A person against whom a decree for eviction has been passed is not a tenant within the meaning of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958.

Judgement

SARKAR, J. : This appeal was filed with special leave of this Court granted on August 14, 1964. Various interesting questions of law were sought to be raised on behalf of the appellant but in our view they do not arise at this stage. The appeal must be confined to the points decided in the courts below.

2. The case appears to us to be somewhat out of the ordinary. One Mehtab Singh was the owner of a certain building known as Abkar Building, situate in Mohalla Ganda Nala, Gali Rajan, Delhi The appellant was a tenant under him in respect of certain accommodation in the building. On June 3, 1955, Mehtab Singh filed a suit under the Delhi and Ajmer Rent Control Act, 1952, against the appellant for his ejectment. On October 11, 1956 that suit was decreed. The appellant filed an appeal against that decree which, however, was dismissed on March 27, 1957. He thereafter moved the High Court of Punjab in revision but here also he was unsuccessful. The precise date of the dismissal of the application in revision does not appear on the record but it was sometime between March and September 1957.

3. On February 8, 1957, an Act called the Slum Areas (Improvement and Clearance) Act, 1956 came into force in Delhi. By a notification issued under S. 3 of this Act, the area in which the building with which we are concerned was situate, was declared a slum area for the purposes of the Act which meant that the buildings in that area were unfit for human habitation or that for various reasons they were detrimental to safety, health or morals of human beings. The date of this notification does not appear from the record but it is not in dispute that it was issued before September 1957.

4. Sub-section (1) of S. 19 of this Act which is the provision on which the appellant s case is principally based, is in these terms:

S. 19(1). - "Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force, no person who has obtained any decree or order for the eviction of a tenant from any building in a slum area shall be entitled to execute such decree, or order except with the previous permission in writing of the competent authority." When after the dismissal of the revision petition against the ejectment decree Mehtab Singh sought to execute the decree, he was faced with the difficulty created by this provision. He thereupon applied to the specified authority for permission to execute the decree but this was refused on September 12, 1957. He appealed to the appellate authority mentioned in that Act but that appeal was rejected on January 7, 1958.

5. Being thus baffled in his attempts to get possession of the accommodation occupied by the appellant, in execution of the ejectment decree, Mehtab Singh sold the building to the respondent on August 21, 1961. On or about March 28, 1962, the respondent filed a suit against the appellant for possession of the rooms in the latter s occupation. This suit was filed in the Court of a Sub-Judge of Delhi which was an ordinary Civil Court. The respondent stated in the plaint that she had purchased the property from the previous owner Mehtab Singh who had obtained an ejectment decree against the appellant on October 11, 1956 and that in view of the decree the appellant s possession of the rooms was unauthorised and he was a trespasser. The respondent based her claim to recover possession of the rooms from the appellant on the aforesaid ground, namely, that he was a trespasser, In defence the appellant contended that S. 19 of the Slum Areas Act barred the suit and also that no civil court had jurisdiction to entertain it in view of S. 50 of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958, which had come into force on February 19, 1959, repealing the Delhi and Ajmer Rent Control Act, 1952 in so far as that Act applied to Delhi, as he continued to be a tenant of the rooms is spite of the decree in favour of Mehtab Singh of October 11, 1956.

6. The learned Subordinate Judge hearing the suit framed the following five issue