Full Judgment Text
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PETITIONER:
STATE OF U.P.& ANOTHER
Vs.
RESPONDENT:
MALIK ZARID KHALID
DATE OF JUDGMENT11/11/1987
BENCH:
RANGNATHAN, S.
BENCH:
RANGNATHAN, S.
MISRA RANGNATH
CITATION:
1988 AIR 132 1988 SCR (1) 948
1988 SCC (1) 145 JT 1987 (4) 578
1987 SCALE (2)1262
ACT:
Uttar Pradesh Public Buildings (Regulation of Letting,
Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972: Sections 2(1)(a) and 21-
Buildings taken on lease by Government-Possession for owners
occupation-Remedy-Whether only by way of suit. After May 18,
1983-Change in position-Effect of amendments by Ordinances
and U.P. Act No. 17 of 1985-Explained.
Statutory Construction. When Courts entitled to read
down the plain language of a statutory provision.
HEADNOTE:
%
The appellant-State of Uttar Pradesh, took on lease the
premises belonging to the respondent for the purpose of
running a Training Centre. The respondent-landlord gave a
notice of termination of the tenancy under Section 106 of
the Transfer of Property Act and filed a suit for recovery
of possession.
The appellant claimed that the suit was not
maintainable and that the respondent’s remedy, if any, was
only to seek eviction in the circumstances and in the manner
outlined in the Uttar Pradesh Buildings (Regulation of
Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972. The respondent sought
to overcome this hurdle by contending that the premises in
question was not one of the classes of ’building’ covered by
the aforesaid Rent Act, and in support thereof relied on the
exclusion clause incorporated in Section 2(1)(a) of the Rent
Act.
The appellant contended, successfully before the
Additional District Judge, but unsuccessfully before the
trial court and the High Court, that the premises in
question was not a ‘public building’ with the meaning of
section 3(0) read with section 2(1)(a) of the Rent Act, as
amended from July 5, 1976 and hence, the respondent’s remedy
for eviction of the appellant was not by way of suit in a
Civil Court.
Dismissing the Appeal to this Court,
949
^
HELD: 1. The building in question is one taken on lease
by the State Government and so it falls squarely within the
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definition of ‘public building’ in Section 3(0) of the Act.
It is, therefore, exempt from the application of the Act by
reasons of s. 2(1) as it stood at the relevant time. It
would follow, therefore, that the respondent’s remedy to
recover possession lay under the general law and had to be
enforced by a suit for recovery of possession which is
exactly what he has done.[955B]
2. Sub-sections (1), (1A) and (8) of s. 21 have to be
read together. Though s. 2(1)(a) excluded ‘public buildings’
which has to interpreted to include buildings in which the
Government is only a tenant-s.21(A) incorporates an
exception to this exclusion. "Notwithstanding anything
contained in s. 2", it permits an application for eviction
being moved under section 21(1)(a) of the Act by a landlord
against any tenant but in the limited circumstances set out
in that sub-section viz. that the landlord has been in
occupation of a public building but had to vacate it as he
had ceased to be in the employment of the Government, Local
Authority or Corporation.[958C-D]
3. The landlord of a building in which the Government
is a tenant could have moved an application under s. 21(1)
read with s. 21(1A). This is what is prohibited by s. 21(8)
absolutely in view of clauses (ii) and (iv) of Explanation 1
to sub-section (1) being non-existent. S. 21(8) makes it
clear that while a landlord who is compelled to vacate a
public building occupied by him due to cessation of his
employment can proceed under the Act to evict any tenant
occupying his property so that he may use his own property
for his residential purposes, he will not be able to do so
where his tenant is the Government, a local authority or a
public Corporation. Thus read, s. 21(8) does not become
otiose or redundant by accepting the wider interpretation of
s. 3(0).[958D-F]
4(i) The interpretation placed by the Full Bench of the
High Court on s. 3(0) in Punjab National Bank v. Suganchand,
[1985]1 ARC 214 equates the position under the statute after
the amendment of 1976 to the position both as it stood prior
to the 1976 amendment and also as it stood after the 1983
Ordinance. Such an approach fails to give any effect at all
