Para. 4 of Schedule A of the West Bengal Premises Rent Control Act, 1950 prescribes the maximum limit which the standard rent fixed for the sub-tenant must not exceed.

( 1 ) THESE are two Rules directed against an order dated 29th August 1951, passed by Sri Syamadas Chatterjee, First Additional Subordinate Judge, Alipore, modifying a common order dated 8th January 1951, passed by the Additional Rent Controller, Sri K. P. Chattoraj, by which he fixed the standard rent for two tenancies on applications made by the respective tenants. The petitioner in the Rules before us is the landlord.

( 2 ) THE tenancies are in respect of two suites of rooms in premises No. 220/1, Lower Circular Road, which appears to be a large and luxuriously constructed building. In the case out of which Rule No. 3265 arises, the tenant is Grant James Limited and the suite occupied by the Company is situated on the fourth floor and consists of four living rooms with mosaic floor and colour-wash walls, two bath rooms with necessary fittings, one passage room, one verandah and one kitchen. The total floor space is 1256 sq. ft. In the case out of which Rule No. 3267 arises, the tenant is one Mr. M. M. Berger and the suite occupied by him is situated on the third floor, consisting of the same number of similar rooms, but slightly less spacious. The total floor space occupied by this suite is 1204 sq. ft. The contract rent in the case of each of these tenancies is RS. 225 per month.

( 3 ) THE landlord of the tenants is Hind Estate Limited, which, in its turn, is a lessee of the building, holding, it is alleged, under a lease which covers premises No. 220/1, Lower Circular Road and several other buildings.

( 4 ) BOTH the tenants made applications for the standardisation of their rents on 19-9-1950, through a common Pleader and from the contents of their applications and the language in which they are expressed, it would seem that they were acting in concert. The only allegation made in the applications was that the landlord company had obtained a lease of several buildings, including premises No. 220/1, Lower Circular Road, at a consolidated monthly rent of RS. 2400 whereas it was realising about RS. 2000 from premises No. 220/1, Lower Circular Road, alone. It was added that the rents charged in respect of the tenancies were exorbitant and considerably higher than the rents paid for similar premises in the locality. The suggestion made by the applicants themselves was that the fair rent would be RS. 100 per month in each case.

( 5 ) IT would appear that all that the applicants wanted by their applications was that in view of the rent paid by their immediate landlord, the rent paid by themselves should be scaled down in accordance with the provisions of para. 4 of Schedule A to the West Bengal Premises Rent Control Act, 1950. The actual prayer, however, was in a general form for standardisation of the rent and the applications were styled as applications "under Section 9 of the Act, read with para. 4, Schedule A. "

( 6 ) THE written statement filed by the landlord Company is a study in avoidance and prevarication. It simply stated that the rent payable in respect of the tenancies was not excessive, that the deed of lease referred to by the applicants would speak for itself and that the Company had to pay various other impositions in addition to the rent of Rs. 2400 in respect of the lease taken by itself.

( 7 ) THE case was sent to the Additional Rent Controller for disposal and on 29-9-1950, he made an order for an inspection of the whole building. The Inspector, however, was unable to obtain access to all the suites and on his reporting his difficulty to the Additional Rent Controller, the latter made an order on 7-12-1951, directing the landlord Company to produce its lease and also to supply the names of the sub-tenants so that the applicants might take out notices against them under Section 31 of the Act for allowing an inspection. No lease or copy of the lease was ever produced, nor were the names of the sub-tenants supplied. On the other hand, the Company failed to appear at all on the next two dat