Judgment

FAZAL ALI, J.:- This appeal by special leave is directed against a Division Bench judgment dated December 6, 1978 of the High Court of Delhi and arises under the following circumstances.

2. The appellant was inducted as a tenant by one Mithanlal who was the owner of the premises in question and the rent payable at the time of the tenancy was Rs. 55 per month. The premises were, however, purchased by the Life Insurance Corporation of India (for short LIC) at a court auction on July 19, 1958 and the appellant in view of the same attroned to the new landlord, namely, the LIC. The Delhi Rent Control Act of 1958 (hereinafter referred to as the Rent Act), came into force on February 9, 1959 and on July 24, 1969 the new landlord gave a notice under S. 106 of the Transfer of Property Act to the appellant determining the tenancy. This notice, however, was subsequently withdrawn and after some correspondence with the appellant the rent was increased by the LIC from Rs. 55 to Rs. 125 per month. Sometime towards the end of July 1966, the LIC gave a fresh notice under S. 106 of the Transfer of Property Act purporting to determine the tenancy. Thereafter, there were some parleys between the LIC and the appellant and ultimately the LIC agreed to accept the enhanced rent of Rs. 300 per month from the appellant with effect from December 1, 1976. On April 23, 1977 the LIC gave another notice under Section 106 superseding the previous notice and directing the appellant to vacate the premises on or before May 31, 1977. As the appellant did not vacate the premises, the LIC filed a complaint with respondent No. 2, the Estate Officer, LIC under the provisions of the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971 (hereinafter referred to as the Premises Act). Thereafter, the second respondent issued a notice to the appellant under S. 4 (1) of the Premises Act to show cause why the appellant be not evicted. The appellant appeared before the Estate Officer and raised certain preliminary objections which having been decided against him, the appellant filed a writ petition in the Delhi High Court against the order of the Estate Officer and reiterated the preliminary objections taken by him before the Estate Officer. After considering the preliminary objections which mainly related to the question of jurisdiction of the Estate Officer to proceed under the Premises Act, the High Court overruled all the objections and dismissed the writ petition in limine, though by a reasoned order. Hence, this appeal to the SC.

3. Before dealing with the contention raised by counsel for the respondent we might mention that the proceedings before the Estate Officer under the Premises Act have only been stayed and not yet decided on merits because the appellant wanted the Estate Officer to decide the question of jurisdiciton as a preliminary issue.

4. In support of the appeal, Mr. Parmeshwar Rao submitted three main contentions before us. In the first place, he submitted that the provisions of the Premises Act would have no application to the present premises because the appellant could not be described as an unauthorised occupant as he had entered into possession of the premises long before they were purchased by the LIC. It was argued that the condition precedent for the assumption of jurisdiction by the Estate Officer was that the appellant must be an unauthorised occupant, and if the possession of the appellant was lawful, though the property changed hands subsequently, the appellant could not be dubbed as an unauthorised occupant. In this connection, reliance was placed on a decision of this Court in Rajkumar Devinder Singh v. State of Punjab, (1973) 2 SCR 166. We have gone through the decision cited before us and we find that the provisions of the Punjab Act, which was the subject matter of interpretation by this Court in that case, were substantially and materially different from S. 2 (2) (g) of the Premises Act which defines unauthorised occupat