to the change in language deliberately introduced by the
1976 amendment.[956H; 957A]
(ii) Prior to the amendment, only buildings of which
the Government was owner or landlord were excluded from the
Act. But the Legislature clearly intended a departure from
the earlier position. If the
950
intention was merely to extend the benefit to premises owned
or let out by public corporation, it could have been
achieved by simply adding a reference to such corporations
in s. 2(1)(a) and (b) as they stood earlier. [957A-B]
(iii) Reading s. 2(1)(a) & (b) as they stood before
amendment and the definition in s. 3(0) side by side, the
departure in language is so wide and clear that it is
impossible to ignore the same and hold that the new
definition was just a re-enactment of the old
exemption.[957B-C]
(iv) The amendment significantly omitted the crucial
words present in the earlier legislation which had the
effect of restricting the exclusion to tenancies created by
the Government, either as owner or as landlord. [957D]
(v) Though the Ordinance of 1977 made its amendment
retrospective from 5.7.76, these later amendments are all
specifically given effect to from 18.5.1983. The effect of
the decisions rendered remained untouched till then. The
fact that the 1976 amendment marked a departure from the
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more restricted exclusion available earlier and the fact
that the said restricted exclusion was again restored with
effect only from 18.5.1983 militate against the correctness
of adhering to a narrow interpretation even during the
interregnum from 5.5.1976 to 18.5.1983. [957F-G]
(vi) Full effect must therefore be given to the new
definition in s. 3(0) and to the conscious departure in
language in reframing the exclusion. [959D]
5. There are situations in which Courts are compelled
to subordinate the plain meaning of statutory language. Not
unoften, Courts do read down the plain language of a
provision or give it a restricted meaning, where, to do
otherwise may be clearly opposed to the object and scheme of
the Act or may lead to an absurd, illogical or
unconstitutional result. [959D-E]
6. This mode of construction is not appropriate in the
context of the present legislation for a number of reasons.
In the first place, such an interpretation does not fit into
the legislative history. It does not explain why the
legislature should have, while enacting the 1976 amendment,
omitted certain operative words and used certain wider words
instead. Secondly, the Rent Act is a piece of legislation
which imposes certain restrictions on a landlord and confers
certain protections on a
951
tenant. Thirdly, while it is true that the result of the
interpretation this Court favours would be to facilitate
easy eviction of Government, local authorities and public
corporations, there is nothing per se wrong about it
because, with their vast resources or capacity to augment
their resources, these bodies would not be in as helpless a
position as ordinary tenants for whose benefit the
legislation is primarily intended. Fourthly, the legislature
has applied its mind to the situation more than once. If its
intention in carrying out the amendment had been
misunderstood by the High Court or found ambiguous, the
legislature was expected to rectify the situation by a piece
of retrospective or declaratory legislation. The 1977
Ordinances was, but the later Ordinances and the 1985 Act,
are not, of this nature. They neither are, nor purport to
be, declaratory or retrospective from 5.7.76. At least, if
the 1985 Act had been made retrospective from 5.7.76, one
could have thought it was a clarificatory piece of
legislation. But the Legislature has advisedly given these
enactments effect only from 18.5.1983. This means that the
amendment of 1976 was intended to be effective between
5.7.76 and 18.5.83 and it also means that the amendment of
1983 onwards is not intended to be read back for that
period. Lastly, the interpretation this Court favours will
create no lasting difficulties for the Government and other
organisations which are tenants only, since after 18.5.1983
they will be in a position to claim all the immunities
available to other tenants under the Act. [959E-G; 960B-G]
Punjab National Bank v. Sugan Chand, [1985]1 ARC 214
overruled.
JUDGMENT:
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. 2981 of
1987.
