1. The petitioner before me is the tenant of a building from which he was ordered to be evicted by an order of the Rent Controller. This order has been sustained in appeal and thereafter in revision by this Court. The landlord sought to execute the order of eviction by filing an execution petition before that Rent Controller under S. 18 (2) of the Tamil Nadu Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1960 (hereinafter referred to as the Rent Control Act). The execution petition was opposed by the tenant on the score that the order of eviction itself was a nullity. The contention was based on the nature of the lease. According to the tenant, he was inducted into the tenancy of the building under a registered lease deed dated 14th June, 1967, under which he was to be a lessee in possession for a fixed term of 21 years. The contention was that in respect of a lease for a term of years there cannot be any proceedings for termination of the tenancy or eviction of the tenant in mid term. The Rent Controller rejected these contentions and proceeded with the execution.
2. This revision has been filed by the tenant treating the order of the Rent Controller in execution as an order passed under S. 47, C.P.C When the revision was taken up for hearing, learned counsel for the respondent-landlord raised a preliminary objection. He urged that under S. 18 (2) of the Rent Control Act, against any order passed by the Rent Controller in execution of an order of eviction, no appeal and no revision lies. I think, I must sustain this preliminary objection.
3. S. 18(1) provides that an order of eviction shall be executed by the Controller as if such order is an order of a civil court. The same provision enacts that for the purpose of execution of the eviction order the Rent Controller shall have all the powers of a civil court. Having provided for the procedure for execution in the manner aforesaid, S. 18 (2) lays down that an order passed in execution under S. 18 (1) “shall not be subjected to any appeal or revision.”
4. In this case, the Rent Controller rejected the application of the tenant for declaring the eviction order a nullity. This order of the Rent Controller, in my judgment, is an order passed in execution under S. 18 (1) of the Act. It follows, therefore, that under S. 18 (2) of the Act, the present revision against that order is barred.
5. Learned counsel for the tenant submitted that the bar under S. 18 (2) operated only in a case where the order sought to be revised is an order ‘passed in execution’. According to learned counsel, in a case where the Rent Controller declines to declare an order of eviction as a nullity, that order cannot be regarded as ‘an order passed in execution within the meaning of S. 18 (2)’. I do not accept this contention as being based on a true construction of S. 18 (2). To accept the argument of learned counsel would lead to curious results. For, on that interpretation if the Rent Controller dismissed an execution petition, then a revision would be available, whereas, if he allows an execution petition, a revision will not be available. I do not think that the bar under S. 18 (2) can be made to depend on the nature of the order passed by the Rent Controller under S. 18 (2) of the Act. In my opinion, every order passed by the Rent Controller while disposing of an execution petition must be regarded as “an order passed in execution under sub-S.(1)” of S. 18.
6. Learned counsel for the tenant referred to a decision of the Supreme Court reported in C. Mackertich v. Steuart & Co., Ltd. . A.I.R 1970 S.C 839. In that case, the Supreme Court upheld the maintainability of a revision where the revision was filed by a tenant against whom execution was levied. The contention of the tenant in revision was that the eviction was a nullity. The Supreme Court upheld the maintainability of the revision, obviously under S. 115, C.P.C This case, however, cannot serve as a precedent for the present case. The case before the Supreme Court arose out of a suit between a landlord and a tenant in which a decree in ejectment was passed against the tenant. At the execution stage the tenant pleaded the decree to be a nullity. When that plea was rejected by the executing court, he sought to file a revision to the High Court under S. 115 of the Code. It was while examining the maintainability of such a revision that the Supreme Court had rendered their decision. With respect, the decision is understandably correct, since the revision in that case arose out of proceedings in execution of a decree in ejectment passed in an ejectment suit. Such is not the case in the present proceedings. This case is the very obverse. In any case, the matter has got to be considered not under S. 115 of the Code, but wholly on an interpretation and application of S. 18 (2) of the Rent Control Act.
7. S. 18 (2) happens to have been construed and applied by this Court in this very case between the same parties in connection with an earlier order in execution passed by the Rent Controller. That decision was in C.R.P 1769 of 1979. In that case, Venugopal, J., upheld a similar preliminary objection to the maintainability of a revision under S. 18 (2) of the Rent Control Act, against an order passed by the Rent Controller in execution. The learned Judge described the bar under S. 18 (2) as ‘an absolute prohibition’. I respectfully agree with this description.
8. For the reasons which I have earlier rendered, I uphold the preliminary objection put forward on behalf of the landlord respondent and dismiss this petition. There will, however, be no order as to costs.
VCS.