Appeal whether maintainable against interlocutory order of Rent Controller.

ORDER : -Tenant is the petitioner herein, Aggrieved against the appointment of a Commissioner to inspect the entire building, this revision petition is filed on the ground that the order of appointment of Commissioner pending disposal of the petition for eviction relates only to a procedural aspect and therefore, as against the order of the Rent Controller, no appeal lies to the appellate authority under S.23 of Tamil Nadu Act 18 of 1960, and hence, the Order passed in C. M. A. 122 of 1980, having been passed without jurisdiction, requires to be set aside.

2. It is the admitted case between the parties that both the tenant and the landlady sought for appointment of an advocate, Commissioner to inspect the properties. The Rent Controller passed orders only in the application filed by the landlady directing that the properties to be inspected are the properties described only in R. C. O. P. 675 and 679 of 1978, and not the entire building. The appeal is confined to the order in I.A. 262, of 1980 in R. C. O. P. 675 of 1978. The premises involved in this petition is one of the portions of the main building and the petitioner herein occupies a portion of the ground floor. There are four other tenants in the building, and one of them had already vacated. The tenants involved in two other R. C. O. P. Nos. 683 and 685 of 1978, having agreed to vacate, Orders of eviction have been already passed. In this petition the landladies have sought for eviction of the tenant on the ground that the building is required for demolition and reconstruction.

3. The main dispute now revolves round the point as to whether the Advocate-Commissioner could submit his report in respect of the entire building or it should be confined only to the premises involved in the R. C. O. P. Tenant absolutely has no objection to the Advocate-Commissioner inspecting the premises in his occupation. The order was passed by the appellate authority has now resulted in the further point being taken that, since the Order passed by the Rent Controller, appointing a Commissioner relates to a procedural aspect, in the light of the decision rendered by this Court in Lakshmiammal v. Sivasubramania, (1981) 2 Mad LJ 206: (AIR 1981 NOC 171) and Chinnaraja Naidu v. Bavani Bai. (1981) 2 Mad LJ 354, the appellate Order deserves to be set aside.

4. This Court following the decision of the Supreme Court in Central Bank of India Ltd. v. Gokal Chand, AIR 1967 SC 799 and Bant Singh Gill v. Shanti Devi, AIR 1967 SC 1360 held that it is only against final Orders passed, appeals could be preferred and that by entertaining appeals as against interlocutory orders, it only results in protraction of proceedings, which will have to be avoided. Since this Court has already dealt with elaborately by referring to all the conceivable authorities on this point, in the two decisions above referred to, even though Mr. Vaitheeswaran, learned Counsel for the petitioner herein, had taken considerable efforts to place before this Court all these authorities, it is not necessary to restate what have been referred to in those decisions. The decision rendered by the Supreme Court in AIR 1967 SC 799, (cited above) does not go to the extent of holding that there could be no appeal filed whatsoever, as against any interlocutory Order, to the appellate authority constituted under the Act. In fact, it has been clearly held by the Supreme Court that if an interlocutory Order results in affecting the rights and the liabilities of a party to a proceeding, an appeal could be entertained apart from appeals filed as against final Orders. Therefore, there being no prohibition contemplated about appeals being filed against interlocutory Orders, it is incumbent to find out whether a particular interlocutory Order passed would affect the rights or liabilities of the party or not. To illustrate, if a tenant has started demolishing portions of the building to cause loss to the landlord, the landlord has the fight to seek