From the Judgment and Order dated 23.1.1985 of the
Allahabad High Court in Civil Revision No. 155 of 1984.
Anil Dev Singh and Mrs. Shobha Dikshit for the
Appellants.
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Anil Kumar Gupta for the Respondent.
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
RANGANATHAN,J. Special leave granted.
This is an appeal to this Court from the judgment of a
Single Judge of the Allahabad High Court in a civil revision
petition filed by
952
the appellant (C.R.P. 155 of 1984). The result of the
judgment was to restore a decree passed against the
appellant by the trial court in a suit for eviction
instituted by the respondent in 1980. The main ground on
which the appellant had resisted the suit was that the suit
was barred by the provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Public
Buildings (Regulation of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act,
1972 (which we shall hereinafter briefly refer to as ’the
Rent Act’). It is the correctness of this ground of defence
that it in issue in this appeal.
The appellant, the State of Uttar Pradesh, took on
lease a premises at Barabanki belonging to the respondent
for the purpose of running a Laprosy Training Centre. The
respondent was thus the landlord, and the appellant the
tenant, in respect of the premises within the meaning of s.
3(a) of the Rent Act. This Act has been enacted "to provide,
in the interests of the general public, for the regulation
of letting and rent of, and the eviction of tenants from,
certain classes of buildings situated in urban areas, and
for matters connected therewith." Section 20 of the Act bars
the institution of a suit for the eviction of a tenant,
notwithstanding the termination of his tenancy, except on
the grounds specified in sub-section (2) of that section but
none of these grounds were pleaded by the respondent. S. 21
of the Act enables a prescribed authority to order the
eviction of a tenant in two situations, subject to certain
conditions and limitations. These situations are: (a) where
the landlord requires the premises for his own use and (b)
where, the building being in a dilapidated condition, he
desires to demolish the same and put up a new construction.
These situations also do not prevail here. The Landlord,
however, gave a notice of termination of tenancy under s.
106 of the Transfer of Property Act and filed a suit for
recovery of possession. The appellant claimed that the suit
was not maintainable and that the respondent’s remedy, if
any, was only to seek eviction in the circumstances and in
the manner outlined in the Act.
The respondent sought to overcome this hurdle by
contending that the premises in question are not one of the
classes of buildings covered by the Rent Act. In support of
this contention, he relied upon an exclustion clause
incorporated in s. 2(1)(a) of the Act. Since the whole case
turns on a proper interpretation of this clause and since
the clause has undergone changes from time to time, it is
necessary to refer to these in some detail to facilitate a
proper appreciation of the stands of the parties.
(a) In the Rent Act, as originally enacted and brought
into force
953
on 15.7.1972, this sub-section ran thus:
"Nothing in this Act shall apply to-
(a) any building belonging to, or vested in, the
Government of any State or any local authority; or
(b) any tenancy created by grant from the State
Government or the Government of India in respect
of a building taken on lease or requisitioned by
such Government."
(b) U.P. Act No. 28 of 1976 amended S. 2(1) to
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substitute new clauses in place of the above clauses. The
amended sub-section, insofar-as is relevant for our present
purposes, reads thus:
"Nothing in this Act shall apply to-
(a) any public building; or
(b) any building belonging to or vested in a
recognised educational institution, the whole
of the income from which is utilised for the
purposes of such institution;
(c)x x x x
(d)x x x x
(e)x x x x
(f)x x x x
A definition of ’public building’ was inserted in s. 3 which
reads:
"(o) ’public building’ means any building
belonging to or taken on lease or
requisitioned by or on behalf of the Central
Government or a State Government (including
the Government of any other State) and
includes any building belonging to or taken
on lease by or on behalf of any local
authority or any public sector corporation".
These amendments were made effective from 5.7.1976.
954
(c) It appears that the above provisions were sought to
be amended by U.P. Ordinance No. 11 of 1977 (promulgated on
27.4.1977) with retrospective effect from 5.7.1976 by
substituting the following as clause (a) of s. 2(1) of the
Rent Act:
"2(1)(a) any building of which the Government or a
local authority or a public sector Corporation is
the landlord."
