Judgment

KRISHNA IYER, J.: (For himself and on behalf of M. H. Beg, J.):- Calcutta or Cochin, for the urban people of India, the shocking scarcity of a roof to rest one s tired bones is an unhappy problem of social justice that compels enactment of control of rent and eviction laws. In the case now before us, attacking the constitutionality of legislation handcuffing the landlord-proprietariat s right of eviction, the law has to be tested not merely by the cold print of Art, 19 (1) (f) but also by the public concern of Art. 19 (5) and the compassionate animus of Article.39. Parts III and IV of the Constitution together constitute a complex of promises the nation has to keep and the legislation challenged before us is in partial fulfilment of this tryst with the people. These observations become necessary in limine since counsel for the respondents dismissed the concept of social justice as extraneous to an insightful understanding of the section invalidated by the High Court, while we think that judicial conscience is not a mere matter of citations of precedents but of activist appraisal of social tears to wipe out which the state is obligated under the Constitution.

2. The two appeals before us, raising substantially identical points, have been heard together and are being disposed of by a common judgment. Both of them stem from a decision of the Calcutta High Court reported as Sailendra Nath v. S. E. Dutt, AIR 1971 Cal 331. One of the decisions under appeal (C.A. 2063 of 1973) was rendered by a single Judge of the High Court following a Division Bench ruling of the same Court (i.e. the one reported as AIR 1971 Cal,331) since he was obviously bound by it:

3. A provision imparting some sort of retroactivity to a 1969 legislative amendment implanting additional restrictions on eviction of premises under the earlier West Bengal rent control law has been voided by the High Court in the judgments under appeal. The aggrieved tenant in each case has appealed and the State, not being directly a party to the litigation, has entered appearance to support the legislation and to challenge the Calcutta decision to the extent it has invalidated the retrospective part of the statute.

4. Welfare legislations calculated to benefit weaker classes, when their vires is challenged in Court, cast an obligation on the State, particularly when notice is given to the Advocate-General, to support the law. if necessary by a Brandeis brief and supply of socio-economic circumstances and statistics inspiring the enactment Courts cannot, on their own, adventure into social research outside the record and if Government lets down the Legislature in Court by not illumining the provisions from the angle of the social mischief or economic menace sought to be countered, the victims will be the class of beneficiaries the State professed to protect. In this case, we are unable to compliment the State or the Advocate-General from this point of view. It may happen that when the Court decides against the validity of a measure or order because Government fails to bring the socially relevant totality of facts, it is used as an alibi by the latter for the misfortune. Courts cannot help cover up the Executive s drowsy default or half-hearted help in making the socio-economic conspectus available.

5. The West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1956 (Act XII -of 1956) (for short, referred to as the basic Act) clamped down several restrictions on ejectment of tenants by landlords from buildings, the policy behind it being alleviation of the lot of the weaker segment of the urban community without their own homes in the context of the scarcity of accommodation and the colossal socioeconomic upheaval which would follow if unbridled evictions were allowed. The temptation to evict or rack-rent under scarcity conditions is an irresistible evil in our economic order and it is an all India phenomenon that the social conscience of the State legislatures has responded to this large scale threa