Yashoda Nandan, J.:— This case has been referred to a Division Banch as Hon'ble Ojha, J., sitting singly was of the view that the decision in the case Tilak Raj v. Sardar Devendra Singh 1976 A.L.R 721. required re-consideration.
2. The matter arises in this way. The plaintiff-opposite party instituted a suit against the defendant applicant for ejectment for a shop. The court of Judge Small Causes, Mainpuri decreed the suit on the findings, amongst others, that the construction of the shop in suit was completed in the year 1967 ane ten years not having elapsed since then, the provisions of the U.P Urban Buildings (Regulation of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) did not apply. The defendant-applicant's revision under section 25 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act against the said judgment and decree was in the main unsuccessful as the learned District Judge confirmed the said findings of the trial court and maintained the decree of ejectment. The defendant-applicant applied to this Court for revision under section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the said decrees. The revision was heard by Hon'ble Ojha, J. who remitted, by this order dated September 15, 1977, the following issue to the trial court, namely:—
“On what date was the construction of the building in dispute completed within the meaning of section 2(2) of the U.P Urban Buildings (Regulation of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972, and deemed to have been completed as contemplated by Explanation I(a) thereto?”
3. The learned Judge Small Cause Court has by his order dated November 26, 1977, returned the finding that, “the construction of the disputed shop will be deemed to have been completed on the date of the first assessment i.e 1.4.68 within the meaning of section 2(2) of the U.P Urban Buildings (Regulation of Letting Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972.”
4. On receipt of the said finding the matter was again heard by Hon'ble Ojha, J. It was urged for the defendant-applicant that the shop had admittedly been occupied by him in June 1967; that there was evidence to indicate that another tenant was in occupation thereof for about a month and a half before the date of his occupation and that it was the date of occupation which the construction of the shop should be deemed to have been completed within the meaning of Explanation I(a) of section 2(2) of the Act and not the date of its first assessment. The plaintiff-opposite party supported the finding returned by the trial court and relied upon the decision, among others, in Tilak Raj v. Sardar Devendra Singh (supra).
5. It has not been disputed before us that the shop in suit was occupied by the defendant-applicant in June 1967 and that it was first assessed to municipal tax with effect from April 1, 1968. The date of the trial court's decree is January 2, 1976, and that of the district court on decree revision under section 25 is August 27, 1976. On both these dates, in either view of the matter, the provisions of the Act could not be said to be applicable to the shop in suit; but in case the date of occupation is taken to be the date of completion of the construction, the provisions of the Act became applicable to it during June 19,7, or may be some times in April or May 1977, but if the date of its first assessments taken to be the date of completion of its construction, then in that case the provisions of the Act will not become applicable to the shop in suit until after March 31, 1978. The defendant-applicant moved an application under section 39 of the Act in this Court and in support of the position that the date of the commencement of the Act for the purposes of that provision in relation to the shop in suit, would be the date of expiry of ten years from the completion of its construction, reliance has been placed upon a Division Bench decision of this Court in R.D Ram Nath Co. v. Girdhari Lal and it is urged on his behalf that having made the necessary deposit during the pendency of the revision in this Court, within time, as prescribed by section 39 read with section 40 of the Act, he is entitled to the benefit thereof, or in, other words, an order setting aside the decree of ejectment from the shop in suit that has been passed against him.
6. Sub-section (2) of section 2 of the Act provides as follows:—
“(2) Except as provided in sub-section (5) of section 12, sub-section (1-A) of Section 21, sub-section (2) of Section 24, Section 24A, 24-B, 24-C or sub-section (3) of Section 29, nothing in this Act shall apply to a building during a period of ten years from the date on which its construction is completed.
Provided that where any building is constructed substantially out of funds obtained by way of loan or advance from the State Government or the Life Insurance Corporation of India or a bank or a co-operative society or the Uttar Pradesh as Evam Vikas Parishad, and the period of repayment of such loan or advance exceeds the aforesaid period of ten years, then the reference in this sub-section to the period of ten years shall be deemed to be a reference to the period of fifteen years or the period ending with the date of actual repayment of such loan or advance (including interest), whichever is shorter.
Explanation 1.—For the purpose of this section,—
(a) The construction of a building shall be deemed to have been completed on the date on which the completion thereof is reported to or otherwise recorded by the local authority having jurisdiction, and in the case of a building subject to assessment, the date on which the first assessment, thereof comes into effect and where the said dates are different, the earliest of the said dates and in the earliest or the said dates and in the absence of any such report, record of assessment the date on which it is actually occupied (not including occupation merely for the purposes of supervising the construction or guarding the building under construction) for the first time;
Provided that there may be different dates of completion of construction in respect of different parts of a building which are either designed as separate units or are occupied separately by the landlord and one or more tenants or by different tenants;
(b) “construction” includes any new construction in place of an existing building which has been wholly or substantially demolished;
(c) where such substantial addition is made to an existing building that the existing building becomes only a minor part thereof the whole of the building including the existing building shall be constructed on the date of completion of the said addition.”