S. 3(0) was left unamended. However, the above Ordinance was
allowed to lapse. Thus the amendment had become inoperative
by the time the suit in the present case was instituted.
(d) The next amendment of the Rent Act was by U.P.
Ordinance No. 28 of 1983 promulgated on 18.5.1983. This
revived the amendment made by the 1977 Ordinance which had
been allowed to lapse. This time this amendment was not
allowed to lapse on the expiry of the ordinance but was kept
alive by five-successive Ordinances: No. 43 of 1983 dated
12.10.83, No. 6 of 1984 dated 24.3.84, No. 8 of 1984 dated
7.5.84, No. 20 of 1984 dated 22.10.84, and finally no. 9 of
1985 dated 26.4.85. All these amendments were made effective
from 18.5.1983 in so far as the provision presently under
consideration is concerned. The last of these, it may be
noted, was promulgated subsequent to the judgment of the
High Court presently under appeal.
(e) Finally, the U.P. Legislature enacted Act No. 17 of
1985 on 20.8.85 "regularising" the spate of legislation by
ordinances. By ss. 1 and 2 of this Act, the amendment made
to s. 2(1)(a) by the 1977 Ordinance and kept alive by the
Ordinance of 1983 and 1984 was made effective from
18.5.1983.
In this legislative background, the appellant
contended, successfully before the Additional District Judge
but unsuccessfully before the trial court and High Court,
that the premises in question was not a ’public building’
within the meaning of s. 3(o) read with s. 2(1)(a) of the
Rent Act, as amended from 5.7.76 and, hence, the
respondent’s remedy for eviction of the appellant was not by
way of suit in a civil court. What is the correct
interpretation of this clause? This is the question before
us.
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We have set out above the definition of ’public
building’ in s. 3(o) after the 1976 amendment. The language
of this definition is very wide. It takes in three
categories of buildings: (i) buildings belonging to (that
is, owned by) the Central or State Government; (ii)
955
buildings (not belonging to the Government) but taken on
lease or requisitioned by it or on its behalf and (iii)
buildings belonging to or taken on lease by or on behalf of
any local authority or any public sector corporation. In the
present case, the building in question is one taken on lease
by the State Government and so it falls squarely within the
definition of ’public building’. It is, therefore, exempt
from the application of the Act by reason of s. 2(1) as it
stood at the relevant time. It would follow, therefore, that
the respondent’s remedy to recover possession lay under the
general law and had to be enforced by a suit for recovery of
possession which is exactly what he has done. Prima facie,
therefore, the trial Judge and the High Court were right in
decreeing his suit.
It is, however, contended on behalf of the appellant
that s. 3(o) should not be given such a wide meaning. The
argument runs thus: The intention of the Legislature was to
exclude from the purview of the Rent Act only buildings in
respect of which the Government was either the owner or the
landlord. This is clear from the previous history as well as
the subsequent legislations. U.P. Act No. 3 of 1947 (which
preceded the 1972 Act) was amended by Ordinance No. 5 of
1949 with effect from 26.9.49 to exclude from its purview
"any premises belonging to the Central or State Government
and any tenancy or other like relationship created by a
grant from the Government in respect of premises taken on
lease or requisitioned by the Government". The language s.
2(1)(a) of the Rent Act, as it stood before its amendment in
1976, left no doubt in any one’s mind that the legislature
intended only to exclude buildings belonging to the
Government or any local authority and those taken on lease
or requisitioned by Government and rented out by it to
others. The only object of the 1976 amendment was to extend
the above exclusion also in buildings owned or let out by
local authorities and public sector corporations. This was
sought to be done by providing that the Act would not apply
to ’public buildings’ and inserting a definition of that
expression in s. 3(o). That definition was, no doubt,
phrased somewhat broadly. But, having regard to the previous
history as well as the language of the subsequent
legislation already referred to above, there can be no doubt
that the legislature never intended to exclude the operation
of the Rent Act vis-a-vis premises of which the Government
(and, hereinafter, this expression will take in also a
reference to local authorities and public corporations) was
neither the owner nor the landlord but merely a tenant.
