Judgment

DUA, J. :- This is a plaintiff-landlord s appeal by special leave under Art. 136 of the Constitution. It is directed against the judgment of a learned Single Judge of the High Court of Gujarat at Ahmedabad dismissing revision application No. 393 of 1963 treated by the High Court to be under Section 29 (2) of the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, 57 of 1947 (hereinafter called the Act).

2. The plaintiff a public trust - instituted a suit for possession of the premises in question against the tenants (who are respondents in this Court) on the ground inter alia of failure to pay rent. That suit was dismissed by the Additional Judge, Small Cause Court at Ahmedabad on the ground that the notice given by the landlord was defective. It is unnecessary for our present purpose to go into other details or the history of the suit proceedings in the trial Court.

3. The City Civil Court, Ahmedabad (VII Court) dismissed the appeal on January 15, 1963. The plaintiff-appellant thereupon moved the Gujarat High Court by means of a civil revision application. No law was stated in the memorandum of revision under which the High Court was approached for revision of the appellate judgment. The High Court, as appears from the impugned judgment dated January 12, 1967, treated the revision application to be under Section 29 (2) of the Act and after discussing the points raised dismissed the same holding the notice given by the landlord to be invalid. It is this judgment which is challenged by the plaintiff in this Court.

4. Shri S. T. Desai has raised a preliminary objections to the competence of the appeal. According to him, on the date of the appellate judgment of the City Civil Court, the said judgment was neither open to further appeal nor was there any provision in the Act under which the High Court could be approached for revising the said judgment, with the result that the revision preferred by the plaintiff-appellant had in any event to be dismissed as incompetent. The ground on which the High Court dismissed the revision is, therefore, immaterial because under the law it is not open to the plaintiff-appellant to urge that the High Court could or should have granted any relief on an incompetent revision. In our view, this point is relevant more to the merits than to the competency of the appeal.

5. Section 29 of the Act as it stood before the amendment by the Gujarat Act 18 of 1965 reads as under :-

"29. Appeal

(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in any law, an appeal shall lie -

(a) in Greater Bombay, from a decree or order made by the Court of Small Cause, Bombay, exercising jurisdiction under Section 28, to a Bench of two Judges of the said Court which shall not include the Judge who made such decree or order;

(b) elsewhere, from a decree or order made by a Judge of the Court of Small Causes established under the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act, 1887 or by the Court of the Civil Judge deemed to be the Court of Small Causes under clause (c) of sub-section (2) of Section 28 or by a Civil Judge exercising such jurisdiction, to the District Court.

Provided that no such appeal shall lie from -

(I) a decree or order made in any suit or proceeding in respect of which no appeal lies under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908;

(II) a decree or order made in any suit or proceeding (other than a suit or proceeding relating to possession) in which the plaintiff seeks to recover rent and the amount or value of the subject-matter of which does not exceed-

(i) where such suit or proceeding is instituted in Greater Bombay, Rs. 3000 and

(ii) where such suit or proceeding is instituted elsewhere the amount up to which the Judge or Court specified in clause (b) is invested with jurisdiction of a Court of Small Causes, under any law for the time being in force;

(III) an order made upon an application for fixing the standard rent or for determining the permitted increases in respect of any premises except in a suit or proceeding in which an a