Judicial discretion must be exercised in eviction cases to avoid injustice against tenants, especially during bona fide delays caused by circumstances beyond their control.

JUDGMENT :

Biswaroop Chowdhury, J:

1. The petitioner before this Court is the plaintiff/landlord in a suit for eviction and is aggrieved by the order dated 18.06.2022 passed by the Learned Civil Judge (Junior Division) 7th Court at Howrah in Title Suit No-1417 of 2016. The petitioner being aggrieved by the order passed by the Learned Trial Court has come up with the instant application under Article 227 of the Constitution of India.

2. The case of the opposite party/defendant in an application under Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure with a prayer for granting permission to deposit the arrear rentals @ Rs 180/-per month for 16 months being principal rent of Rs. 2,880/-and interest Rs. 288/-@ 10 of per annum may be summed up thus.

1. The defendant filed an application under Section 7(2) of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act 1997 raising some disputes as to arrear rentals and relationship by and between the parties to the suit.

2. The defendant also filed an application under Section 7 (1) of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act 1997 for depositing the monthly rental @ Rs. 180/-per month with effect from November 2016, and onwards and it appears from the documents that the defendant has deposited the rent before the Learned Court under the provision of Section 7 (1) of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act 1997 till the month of April 2022,but during period from the year 2019, on and from July 2019 and onwards till date rentals were deposited and during the year 2019, and onwards there the dispute continued by and between the Advocate’s Association of Howrah with the Administration of the State, as a result for some months the rentals could not be deposited before the Court by the said clerk and thereafter the COVID-19 arose in the year 2020 which continued till the month of February 2022 when the matters slowly recovered from all those situation. As a result in some occasions rentals could not be deposited as well for some months. The rentals were deposited and challans were passed on some other months and some deposit challans are also missing from the record of Ld. Advocate.

3. The present defendant has been depositing the monthly rent regularly after the situation became normal and while at the time of hearing it was found that 19 months deposited rent challans are missing from the file of the Ld. Advocate and on searching of the Court records it has been found that challans have been passed on some occasions and on some other occasions it has been deposited and out of 19 number of deposited challans it appears from the search report issued by the Ld. Court that the amount was deposited before the Bank for the month of July 2019, March 2019, April 2019 and February 2020 as per the reports submitted by the concerned clerk appointed by the Ld. Court and such report has been submitted as per the provisions of the CIVIL PROCEDURE CODE .

4. It appears that out of 19 number of deposit challans of monthly rent deposited before the Ld. Court only 4 months deposit are valid as it appears from the certificate issued by the Learned Court. It is stated that out of the challans for the period from July 2019 to February 2020, 16 numbers of deposit challans have not been deposited before the Ld. Court for which the defendant prays for a permission to deposit the rent for the month of May 2019, June 2019, August 2019, September 2019, October 2019, November 2019, December 201