JUDGMENT

Sethi, J.-Leave granted.

2. Rent control legislations have been acknowledged to be pieces of social legislation which seek to strike a just balance between the rights of the landlord and the requirements of the tenants. Such legislations prevent the landlords from taking the extreme step of evicting the tenants merely upon technicalities or carved grounds. This Court in Mangat Ram v. Kedar Nath1 held that where the Rent Acts afford a real and sanctified protection to the tenant, the same should not be nullified by giving a hyper-technical or liberal construction to the language of the statute which instead of advancing the object of the Act may result in its frustration. The Rent Acts have primarily been enacted to give protection to the tenants.

3. The history of the legislation regarding Rent Controls in the country would show that the Rent Acts were enacted to overcome the difficulties arising out of the scarcity of the accommodation which arose primarily due to the growth of industrialisation and commercialisation and inflow of the population to the urban areas. Such legislations were initially confined to the big cities like Bombay, Calcutta and Rangoon but their jurisdi