IMPORTANT POINT
The tenant must deposit admitted arrears of rent with interest within the statutory timeframe to avoid eviction under the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act.

JUDGMENT :

SHAMPA SARKAR, J.

1. The revisional application arises out of an order dated September 5, 2022 passed by the learned Civil Judge (Junior Division), 2nd Court at Barrackpore in Ejectment Suit No. 42 of 2010.

2. By the order impugned, the learned court allowed the defendant/tenant and the opposite party before this court, to deposit arrear rent of Rs.14,496/- by allowing the application under Section 7(2) of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’).

3. The petitioner contends that the opposite party entered appearance in the suit and filed two applications, one under Sections 7(1) and the other under Section 7(2) of the said Act on August 11, 2010. The written statement was filed on November 30, 2010. Although the tenant contended before the learned court in both the applications as also in the written statement that there were arrears from April 2004 to July 2010 and he was willing to deposit the entire arrears upon determination of the same, no deposit of the admitted arrear had been made along with the applications under Section 7(1) and 7(2) of the said Act.

4. The learned advocate for the opposite party/tenant submits that a total amount of Rs.75,000/- had been paid to the plaintiff towards rent and the said amount was being adjusted. Thus, until the court determined the arrear, the question of deposit of arrear rent would not arise.

5. The court found that the tenant had paid Rs.74,624/- and arrear rent of Rs.14,496/- was still payable. While the learned court found that the tenant was in arrears with regard to rent from April 2004 to 2005, the defendant/tenant had himself claimed that there were arrears from April 2004 to July 2010. In the application under Section 7(1), it was specifically contended that the tenant was willing to deposit the arrears along with 10% interest. In the application under Section 7(2) of the said act, the tenant had specifically averred that the arrear rent along with 10% interest had been deposited in the court through challan. However, the specific contention of the plaintiff is that the admitted arrears were deposited sometime in December 2013 and not along with the applications under Section 7(1) and 7(2) of the said Act which was the mandate of the statute. The learned court also failed to take into consideration the above fact and passed the order without considering the non-compliance of Sections 7(1) and 7(2) of the said Act. Even though arrears were admitted, the same was not deposited as per requirement of law.

6. Section 7 of the said Act provides a complete mechanism for protection of the tenant from eviction on any of the grounds under Section 6 of the said Act. Section 7(1) of the said Act mandates that the admitted arrears of rent along with 10% statutory interest should be deposited within a month from the receipt of summons and when the defendant appears without summons within a month from appearance.

7. It is an admitted position in this case that the application under Section 7(1) of the said Act was filed, but the admitted arrears along with 10% statutory interest was not deposited along with application. Even though the tenant was willing to deposit the arrears, the fact remains that the very mandate of law, i.e. the pre-condition of depositing the admitted arrears along with 10% statutory interest at the time of filing the application under Section 7(1) of the said Act was not complied with. The law requires a mandatory compliance of such statutory pre-condition.

8. Moreover, the law is well-settled that without compliance of Section 7(1), Section 7(2) would not come into operation. The tenant was required to deposit the admitted arrear rent within a month from receipt of summons calculated at the rate at which it was last paid and upto the end of the month previous to that in which the payment was made, together with the interest at the rate of 10% per annum. Thereafter, the tenant was required to continue to pay to the landlord