Section 21(8) of the Premises Tenancy Act, 1956, creates a statutory offence, and an inquiry into such an offence must be conducted in accordance with the procedure prescribed in the Code of Criminal Procedure.

( 1 ) THE two petitioners before me, Trilok Nath Lall and Kedar Nath Lall, are the tenants of 73 Tarak Pramanik Road on a rent of Rs. 140 a month. For November and December 1958, they deposited Rs. 280 with the controller on the allegation that their landlord, then one Radhakrishna Khattray, had not accepted the rent, though tendered. An allegation as this was accompanied by an application and supported by an affidavit, as it had to be under Section 21, Sub-section 8, of the Premises Tenancy Act, 12 of 1956. Such deposit was made and affidavit sworn on or about January 17, 1959. The landlord received the notice of the deposit on February 9, 1959, and applied under Sub-section 5 of Section 21 for withdrawal of the same. He did a little more too. At the time of so applying for withdrawal, he complained to the controller as under:"the petitioners have been in arrears of rent from March 1958. Their tenancy was, therefore, determined by a notice dated November 17, 1958, asking them to quit by the following December's end. More, an action in ejectment was raised against them in the City Civil Court, being suit No. 169 of 1959. The allegation made in the petitioners' application and the supporting affidavit dated January 17, 1959, that rent was tendered to him and was refused is "entirely false", and false to their knowledge. In fact, no rent was tendered to him ever. "so, levy of a fine upon them and a suitable compensation to him out of the fine realized were prayed for under Section 21, Sub-section 8.

( 2 ) BY an order dated August 5, 1959, the learned controller found as a fact that the statement of the petitioners in their application and affidavit about the tender and refusal of rent for November and December 1958 was untrue, levied a fine of Rs. 30 upon them and directed payment to the landlord of Rupees 15 as compensation out of the fine realized. The tenants, the petitioners before me, appealed. On July 30, 1960, a learned judge, Calcutta Small Cause Court, upheld the finding of the controller and dismissed the appeal. The tenants moved this Court on August 9, 1960, and obtained a rule in which I am rendering judgment now.

( 3 ) DURING the carriage of this revisional petition, Radha Krishna Khattry, the landlord and the sole opposite party, died and has since been substituted by his heirs.

( 4 ) THE only point on which I have been addressed by Mr. Rabindra Narayan Chakra-vartti for the petitioners and Mr Lala Hemanta Kumar for the opposite parties is if levy of a fine as the result of an inquiry, following the procedure laid down in the Code of Civil Procedure, 5 of 1908, just what the then Rule 10 of the Premises Tenancy Rules 1956 prescribed, is sustainable at law.

( 5 ) ON no other point have I been addressed The findings of fact come to by the two tribunals of facts have not been challenged either.

( 6 ) RULE 10, as is to be seen now (vide notification No. 5806l. Ref. dated April 22, 1961, published in the Calcutta Gazette, Extraordinary, of that date), makes a dichotomy of the procedure of inquiries--those relating to offences under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 5 of 1898, and the rest under the Code of Civil Procedure, 5 of 1908. But when the controller was holding his inquiry in 1959 into the allegation of the landlord, such rule was not there. There was instead the old rule 10 providing that the controller in the course of his inquiries under the Act--no matter whether of offences or of 'non-offences' - was to follow, "as nearly as may be," the procedure under the Code of Civil Procedure.

( 7 ) MR. Chakrabarti, the learned advocate for the petitioners, therefore, contends that this rule, that is, old Rule 10, made by the State Government under Section 42 of 1956 Act, for carrying out the purposes of the Act, must go down, being ultra vires section 42. as the corresponding rule, Rule 9, of the West Bengal Premises Rent Control Rules 1950, made by the State Government under Section 47, Sub-secti