An error of law or an erroneous application of law is not a ground for review under O.47 R.1 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

M. R. WAIKAR, J.:- This is a review petition and the short question for consideration is whether an error not of fact but of law or rather an erroneous application of law, can be a ground for review under O.47 R.1 of the Code of Civil Procedure?

2. The judgment of which the review is sought by this application was delivered by the learned single Judge of this Court, but since he (R.S. Padhye J.) is not now available, this application under the Rules has come up before us for hearing and disposal.

3. The present applicant (original plaintiff) as the landlord of the premises in question, approached the Rent Controller for grant of permission to serve a notice on the non-applicant Mathew (original defendant) to determine the lease. The permission granted by the Rent Controller to the applicant was confirmed in appeal by the Resident Deputy Collector. It appears that immediately after the grant of permission by the Rent Controller, the applicant served a quit notice, determined the tenancy and filed a civil suit. During the pendency of this civil suit, however, the permission so granted by the Rent Controller came to be confirmed in appeal by the Resident Deputy Collector. The suit was decreed in favour of the applicant and the first appeal preferred by the tenant (defendant) was dismissed. The second appeal filed by the tenant which was heard by the learned single Judge was allowed on 19-8-1982 holding, for the first time, that the notice to quit that was given founded on the permission granted by the Rent Controller before it was confirmed by the appellate Court was premature and as such the suit was also not maintainable.

4. Feeling aggrieved by this decision, the original plaintiff filed the present review application. The decision of the learned single Judge is reported in Mathew Charian v. Rajkumar Ramavatar, 1982 Mah L J 724. There existed a catena of cases consistently holding that a suit can be instituted on the basis of the permission granted by the Rent Controller even though the appeal may be pending before the Collector, though however, it would be necessary to stay the decision of such suit till the disposal of the appeal by the Conllector. The learned single Judge, however, relied upon a Division Bench decision of this Court in Indra Singh v. Shiavax, AIR 1948 Bom 347. This Indra Singh's case was under the Bombay Rent Act. The learned single Judge held that the wording in Cl.21(3) of the Rent Control Order is in pari materia with the provisions of S.14(3) of the Bombay Rent Act and relying upon certain observations of the Division Bench, ruled as above.

5. It may be pointed out that during the pendency of this review petition, the decision of the learned single Judge in Mathew's case came up for consideration by a reference made by the District Judge, Akola which was heard by a Division Bench of this Court, of which one of us was a party. The said decision is reported in prabhakar v. Bharat Santaji More, 1983 Mah L J 426 : (AIR 1983 Bom 488). The decision of the learned single Judge reported in Mathew's case came to be overruled. It was observed that the decision in Indra Singh's case which was relied upon by the learned single Judge was in fact not an authority for a proposition that a suit for eviction filed after obtaining the certificate from the Controller was premature and unentertainable. It was pointed out that from the observations to be found in Indra Singh's case, the institution and the pendency of the suit was never held as bad nor illegal, but what was denounced was the decision and the decree which was founded on the mere certificate of the Controller when it was the subject matter of the appeal before the Collector under the Bombay Rent Act.

6. The short question for consideration before us is whether in the absence of the decision in Prabhakar's case (AIR 1983 Bom 488) which came to be pronounced by the Division Bench during the pendency of this application, the learned single Judge could have