The main legal point established in the judgment is the correct interpretation and application of S.5 and S.8(2)(a) of the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1959 in fair rent fixation proceedings.

1. The bone of contention in this six year old litigation is the legality of a direction to the landlord not to collect more than Rs.3.50 per mensem by way of rent of a small dwelling house. That the people have still faith in a judicial process which sometimes as in this case, takes, even in petty cases, long years of gestation before it can finally deliver justice is a great tribute to the soundness of the ultimate decision or in symptomatic of a litigation pathology. But that is by the way. A close look at the chronology of this fair rent fixation case reveals that the landlord dissatisfied with the low rent he was being paid, moved the Rent Control Court for fixation of fair rent under S.5 of the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1959 (called, for short, the Act.) on 5-3-1963. In 10 months the Rent Control Court disposed of the application, although the pious mandate of S.24, fixing 4 months as the outer limit for passing final orders in any rent control proceeding, is more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

2. An appeal was filed on 3-4-1964 and was disposed of on 11-9-1964. At this stage the landlord, who claims to be aggrieved, went into a long nap to wake up late in 1966 to file a revision in the District Court where it took nearly 2 years to dismiss the landlord's revision. The revision was filed, as I said earlier, over 2 years after the appeal was disposed of, but was admitted and heard because, by a strange omission in the statute, so both sides submitted, no period of limitation is fixed in the matter of entertaining a revision. Litigation can become a long acting torment if an order can be challenged years later on the pretext that there is no period of limitation fixed in the statute. Of course, it is for the legislature to remedy this lacuna, but it is certainly open to the revisional Court to decline to exercise its discretion when a party moves for relief after a period of Indiscreet delay.

3. Now to the substantial point in controversy, concurrent errors, at three levels, in the hierarchy of tribunals have led to this application under S.115 C.P.C. The learned Munsiff made a mistake in telescoping S.5 into S.8(2) of the Act, as I will presently explain, but he was duly affirmed by the Courts above without seriously examining the obvious flaw in the order.

4. The question is what is the fair rent of a building under Act 2 of 1965 (Which is the successor to Act 16 of 1959). The landlord had applied for eviction earlier (BRCP 31 of 1962) on the ground of arrears of rent and there the Court ultimately found that the agreed rent between the parties was Rs. 3-50 and allowed eviction subject to a right of the tenant to deposit the arrears at the agreed rate of rent viz., Rs. 3.50 per mensem. That Court had however observed:

"If the rate of rent is too low it is open to the landlords to get the fair rent fixed."

So, the landlord moved for fixation of fair rent in BRC No. 37 of 1963 which has eventuated in the present revision. But, instead of fixing the fair rent under S.5, the Trial Court, by a simple misconception, held that whatever be the fair rent only the agreed rent need be collected if it was less than the fair rent. This would stultify the entire scheme of fair rent fixation in the Act at the instance of the landlord and the observation of the court in the earlier BRCP. But, Courts have the jurisdiction to decide right and to decide wrong. After considering relevant matters the Rent Control Court observed:

"Therefore on the basis of Corporation Assessment Register the fair rent that could be fixed is Rs. 12/- per mensem......I can only find that the fair rent that could be fixed in respect of the plaint building on the basis of the Corporation assessment is Rs. 12/- per month."

It continued in somewhat self contradictory style:

"Thus I fix the fair rent of the plaint building at Rs. 12/- per mensem subject to the observation that the petitioners are not entitled to get from the counter