Support of the above restricted construction is also
sought from
956
the phraseology of s. 21(8) of the Rent Act. As has been
mentioned earlier. s. 21 empowers the prescribed authority,
on an application from a landlord, to evict a tenant on two
grounds:
(a) need of the premises by him for his self
occupation; and
(b) need to demolish the building and reconstruct
it.
Sub-section (8) enacts a restriction in respect of the first
of these grounds. It reads:
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"(8) Nothing in clause (a) of sub-section (a)
shall apply to a building let out to the
State Government or to a local authority or
to a public sector corporation or to a
recognised educational institution unless the
Prescribed Authority is satisfied that the
landlord is a person to whom clause (ii) or
clause (iv) of the Explanation to sub-section
(1) is applicable."
It is submitted that this sub section places it beyond doubt
that the Act does apply also to buildings in which a State
Government, local authority, public sector Corporation or
recognised educational institution is a tenant and proceeds
to restrict the scope of an application under s. 21 of the
Act in such cases. It is pointed out that, if the definition
in s. 3(o) is given a wide meaning so as to exclude from the
application of the Act even buildings in which these bodies
are mere tenants, the result would be to render s. 21(8)
redundant and otiose. Such a construction of the statute, it
is submitted, should not be favoured.
The above line of argument found favour with a Full
Bench of the Allabahad High Court dealing with a batch of
petitions filed by a number of public sector corporations
resisting suits for eviction instituted against them: Punjab
National Bank v. Suganchand, [1985] 1 A.R.C. 214. This Full
Bench decision was rendered on 29.11.84 but was apparently
not available to the learned Judge who decided the present
case on 23.1.85. Learned counsel for the appellant urges
that we should approve of the Full Bench decision and
reverse the judgment under appeal.
We are unable to accept the appellant’s contention. The
interpretation placed by the Full Bench of the High Court on
s. 3(o) equates the position under the statute after the
amendment of 1976 to the position both as it stood prior to
the 1976 amendment and also as it
957
stood after the 1983 Ordinance. Such an approach fails to
give any effect at all to the change in language
deliberately introduced by the 1976 amendment. No doubt,
prior to the amendment, only buildings of which the
Government was owner or landlord were excluded from the Act.
But the Legislature clearly intended a departure from the
earlier position. If the intention was merely to extend the
benefit to premises owned or let out by public corporations,
it could have been achieved by simply adding a reference to
such corporations in s. 2(1)(a) and (b) as they stood
earlier. Reading s. 2(1)(a) & (b) as they stood before
amendment and the definition in s. 3(o) side by side, the
departure in language is so wide and clear that it is
impossible to ignore the same and hold that the new
definition was just a reenactment of the old exemption. The
exclusion was earlier restricted to buildings owned by the
Government and buildings taken on lease or requisitioned by
Government and granted by it by creating a tenancy in favour
of some one. The amendment significantly omitted the crucial
words present in the earlier legislation which had the
effect of restricting the exclusion to tenancies created by
the Government, either as owner or as landlord. Full effect
must be given to the new definition in s. 3(o) and to the
conscious departure in language in reframing the exclusion.
The subsequent legislation also reinforces the same
conclusion. The 1976 amendment had come up for judicial
interpretation and certain decisions referred to in the Full
Bench decision as well as the judgment presently under
appeal had given the above literal interpretation to s.
