GANPAT LADHA Vs. SASHIKANT VISHNU SHINDE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) If the quest for certainty in law is often baffled, as it is according to Judge Jerome Frank in "Law and the Modern Mind", the reasons are mainly two:firstly, the lack of precise formulation of even statutory law so as to leave lacunae and loopholes in it giving scope to much avoidable disputation:and, secondly, the unpredictability of the judicial rendering of the law after every conceivable as well as inconceivable aspect of it has been explored and subjected to forensic debate. Even the staunchest exponents of legal realism, who are apt to treat the quest for certainty in the administration of justice in accordance with law, in an uncertain world of imperfect human beings, to be practically always futile and doomed to failure, will not deny the desirability and the beneficial effects of such certainty in law as may be possible. Unfortunately, there are not infrequent instances where what should have been clear and certain, by applying well-established canons of statutory construction becomes befogged by the vagaries, if one may use a possibly strong word without disrespect, of judicial exposition divorced from these canons. The case before us is an instance of the artificial uncertainty created by such a fog after the law found in S. 12 (3) of the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act No. LVII of 1947 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act") had been laid down with sufficient clarity by this Court in Shah Dhansukhlal Chhaganlal v. Dalichand Virchand Shroff, (1968) 3 SCR 346 (347) and correctly understood and applied by a Bench of the Court of Small Causes at Bombay. It is a cardinal tenet of sound administration of justice that the "judicial function must not stray, so far as possible, into the domain of legislation wearing a veil, whether thin or thick, of interpretation." We are impelled to make these remarks because we find that a case of the commonest type between a landlord and tenant, in the city of Bombay, the decision of which the Act before us was presumably designed to facilitate and expedite, consistently with justice to the landlord as well as the tenant, has dragged on for years, owing to the kind of difficulties we have referred to, so that justice delayed has veritably become justice denied.

(2.) The history of the litigation before us goes back to 3rd September, 1956, when the predecessor-in-interest of the defendant-respondent filed an application for fixation of standard rent under S. 11 of the Act. On 17th February, 1960 as a consequence, the contractual rent of Rs. 80/- per month was reduced and the standard rent was fixed at Rs. 54.25 per month of a shop in Santa Cruz, Bombay. Nevertheless, the tenant, predecessor-in-interest of the respondent, did not pay rent. The payments remained in arrears from 1956 to 1960. Therefore, the landlord was compelled to send a registered notice to quit with a claim for arrears of rent for four years @ Rs. 54.25 per month. On 30th June. 1960, he repeated this notice to quit by a letter sent Under Certificate of Posting. On 1st July, 1960, the registered notice came back with the word "refused" indorsed on it. On 15th July, 1960, a notice to quit was tendered personally to the respondent but refused. The notice was then said to have been affixed to the premises. On 18th July, 1960, nearly five months after fixation of standard rent, the tenant filed a revision application under S. 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure which was dismissed summarily on 1st September, 1960, by the High Court.

(3.) On 6th November, 1960 the appellant-landlord filed a suit for eviction which is now before us. On 30th August, 1962, the first date of hearing, the issues were framed. On 18th June, 1963, the Trial Court decreed the suit on the following findings:the notice to quit was valid and duly served; the arrears of rent were properly demanded under S. 12 (2) of the Act; the demand was not complied with in accordance with law by the tenant within a month of the demand; the case was governed by the provisions of S. 12 (3) (b) and not by the provisions of S. 12 (3) (a) because a dispute about the fixation of standard rent was still pending when the notice demanding standard rent was given; nevertheless, the tenant was not entitled to the protection of S. 12 (3) (b), since he had not paid the rent regularly in accordance with the conditions under which the protection of S. 12 (3) (b) could be given to him.