The High Court has the jurisdiction to amend its order to specify the time for deposit under Section 15(4) of the Rent Control Act, where the omission to specify the time was an unintentional error.

( 1 ) THE dispute between parties was adjudged by judgement reported as 7972 Rajdhani L R. 137 Connected case which necessitated adjudication on interim matter consequent on death of husband of respondent is 1974 Rajdhani LR. (N ). 110. In 1972 R. L. R. 137, it was ordered that order of A. R. C would be deemed as under S. 15 (4) instead of U/s 15 (1) but by erroneous omission, tenant was not given any time to deposit the arrears He made the instant application for modification of the order. After narrating above facts in detail, the judgement para 4 onwards is : -

( 2 ) AGAINST both these order of the Tribunal the appellant came up in appeal to this court which was decided by order dated October 11, 1972 which forms the subject matter of this application.

( 3 ) WE held that the Controller had no jurisdiction to pass an order under Section 15 (1) on the basis of prima facie evidence without deciding whether Bhagwanti Devi alone was the landlady of the appellant, but as sub-section (4) of Section 15 authorised the Controller to pass an order for deposit of rent payable by the tenant under Sub- Section (1) of Section 15 in a case where there was any dispute as to the person or persons to whom the rent was payable and as the tenancy qua the premises was admitted by the appellant the order requiring deposit of rent passed by the learned Additional Rent Controller would be considered under Section 15 (4 ).

( 4 ) AT the time when appeal was filed, it was also the contention of the appellant that he was in any case entitled to the adjustment of the amounts deposited by him u/s 27. The admitting Bench while admitting the appeal in relation to the order under Section 15 (1) directed that the appellant will deposit in court the amount of rent upto date as ordered, less the amount already deposited in the names of the heirs of the Late Chuni Lal The appellant consequently deposited all the rent due under the impugned order under Section 15 (1) less the amounts already deposited by him under Section 27.

( 5 ) WHILE arguing the appeal, this order of the admitting Bench was not noticed. While holding that the order mad? by the Additional Rent Controller u/s 15 (1) on the basis of prima facie evidence of subsistence of relationship between the appellant and Bhagwanti Devi was not sustantible in law we directed that it would be considered to be an order passed under Section 15 (4 ). In other words, we, by our order deciding the appeal for the first time, passed the order u/s 15 (4) and quashed the order u/s 15 (1 ). But while making the order u/s 15 (4), we did not specify the time within which the appellant had to make the deposit in compliance with this order. The law prescribed one month s time for this purpose u/s 15 (1 ). The appellant was entitled to this period as of right u/s 15 (4) read with section 15 (1 ). The omission to give this time was purely accidental and we see no reason to refuse to amend our order by allowing this time to the appellant.

( 6 ) IT would be seen that as a result of the order of the admitting Bench the appellant had made deposits of rent payable by him to Bhagwanti Devi alone less the amounts already deposited by him in the joint names of Bhagwanti Devi and her sons and daughters, the others heirs of Chuni Lal, so that on the date we made the order under section 15 (4) the appellant had to deposit again the sums that he had previously deposited u/s 27 in the Joint names of Bhagwanti Devi and her sons and daughters. These sums he had not deposited afresh because of the order of the admitting Bench. A few months after the decision of the appeal the respondents applied u/s 15 (7) for the appellant s defence being struck out because of his having not made these deports afresh in the name of Bhagwanti Devi alone. It was never our intention to deny to the appellant his right to make these deposits within one month of the order made by us. The omission is thus an unintentional error. It is true that the o