A. P. DESHPANDE, J.

( 1 ) THIS Letters Patent Appeal is at the behest of a tenant who is in occupation of house premises situated at Ramdaspeth, Nagpur. The said premises are owned by respondents No. 2 to 4 and they are the landlords. The landlord filed an application seeking permission of the Rent controller under Clause 15 of the C. P. and Berar Letting of Premises and Rent control Order, 1949, to terminate the tenancy on various grounds. The Rent controller issued notices twice but as the appellant/tenant could not, in the opinion of the Rent Controller, be duly served, he chose to take recourse to the provisions in regard to the substituted service and issued directions accordingly. The Process Server noticing that the present appellants are absent, effected the substituted service by pasting the notice on the conspicuous part of the premises. The appellants were proceeded ex parte and final order came to be passed by the rent Controller granting permission to the respondents to terminate the tenancy of the appellants. After obtaining the permission under the Rent Control Order, the landlord terminated the tenancy of the appellants and filed a civil Suit.

( 2 ) IT is the case of the present appellant that he found suit summons lying in his premises on 17-4-1990 and hence within a period of 30 days he moved an application for setting aside the ex parte order granting permission in favour of the landlord to terminate the tenancy. The Rent Controller allowed the application by an order dated 3-8-1991 and aggrieved thereby an appeal came to be filed by the present respondents before the appellate authority viz. Additional district Collector. The appellate authority reversed the order passed by the Rent controller whereby the application for setting aside the ex parte order was allowed and thereby restored the earlier order dated 2-6-1987. Dissatisfied by the order of the appellate authority the present appellants filed a writ petition which came to be heard and decided by the learned Single Judge of this Court. The learned Single Judge by a judgment and order dated 11-7-1996 dismissed the writ petition and confirmed the order passed by the appellate authority. Aggrieved by the judgment of the learned Single Judge, the present L. P. A. has been filed.

( 3 ) IT may not be out of place to state at this juncture that the suit filed by the landlord based on the permission granted by the Rent Controller came to be decreed by the Additional Judge of the Small Causes Court. Dissatisfied with the decree for eviction, the appellants preferred an appeal before the District Court who in turn dismissed the appeal and thereafter appellants moved this Court by filing a revision and the revision petition also came to be dismissed.

( 4 ) TWO-FOLD submissions are made by the learned counsel by Shri Parchure appearing for the appellants (i) that the only mode permissible for effecting service of notice as per clause 18 A of the Rent Control Order is to serve the respondent by registered post acknowledgment due and no other mode is permissible. In the present case, substituted service has been effected and (ii) that the appellant/tenants were not served with the suit summons in the matter pending on the file of the Rent Controller and as such the ex parte order ought to have been set aside.

( 5 ) NO doubt perusal of Clause 18-A (2) reveals that every notice issued by the Rent Controller to the parties shall be by registered post. In view of this provision, it is amply clear that as the Statute provides for mode of service, no other mode is capable of being adopted except the one prescribed by the Statute. This by itself does not advance the case of the appellants any further, the reason being that the Rent Controller did issue notices in the first and second instance but both the notices could not be duly served on the appellants/tenants. The copy of the order sheet dated 17-11-1986 which is placed on record at page 36 reads thus : applic