An amendment affecting vested rights operates prospectively unless it is expressly made retrospective or its retrospective operation follows as a matter of necessary implication.

Judgment

GAJENDRAGADKAR, J. : This appeal by special leave arises from ejectment proceedings taken by Suraj Bhan (respondent 1) against the appellant Moti Ram in respect of a shop situated in the urban area of Gurgaon which has been in the occupation of the appellant as a tenant for more than twenty years on a monthly rental of Rs. 20. Respondent 1 purchased the shop of June 15, 1956, and soon thereafter he applied to the Rent Controller for the eviction of the appellant under S. 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 (3 of 1949) (hereinafter called the Act). This application was based on four grounds. It was urged that the appellant was a habitual defaulter and was in arrears of rent, that the return of the money invested by respondent 1 in the purchase of the shop was not adequate, that respondent 1 apprehended that the godown and the shop of which he was in possession as a tenant would be sold off and he may be dispossessed therefrom, that it why he would require the shop in the present proceedings for his personal use and that respondent 1 wanted to reconstruct the shop for which necessary sanction had been obtained by him from the Municipal Committee of Gurgaon and the plan prepared in that behalf had been duly approved. This claim was resisted by the appellant who disputed the correctness and the validity of all the pleas taken by respondent 1. The Rent Controller upheld the contentions of the appellant and rejected all the pleas made by respondent 1. In regard to the plea that the respondent wanted to reconstruct the shop the Rent Controller found that the evidence adduced by respondent 1 in support of the said plea "had been created as a camouflage and that the said plea was a false pretext to obtain the eviction of the appellant. On the findings these application made by respondent I for evicting the appellant was dismissed.

2. Respondent 1 then appealed to the District Court against the said decision. His appeal, however, failed since the appellate court confirmed all the findings made by the Rent Controller. In respect of the last plea raised by respondent 1 about the rebuilding of the shop the appellate court observed that respondent 1 had got the plan approved and had also got the sanction from the Municipal Committee to reconstruct the building so as to be able to make a ground for getting the appellant ejected from the shop.

3. This appellate decision was challenged by respondent 1 by his revisional application in the High Court of Punjab at Chandigarh. The High Court confirmed the finding of the courts below on the first three pleas raised by respondent 1. The last plea raised by respondent 1, however, was upheld by the High Court with the result that the revisional application preferred by respondent 1 was allowed and his claim for evicting the appellant was decreed. It is this decree which is challenged before us by the appellant in the present appeal.

4. Before dealing with the contentions raised by Mr. Bindra on behalf of the appellant it is necessary to mention one material fact. The application for ejectment was made on August 28, 1956. Before the written statement was filed by the appellant on November 14, 1956, the Act was amended by amending Act 29 of 1956 on September 24, 1956. In the present appeal we are concerned with amendments made in Ss. 13 and 15 of the Act. Section 13(1) provides inter alia that a tenant in possession of a building shall not be evicted therefrom except in accordance with the provisions of this section, or in pursuance of an order made under S. 13 of the Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1947 as subsequently amended. Section 13, sub-s. (2) provides for an application to be made by a landlord who seeks to evict his tenant for a direction in that behalf. It then proceeds to prescribe conditions on the satisfaction of which a decree for ejectment can be passed in favour of the landlord. We are not concerned with these conditions in the present appeal. Section 13 (3) (