within a period of eighteen months. The question may arise how these eighteen months have to be computed, that is, whether this period has to be fixed by reference to the institution of the suit or by reference to the commencement of Act. But leaving the question apart, the proviso unmistakably lays down, to use plain language, that where a tenant has failed to pay rent for any two months and has committed three such defaults, within a period of eighteen months, he cannot save himself from eviction under the provisions of our Act. Again, how would or could three such defaults arise? The answer, to my mind, is plain enough and that is that they would arise where rent for any two months in succession has not been paid at the time when it fell due, and three such defaults do occur.
(3.) NOW, if the interpretation which learned counsel for the defendant seeks to put on clause (a) of Sub-sec. (1) of S. 13 were to be accepted as correct, then this proviso would become meaningless. According to learned counsel, the default must continue upto the date of the suit, otherwise the landlord cannot sue for ejectment or, at any rate, no decree for ejectment can be passed against the tenant. If that is so, it would seem to be entirely futile and meaningless for the Legislature to introduce in S. 13 itself a proviso of the kind we have here. In the vast majority of suits based on tenancy, the tenancy has got to be terminated by a notice to quit before the suit can be filed, and as soon as such notice is given, all that the tenant has got to do is to pay the entire amount of rent which is in arrears and then contend with perfect immunity, nay impunity, that it cannot be said of him that he has neither paid nor tendered rent due from him for any two months at the date of the suit, and, therefore, the suit for ejectment must be dismissed against him. Such a result would be entirely destructive of the proviso to sub-sec. (4), and that, in my opinion, clinches the issue, and decisively negatives the correctness of the interpretation which learned counsel seeks to put on clause (a) of Sub-sec. (i) of S. 13. The more I think over the matter, the more convinced I feel that the correct interpretation of the provision in question is that it will immediately come into play where a tenant has not paid or tendered the entire amount of rent payable by him for any two months in succession at the due time, that is, at the point of time agreed to between the parties or in the absence thereof at the end of the unit of the tenancy and that it is not at all necessary on a plain construction of this provision that the tenant should be in default right upto the date of the suit, though I may add that where he is in such default, the clause would be certainly attracted into application. Turning to the facts of the present case, let us see how S. 13 (1) (a) as interpreted above works out. The plaintiff brought the suit, out of which this appeal arises, on the 2nd May, 1959. There is no dispute about the payment of rent upto the 31st October, 1957. As for rent falling due from the 1st November, 1957, upto the 30th November, 1558, the defendant paid it at one stroke by a cheque dated the 2nd December, 1958. Thus he did not pay rent at the due time for a period of thirteen months on end. That being so, there is no escape from the position that he was a defaulter within the meaning of S. 13 (1) (a ). Not only that, he is a habitual defaulter, if I may use that expression, within the meaning of the proviso to Sub-sec. (4) of S. 13, inasmuch as he clearly committed more than three defaults by non-payment of rent for two months each within a period of eighteen months whichever way that might be calculated that is from the commencement of the Act of 1950 or the institution of the suit. It must follow that he was not entitled to the benefit of sub-sec. (4) of S. 13 and any rent deposited by him on the first date of hearing of suit is entirely useless and ineffective. I should also like to point out in passing that the trial court in this case does not seem to have taken proper care to comply with the provisions of sub-sec. (4) inasmuch as it permitted the tenant merely to deposit the rent which, as he stated, was due from him for a period of eight months upto the date of his application. This is by no means a proper compliance with the provisions of Sub-sec. (4) of S. 13. That court should have calculated the arrears of rent due upto the date of its order together with the statutory interest thereon and the costs of the suit and further fixed a definite date for the payment of such amount not extending beyond the fifteenth day from the date of its order. But it does not appear to have done all this. I should like to take this opportunity of impressing upon the trial courts that they should carefully comply with the provisions of this sub-section (whenever they may be called upon to do so in law) otherwise this may conceivably cause delay and unnecessary complication in the final disposal of suit which should be entirely avoidable. That, however, does not make any difference to the merits of the real controversy before me. In view of the finding at which I have arrived above, as regards the defendant having committed three defaults of non-payment of rent for a period of two months each during a period of eighteen months, I am of opinion that any subsequent payment of rent by the defendant by money-orders for five months preceding the date of suit and their refusal by the plaintiff would be of no avail to the defendant. The proved defaults disentitle him to any protection from eviction under the Act of 1950, and, therefore, the ordinary law must prevail. Before I pass on to the next argument of learned counsel for the defendant, I desire to mention that an argument was raised before me as to how the period of eighteen months should be counted, that is, whether period of eighteen months fixed by the proviso relates to the period immediately preceding the suit or it means any period after the commencement of the Act. I consider it unnecessary to go into this question for the purposes of the present appeal, as in whichever manner the period is counted, the defaults committed by the defendant do not fall outside this limit. In this state of affairs, I consider it entirely unnecessary for the purposes of the present appeal to pursue the point further. There is yet another submission of learned counsel for the defendant with which I might conveniently deal here as it relates to this very branch of the case. While replying to the case, learned counsel for the defendant came forward with a rather novel argument that where the case against the defendant is based on three defaults within the meaning of the proviso to Sec. 13 (4), the tenant must at least be proved to have been guilty of one default at the date of the suit, though it was conceded that the two defaults preceding thereto might have taken place at any time within eighteen months prior to the institution of the suit, and it was contended that it would be then and then only that the proviso to Sec. 13 (4) properly comes into play but not otherwise. I regret, I am entirely unable to accept this view as sound. To put such a meaning on the proviso would be to introduce certain words into it which are not there and which on well-settled principles of interpretation of statutes, I have no warrant to do. The governing words of the proviso are "default in the payment or tender of the amount of rent due from him for any two months on three occasions within period of eighteen months. " These words, in their natural and grammatical sense are not susceptible of the interpretation which learned counsel seeks to put on them, and to make such an interpretation justifiable, some such words as "one of such defaults subsisting at the date of the suit" will have to be added thereto after the expression "within a period of eighteen months", which, as I have pointed out above, cannot possibly be done. In fact, it seems to me that this is one more attempt at a rehash of the argument with respect to the meaning of Sec. 13 (1) (a) with which I have fully dealt above. As in the interpretation of that clause so in the interpretation of the proviso, we must properly interpreting them, be guided by the ordinary sense of the words therein used, and refrain from reading into them things which are not there, on a priori considerations. If I might broadly sum up the entire position in its essence on the subject of the protection which the Act of 1950 affords to a tenant ready and willing to pay rent for the premises occupied by him, that position is that the tenants must not only be ready and willing to pay the rent whenever he chooses to do so, but he must be punctual in the payment or tender of the full amount of rent due from him at all times and he must not allow the rent to fall due against him without such payment or tender for any two months in succession. For, if he does so, a suit may be filed against him. But the law gives him a further chance of protection if he makes the payment of rent together with statutory interest and costs of the suit according to the order of the court within the time permitted by sub-sec. (4 ). But a tenant who is a habitual defaulter in the payment of rent in the sense that he should happen to allow three defaults or more in the payment or tender of the entire rent due from him for a unit of two months each on three occasions within a period of eighteen months disentitles himself to any such protection. ;