7. The proviso was added by U.P Act no. 28 of 1976 and has no application on the facts of the present case; nor are we concerned with any of the excepted provisions of section 12(5), section 21(1-A), section 24(2), sections 24-B 24-C or section 29(3). The question before us turns on a true interpretation of the provisions of clause (a) of Explanation 1.
8. Having heard learned counsel for the parties at length, we are of the opinion that grammatically clause (a) of Explanation 1, together with its proviso is capable of only one meaning and no other. So construed it means that in that case of a building subject to assessment (which means, according to clause (f) of section 3 of the Act, the assessment of the letting value of the building by the local authority having jurisdiction, and local authority means, according to clause (m) of section 2 of the Act, a Nagar Mahapalika, a Municipal Board, or Notified area. Committee of Town Area Committee etc.), the construction of a building shall be deemed to have been completed on the date on which the first assessment of the building comes into effect and in case the completion thereof is reported or otherwise recorded by the local authority having jurisdiction, on a date earlier than the date on which the first assessment of the building comes into force, the building shall be deemed to have been completed on the earliest of the said dates; and in case there is no such report to, pr record of completion, or assessment by the local authority having jurisdiction, the construction of the building shall be deemed to have been completed on the date on which it is actually occupied for the first time, so that, however, any occupation merely for purposes of supervising the construction or guarding a building under construction shall be disregarded. The proviso to clause (a) of the Explanation 1 is again not material for the purpose of the present case, because the building in question is a single unit and its construction is not claimed to have been completed in parts.
9. Mr. Sudhir Chandra, learned conusel for the defendant applicant has not contended before us that there is any ambiguity in the meaning of the said clause (a) of Explanation 1; but he contended that the above was not the true grammatical construction of the said clause. According to him, the policy of the legislature being to take the earliest of the several dates mentioned in the said clause as the date of completion, the date of occupation of a building in case it is earlier than the date on which its first assessment comes into force or the date on which its first completion of construction is reported to or recorded by the local authority having jurisdiction, the date of occupation of the building must be deemed to be the date of the completion of its construction.
10. There are two objections to such a construction being placed on language of clause (a) Explanation 1. Firstly, the words “and in the case of a building subject to assessment” are ignored altogether. According to rules of construction one cannot omit to give effect to the said words. Mr. Sudhir Chandra says that there can be a date on which the first assessment of a building comes into force only in the case of a building subject to assessment and, therefore, the words “and in the case of a building subject to assessment” are wholly redundant. Again, according to the rules of construction of statutes, one cannot omit to read any words in a statutory provision unless the doing so leads to absurd results; and here in this case it is only an assumption to say that the said words are redundant. It is true that there can be a date on which the first assessment of a building is made, only in the case of a building subject to assessment. Similarly, there can be a date on which the completion of a building is reported to, or is recorded by a local authority, only in a case of a building subject to assessment, for under the laws governing the local authorities like a Nagar Mahaplika or a Municipality, the only purpose for which the completion of a building is required to be reported to or recorded by a local authority is to make an assessment of its letting value for the purpose of levying house and water tax thereon which is leviable from the date of the completion of the building. But that does not, in our opinion, render the words “and in the case of a building subject to assessment” as used in clause (a) of explanation 1, redundant. The clear object and purpose of placing these words in the said clause appears to be to classify buildings into those of two kinds, namely, (1) those subject to assessment, and (2) those not subject to assessment. We say this because a report of the completion of a building to, or record thereof, or assessment of its letting value by a local authority can be normally absent only in the case of a building not subject to assessment.
11. But Mr. Sudhir Chandra says that would be giving long rope to those who do not observe the law, inasmuch as in case a report of the completion of a building is not made or the same is not recorded, or its letting valuers not assessed by local authority, there will be no date of completion within the meaning of clause (a) of Explanation 1, notwithstanding the fact that the building has been duly occupied, and in this way the applicability of the Act to the building can be Indefinitely postponed by violation of the laws relating to assessment of buildings by local authorities subject to their jurisdiction. Such a delinquent owner of a building will thus have an advantage, over a law abiding owner who duly reports the completion of construction of his building or in whose case the local authority duly makes an assessment of its letting value in time, by being able to indefinitely postpone the applicability of the Act. Mr. Sudhir Chandra has re-inforced the above argument by contending that the Intention of the legislature as apparent from the language of clause (a) of Explanation 1 was that the earliest of the several dates mentioned therein should be deemed to be the date of completion, and therefore, if a building has been occupied and no report of the completion of its construction has been made to or recorded by the local authority or no assessment of its letting value has been made before that date of its occupation, then in that case the date of occupation must be deemed to be the date of completion of its construction.
