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 n