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3(o). If they had run counter to the rule legislative
intent, one would have expected the repeated Ordinances
since 1983 and the ultimate Amendment Act of 1985 to have
placed the position beyond doubt by a retrospective
amendment. Though the Ordinance of 1977 made its amendment
retrospective from 5.7.76, these later amendments are all
specifically given effect to from 18.5.1983. The effect of
the decisions rendered remained untouched till then. The
fact that the the 1976 amendment marked a departure from the
more restricted exclusion available earlier and the fact
that the said restriction exclusion was again restored with
effect only from 18.5.1983 militate against the correctness
of adhering to this narrow interpretation even during the
interregnum from 5.5.1976 to 18.5.1983.
It may now be considered whether the above
interpretation renders s. 21(8) redundant. As pointed out by
the Full Bench of the High Court, not much thought has gone
into the framing of this subsection which has failed to
notice that clauses (ii) and (iv) of the
958
Explanation to sub-section (1) which are referred to in it,
had been omitted by an earlier clause of the same section of
the same Act. The Ordinance of 1977 sought to remedy this
position by deleting the words "unless the Prescribed
Authority is satisfied .... is applicable" used in the sub-
section but this Ordinance was allowed to lapse and the
subsequent Ordinances and Amendment Act paid no heed to s.
21(8). Nevertheless, despite this clumsy drafting, one would
certainly hesitate to give an interpretation to the
definition clause in s. 3(0) which may have the effect of
rendering this sub-section otiose. But luckily that is not
the position. As pointed out by counsel for the respondent,
sub-sections (1), (1A) and (8) of s. 21 have to be read
together. Though s. 2(1)(a) excludes public buildings-which
we have interpreted to include buildings in which the
Government is only a tenant-s. 21(1A) incorporates an
exception to this exclusion. "Nothwithstanding anything
contained in s. 2", it permits an application for eviction
being moved under section 21(1)(a) of the Act by a landlord
against any tenant but in the limited circumstance set out
in that sub-section viz. that the landlord has been in
occupation of a public building but had to vacate it as he
had ceased to be in the employment of the Government, local
authority or Corporation. In other words, the landlord of a
building in which the Government is a tenant could have
moved an application under s. 21(1)(a) read with s. 21(1A).
This is what is prohibited by s. 21(8) absolutely in view of
clauses (ii) and (iv) of Explanation 1 to sub-section (1)
being non-existent. S. 21(8) makes it clear that while a
landlord who is compelled to vacate a public building
occupied by him due to cessation of his employment can
proceed under the Act to evict any tenant occupying his
property so that he may use his own property for his
residential purposes, he will not be able to do so where his
tenant is the Government, a local authority or a public
Corporation. Thus read,s. 21(8) does not become otiose or
redundant by accepting the wider interpretation of s. 3(o).
This objection of the appellant is not, therefore, tenable.
The Full Bench of the High Court has referred to one
general aspect which appears to have considerably influence
it in preferring a narrower interpretation of s. 3(o). It
referred to the increasing difficulties faced even by
Government and other public bodies in securing proper
accommodation for their functioning and the
nearimpossibility, even for them, of securing alternative
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accommodation at comparative and non-exorbitant rates once
they are compelled to vacate their existing tenancies. The
Court posed to itself the question whether the Legislature
can be said to have intended to exclude them from the
benefits of the Act and throw them open to eviction by suits
959
following a mere termination of tenancy by notice u/s. 106
of the Transfer of Property Act, at the mere whim and
caprice of their landlords. This, the Court thought, was
unlikely particularly when, prior to the Amendment Act of
1976, as well as subsequent to 1983, they could have been
evicted only on one or other of the grounds available under
S. 20 or S. 21 of the Act and more so because the Amendment
manifests an intention to extend to public corporations
benefits previously available only to a Government and to a
local authority. The object of the exclusion in s. 2(1)(a),
it is said, was to remove, in respect of buildings where the
government or local authority was the landlord either as a
owner or principal lessee or requisitioning authority the
shackles imposed on other landlords but not to deprive these
bodies, when they are mere tenants, of the protection
available to other tenants under Act. Having regard to these
considerations, the Full Bench of the High Court has invoked
a line of decisions of this Court and others which advocate
that, in certain situations, importance should be attached
to the "thrust of the statute" rather than to the literal
meaning of the words used to justify their refusal to give
the words of s. 3(o) full effect.
