The main legal point established in the judgment is that the right of appeal is created by statute, and the conditions for filing an appeal must be fulfilled as per the statutory provisions. The appeal provisions are conditioned by the performance of certain acts by the appellant, and the appeal cannot be considered valid unless the conditions are met.

1. Petitioners are tenants of a building which belongs to the contesting respondents. In a Rent Control Proceeding for eviction of the tenants, an order was passed by the Rent Control Court under S.12(3) of the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1965 (for short 'the Act') as a consequence of the tenants' failure to deposit the admitted arrears of rent. They filed an appeal and through another application, they prayed for stay of further proceedings. The Appellate Authority rejected the application on the ground that the appeal without deposit of the admitted arrears is not maintainable. The revision filed by the tenants was dismissed by the District Court and hence they have come to the High Court now with the present Original Petition under Art.227 of the Constitution.

2. The appeal was filed on 22-7-1987 which was within 30 days from the date of the order appealed against after excluding the time taken to obtain the certified copy of the order. But, no amount was deposited towards the admitted arrears of rent till 12-10-1987. The authorities under the Act took the view that there is no valid appeal.

3. S.18(1)(b) of the Act confers the right to file appeal against any order passed by the Rent Control Court. It reads thus:

"Any person aggrieved by an order passed by the Rent Control Court, may, within thirty days from the date of such order, prefer an appeal in writing to the appellate authority having jurisdiction. In computing the thirty days aforesaid, the time taken to obtain a certified copy of the order appealed against shall be excluded".

Sub-section (2) says that "on such appeal being preferred, the appellate authority may order stay of further proceedings in the matter pending decision on the appeal". Going by the language of the above provision, it is clear that unless the appeal is preferred within the statutory period, the appellate authority cannot exercise powers under subsection (2) of S.18. An embargo is imposed by S.12(1) of the Act against the tenant in preferring the appeal. The said sub-section reads as follows:

"No tenant against whom an application for eviction has been made by a landlord under S.11, shall be entitled to contest the application before the Rent Control Court under that section, or to prefer an appeal under S.18 against any order made by the Rent Control Court on the application unless he has paid or pays to the landlord, or deposits with the Rent Control Court or the appellate authority, as the case may be, all arrears of rent admitted by the tenant to be due in respect of the building up to the date of payment or deposit, and continues to pay or to deposit any rent which may subsequently become due in respect of the building, until the termination of the proceedings before the Rent Control Court or the appellate authority, as the case may be".

Thus, the tenant has no right under law to prefer the appeal without paying or depositing the admitted arrears of rent. Payment or deposit of the admitted arrears is made a pre-requisite for preferring the appeal. It must be remembered that the right of appeal is only creative of a statute and without a statutory provision creating such a right, the person aggrieved is not entitled to file an appeal. In the words of Lord Atkin "it is to be remembered that all appeals exist merely by statute and unless the statutory conditions are fulfilled, no jurisdiction is given to any court to entertain them". This principle has been approved by the Supreme Court in Anant Mills v. State of Gujarat (AIR 1975 S.C.1234). If the statute gives a right to appeal as such upon certain conditions, it is upon fulfilment of those conditions that the right becomes vested and exercisable to the appellant (vide Vijay Prakash v. Collector of Customs - AIR 1988 S.C. 2010). The language in S.12(1) of the Act is one of forbidding the appellant from getting entry into the appellate court without compliance of the condition. This could be gathered from the words