S. RANGANATHAN,j. (ORAL)

( 1 ) IN my opinion the second appeal has to be allowed as the issue raised is fully covered by the dechc n of Avadh Behari-J. in R. K. Pareekh v. Uma Verma 1978 (2) lktent Control Journal 423 (1 ). In that view the civil revision does not survive for consideration and is liable to be dismissed.

( 2 ) IT is necessary to state a few brief facts. The respondent landlord filed a petition against the present petitioner/appellant seeking the eviction of the latter under the terms of the proviso to clause (e) of sub-section I of Section 14 of the Delhi Rent Control Act. The application was dealt with in accordance with the procedure specified in Section 25-B of the Act introduced by the amendments of 1975-76. Summons was issued in the form specified in the third schedule to the tenant and served on him on 21st October, 1976. He had to file his application for leave to contest the landlord s petition in the appropriate manner specified in the section on or before 5th of November, 1976. But this application was actually filed on 11th November, 1976 for certain reasons which need not be detailed here. Along with this application the tenant also prayed for condonation of delay in the filing of the application.

( 3 ) ALL the matters came up before the Rent Controller on the 12th November, 1976. The learned Rent Controller dismissed the application for condonation of delay on the ground that the provision of the Limitation Act had no application. Consequently the tenant s application for leave to defend was also dismissed. But the landlord s eviction petiion was not allowed in view of a curious circumstance. The learned Rent Controller noticed on a perusal of the petition that the necessary averments regarding the service of a notice termination of tenancy were not in the petition and found tha the petition was therefore defective and incomplete. He rejected the petition instead of ordering eviction of the tenant.

( 4 ) FROM the order rejecting his petition the landlord filed an appeal to the Rent Control Tribunal. By an order dated 11th October, 1977 the Rent Control Tribunal accepted the appeal, found the application for eviction to be complete and since it found that the tenant had not been granted leave to defend directed the eviction of the petitioner as contemplated in Section 25-B (4 ).

( 5 ) IT is against this order of the Rent Control Tribunal that the tenam has filed the second appeal. It will be appreciated that at the time the Rent Controller passed his order the tenant had not been prejudiced by the order refusing him leave to contest the application for eviction. So apparen ly he took no action to agitate against that order. However when the Tribunal passed the order accepting the appeal of the landlord it became necessary for the tenant to displace the order of the Rent Controller dated 12 h November, 1976 dismissing his application under Section 5 of the Limitation Act and refusing him leave to defend the landlord s eviction petition. This the tenant has attempted to do by filing C. R. 861 of 1977.

( 6 ) THE short point made by Shri S. L. Watel appearing for the petitioner/appellant which in my opinion has to be accepted (rendering it unnecessary to decide the other questions) is that the appeal preferred by the landlord to the Rent Control Tribunal was itself incompetent. According to the learned counsel, on a proper interpretation of Chapter III-A of the Act (introduced by the amendments of 1975-76) in the context of the object of introducing these special provisions, the normal remedy of appeal against the orders of the Controller provided for in Section 38 of the Act does not have any application to orders under S. 25-B and is in fact totally inconsistent with the provisions of Chapter III-A and cannot prevail in view of the specific provision contained in Section 25a of the Act.

( 7 ) IT is unnecessary to discuss the matter elaborately because as I have already mentioned the matter has receiv

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