(Delivered by The Chief Justice.)
This application arises out of a proceeding under the Rent Control Act. The tenant is the petitioner. The respondent landlord filed a petition for eviction on the ground of default in payment of rent for the month from 10th August 1949 to 9th September 1949 (H.R.C No. 395 of 1949). This petition was not disposed of till 6-2-1950 when it was dismissed. Mean, while on 11-12-1949 the respondent filed another petition for eviction on the ground of default in payment of rent for the month from 10th September 1949 to 9th October 1949. This petition was allowed by the Rent Controller and the decision of the Rent Controller was affirmed by the appellate tribunal and the tenant seeks to have the order of eviction quashed.
Mr. Venugopalachari for the petitioner contended that till the disposal of the first petition for eviction, a second petition for eviction could not be filed, because if the first petition was eventually rejected, then, under the provisions of S. 7(6) of the Act, the tenancy shall be deemed to continue. He relied on an unreported judgment of this Court in C.M.P No. 4996 at 1949 in which a Division Bench to which one of us was a party construed S. 7(6) of the Act. In that case an application for eviction was rejected. A subsequent application for eviction was made on the allegation that default had occurred and the tenancy became terminable before the date of the prior application for eviction. It was held that the second petition by the landlord was not maintainable having regard to the provisions of Sub-S. (6) of S. 7. The ratio decidendi of that decision was,
“Once the application is rejected, the tenancy is deemed to continue. The landlord cannot allege in a subsequent application that the tenancy has come to an end before the date of the rejection. That would be in the teeth of the express provisions of the enactment.”
We think it follows from this construction of that provision that in support of a second application for eviction, the landlord can only rely upon default or other grounds committed or avail, able after the date of the rejection of the first application. In this case, the second petition was filed before the prior application had even been dismissed. The prior application was actually dismissed on 6-2-1950 and therefore the tenancy must be deemed to have continued at least up to that date. In effect, the landlord in the second petition alleges that from the 24th October 1949 the tenancy must be deemed to have come to an end. This he cannot be permitted to say.
We asked the learned Counsel who appeared for the landlord respondent to give us some intelligible meaning of S. 7(6) of the Act which would be of assistance to him, but he was unable to give any such explanation. Evidently the reason why such a provision was enacted was because once a landlord had exhibited an unequivocal intention to terminate the tenancy and the matter was sub judice he should not be entitled to avail himself of the benefit of any default or other act of the tenant to serve as a foundation of a second application for eviction in case he failed to obtain the requisite relief in the first application.
The order of the appellate tribunal confirming the decision of the Rent Controller must be, and is hereby, quashed and the application for eviction dismissed. There will be no order as to costs.
N.R.R