The owner of the property is entitled to receive rent and is therefore a landlord. Any person receiving rent on behalf of the owner is also a landlord. The owner of the property cannot be excluded from being the landlord by the mere fact that someone else is receiving rent on their behalf.

1. THIS revision petition under section 115 C. P. C. is directed against Order No. 46 dated 27. 4. 83 passed by Smt. B. Roy, Munsiff, 3rd Court, Howrah in Title suit No. 300 of 1978 in disposing of the O. P. defendant's application under section 17 (2)2a) of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy act along with issue no. 6 in favour of the O. P. defendant holding that there is no relationship of landlord and tenant between the petitioner and the opposite party. Being aggrieved, the petitioner, who is plaintiff in the original title suit, has moved this court in revision and contained the present Rule.

2. IT is contended that the finding of the learned Munsif is perverse as she has acted illegally and with mater, I irregularity in holding that there is no relationship of landlord and tenant between the present petitioner and the opposite party, that the learned Munsif has acted illegally and erred in not making proper meaning of definition of "landlord" given in the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1956.

None appears on behalf of the opposite party.

3. MR. Dutt, learned advocate for the petitioner has submitted that the learned Munsif has committed a great illegality in holding that there was no relationship of landlord and tenant and also by observing that the plaintiff may be the owner but not the landlord.

4. I have carefully perused the impugned order passed by the learned Munsif. The learned Munsif has observed that according to the definition of section 2 (d) of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act "landlord" includes any person who, for the time being, is entitled to receive rent or but for a special contract would be entitled to receive the rent of any premises whether or not on his own account and that the rent receipts show that Shibdas Dey realised the rent and not the plaintiff and in view of the said evidence, the present petitioner is not entitled to claim rent from the defendant and consequently, there was no relationship of landlord and tenant between the present plaintiff and the defendant.

I am afraid that the learned Munsif has failed to appreciate the true legal implication of the definition of 'landlord' given in section 2 (d) of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act. The definition of landlord in the Act is on inclusive definition. It not only includes the owner of the property who is entitled to receive the rent but also any other person who collects the rent on behalf of the owner either as rent collector or as the agent. The expression "any person who is entitled to receive rent" under section 2 (d) of the Act, clearly includes the owner of the property, because the owner of the property is entitled to realise rent from the tenant of the premises being the owner. In the present case there is also clear averment of the petitioner that she is not only the owner of the premises in suit, but also inducted the defendant in the suit premises. Only on the basis of some rent receipts which showed that Shibdas Dey, who is admittedly the son of the present petitioner, granted receipt to the defendant by signing at the back of those receipts, the learned Munsif appears to hold that the petitioner is not entitled to receive rent. In my view, she has committed illegality in jumping to that conclusion. It was necessary for her to come to a clear finding as to whether the plaintiff was the owner of the suit premises or not. It is also submitted by the learned advocate for the petitioner that her son Shibdas Dey had been realising rent not only from the present opposite party, but also from the other tenants of the petitioner as her agent and on the basis of a power of attorney and the said power of attorney was produced in Court.

5. I find from the record that a petition was filed on behalf of the petitioner before the learned Munsif sometime in April 1983 and before passing of the impugned order for calling for the records of the Title Suit No. 99 of 1978 in which all the documents in respect of the premises in suit