JUDGMENT

KRISHNA IYER, J.:—The Holmesian homily that the life of the law is not logic but experience directs our humane attention, in this appeal against an order in execution for eviction of an advocate in Chandigarh, affirmed by court after court to a reading of the textual definition of tenant (S.2 (i)) in the context of the broad embargo on ejectment of urban dwellings in S. 13 of the East Punjab Rent Restriction Act, 1949 (hereinafter referred to as the Act).

2. Chandigarh, a blossom in the desert, has served as the capital of two States; and, with explosive expansion, thanks to the marvellous human resources of Punjab and Haryana, become a crowded, though not yet chaotic, city with chronic accommodation scarcity. Consequently, laissez faire law, in the matter of landlords right to evict his tenant, was subject to the Act with effect from 4-11-1972. From then on, no tenant could be dispossessed except on the grounds set out in S. 13. But if a landlord had already obtained a decree for eviction earlier to this date line, was he to be restrained by S. 13 which forbade even execution of decrees against tenants, or was he free from the statutory fetters because the defendant had ce