It is true that there are situations in which Courts
are compelled to subordinate the plain meaning of statutory
language. Not unoften, Courts do read down the plain
language of a provision or give it a restricted meaning,
where, to do otherwise may be clearly opposed the object and
scheme of the Act or may lead to an absurd, illogical or
unconstitutional result. But we think that this mode of
construction is not appropriate in the context of the
present legislation for a number of reasons. In the first
place, such an interpretation does not fit into the
legislative history we have traced earlier. It does not
explain why the legislature should have, while enacting the
1976 amendment, omitted certain operative words and used
certain wider words instead. As we have pointed out earlier,
if the idea had only been to add to the exclusion buildings
owned or let out by public sector corporations, that result
could have been achieved by a minor amendment to s. 2(1)(a)
as it stood earlier. A conscious and glaring departure from
the previous language must be given its due significance.
Secondly, the Rent Act is a piece of legislation which
imposes certain restrictions on a landlord and confers
certain protections on a tenant. It could well have been
intention of the legislature that the Government, local
bodies and public sector corporations should be free not
only from the restrictions they may incur as landlords but
also that they need not have the protection given to other
ordinary tenants. To say that the legislature considered the
Government qua landlord to be in a class of its own and
960
hence entitled to immunity from the restrictions of the Act
but that, qua tenant, it should be on the same footing as
other tenants will be an interpretation which smacks of
discrimination. The legislature could have certainly
intended to say that the Government, whether landlord or
tenant, should be outside the Act. Thirdly, while it is true
that the result of the interpretation we favour would be to
facilitate easy eviction of Government, local authorities
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and public corporations, there is nothing per se wrong about
it because, with their vast resources or capacity augment
their resources, these bodies would not be in as helpless a
position as ordinary tenants for whose benefit the
legislation is primarily intended. On the other hand, the
ultimate result of the interpretation accepted by the Full
Bench will be to practically deny a landlord, who has given
his premises on rent to these bodies, any remedy to get back
possession of his premises. The contingencies for which
eviction is provided for in s. 20 are hardly likely to arise
in the case of such tenants; S. 21(1)(a) is taken out by
s.21(8); and, virtually, the only ground on which eviction
can be sought by a landlord of such a building against such
a tenant, on the interpretation urged by the petitioner,
would be the one contained in s. 21(1)(b). It is debatable
whether the legislature could have contemplated such a
situation either. Fourthly, in this case, the legislature
has applied its mind to the situation more than once
subsequently. If its intention in carrying out the amendment
had been misunderstood by the High Court or found ambiguous,
the legislature was expected to rectify the situation by a
piece of retrospective or declaratory legislation. The 1977
Ordinance was, but the later Ordinances and the 1985 Act,
are not, of this nature. They neither are, nor purport to
be, declaratory or retrospective from 5.7.76. At least, if
the 1985 Act had been made retrospective from 5.7.76, one
could have thought it was a clarificatory piece of
legislation. But the Legislature has advisedly given these
enactments effect only from 18.5.1983. This means that the
amendment of 1976 was intended to be effective between
5.7.75 and 18.5.83 and it also means that the amendment of
1983 onwards is not intended to be read back for that
period. Lastly, in any event, the interpretation given by us
will create no lasting difficulties for the Government and
other organisations which are tenants only, since after
18.5.1983 they will be in a position to claim all the
immunities available to other tenants under the Act.
For the reasons discussed above, we overrule the
decision of the Full Bench of the Allahabad High Court in
Punjab National Bank v. Sugan Chand, [1985] 1 A.R.C. 214 on
this point. In the result, this appeal is dismissed. We,
however, make no order regarding costs.
N.V.K. Appeal dismissed.
961