12. This argument of Mr. Sudhir Chandra, though attractive, does not bear scrutiny. Any breach of the provisions of the law relating to taxation of the letting value of buildings is punishable under those laws. The provisions of the Act are not concerned with meeting punishment for violation of the laws governing the levy of house and water tax by Municipalities on the letting value of buildings within their jurisdiction. The object of clause (a) of the Explanation I is to have an easily ascertainable date as the date of completion of the construction of a building, so that in case of dispute about the same, some ten years later when the Act becomes applicable thereto, the leading of oral evidence by the parties may be avoided, and there could be no more easily ascertainable date of completion of a building than that recorded by a local authority having jurisdiction to assess its letting value for the purpose of levying house and water tax, which is for that purpose closely concerned with the date on which the construction of a building is completed. It would be only in those cases where a building is not subject to assessment that such a record would normally not be available, and such a case provision has been made in the said clause (a) of Explanation I, for deeming the date of occupation of the building to be the date of the completion of its construction.
13. The second objection to construing clause (a) of Explanation I, in the way in which Mr. Sudhir Chandra wants us to construe it, is that it is not the policy of the legislature to take the earliest of the several dates mentioned in the said clause as the date of completion of a building. The policy of the legislature in giving a ten years' holiday from the applicability of the Act to newly constructed buildings appears to be to encourage the construction of new buildings, which had been seriously affected by the provisions pegging down the reasonable rent of a building to the figure of 25% above the pre-war assessed rent in the case of existing building. It was necessary to encourage construction of new buildings in order to meet the acute shortage of houses as no one was willing to invest his savings on construction of a building when, as things stood in 1972, he could get a much higher return by simply depositing the money in some bank or investing it in securities or shares. But the legislature could not have withdrawn all control over the rent and eviction of existing buildings, for that would have raised a tremendous social problem. A balance was therefore sought by providing that there will be no control over the rent of or eviction from newly constructed buildings for ten years from the date when their construction was completed. The provision was thus aimed at benefitting those who constructed new building and the legislature must have known that it was not easy to fix the date of completion of a building for, even after a newly erected building is in such a condition as to be usable, the work on it may not yet be complete. Even after a building is erected the finishing and the final touches which go into completion of its construction sometimes take months together. In view of the object of benefitting those who constructed new buildings in order to case the acute shortage of accommodation, it can more reasonably be said that the intention of the legislature was to fix date of completion of the construction of a building with reference to the date with effect from which it was first assessed to house and water tax by the Municipality within those jurisdiction it is situate. The legislature must have proceeded on the assumption that the Municipalities can be expected to look after their own interest by ensuring that the payment of house and water tax is not postponed by owners of buildings by the device of not reporting the completion of their construction and by making the assessment effective from the date on which the construction is, in fact completed.
14. The matter can also be looked it in another way. It is difficult to assume that a Municipal Board would be so negligent as not levy house and water tax on a building subject to assessment within its jurisdiction, for, a period of ten years after the date on which its construction is completed. It is only in the absence of the date from which assessment is made affective by a Municipality, that the date of occupation could be deemed to be the date of completion of the construction of a building A dispute about the date of completion of the construction of a building, under the Act, cannot ipso facto arise unless the building has at least been occupied for ten years. Clause (a) of Explanation I is meant to aid the court before which such a dispute is raised under the Act, in determining the date of the completion of a building. The date of occupation of a building can be deemed to be the date of completion of its construction only if there is no date from which its assessment became effective. Consequently, at the time when the dispute comes up for adjudication, at least ten years after the date of occupation, it would indeed be a rare case where there is no assessment of the letting value of a building subject to assessment. That being so, the occasion of construing clause (a) of Explanation I, in the way that Mr. Sudhir Chandra wants to construe it, would rarely arise in the case of a building subject to assessment. Moreover, on the facts of the present case, there is, in fact an assessment and the date from which it became effective is undisputedly April 1, 1968. It cannot, therefore, be said today when we are required to adjudicate upon the dispute relating to the date on which the construction of the building in suit was completed, that there is no date from which its first assessment became effective.
15. We have, therefore, no hesitation in holding that the date on which the first assessment of the building in suit became effective, viz. April 1, 1968, must be deemed to be the date of the completion of its construction, and that being so, the Act is not yet applicable to the building in suit.
16. A number of decisions were cited by Mr. Sudhir Chandar to show that in construing a statutory provision injustice, absurdity, anomoly, uncertainty, confusion etc. must be avoided. It is not necessary to refer to them as there is, in our opinion, no injustice or absurdity or anomoly or confusion in the construction which we have placed on the provisions of clause (a) of Explanation I of sub-section (2) of Section 2 of the Act.
17. In the result, the finding recorded by the Small Cause Court, Mainpuri by its order dated November 26, 1977 on the issue remitted to it by this Court, is confirmed. The date on which the construction of the building in suit was completed having been deemed to be April 1, 1968. The Act cannot yet be said to be applicable to the building. The application under section made by the defendant-applicant in this Court is accordingly dismissed as not maintainable.
18. The judgment of the Court of the District Judge dated 27.8.1976 on the revision under section 25 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act and the judgment and decree dated 2.1.1976 of the Small Cause Court giving rise thereto, were not assailed before as on any other ground. The revision fails and is dismissed with costs throughout.