Horwill, J.-The respondent is the owner of a shop in Calicut town and the appellant is his tenant, holding the shop on a month-to-month tenancy. The respondent filed O.S.No.405 of 1943 for the eviction of the appellant; but before he could obtain a decree, the Non-Residential Building Rent Control Order, 1942, had been amended on nth July, 1944. Apparently unaware of the amendment, a decree was passed in the respondent’s favour on the 8th September, 1944. Almost immediately, the respondent applied for possession, obtained an ex parte order in his favour, and was actually put in possession on the 15th September, 1944. On the 28th October, 1944, the appellant drew the attention of the executing Court to the amendment on the 11th July, 1944, and pointed out that the Court had acted ultra vires, in that its order delivering possession to the respondent was void. The Court then took action under section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure and set aside its previous order on the ground that it would not have passed that order if its attention had been drawn to the amendment. The matter was taken in appeal to the Subordinate Judge, who affirmed the decision of the trial Court. The matter came before Panchapagesa Sastri, J., in A.A.A.O.No.43 of 1946.1 The learned Judge held that despite the passing of the amendment on the nth July, 1944, the law to be applied to the case was the law as it existed at the date of filing the suit. He therefore allowed the appeal with costs throughout. At the same time, he granted leave to appeal under the Letters Patent.

There can be no doubt, on the plain words of the amended clause 8 of the Non-Residential Building Rent Control Order, 1942, that the tenant was entitled to remain in possession.

Clause 8(1) says:

“A tenant in possession of a non-residential building shall not be evicted therefrom, whether in execution of a decree or otherwise . . . . . . . . except in accordance with the provisions of this clause.”

As there are no provisions in this clause for the eviction of the tenant on the grounds raised in the suit, it is clear that if this sub-clause be taken at its face value, the tenant could not be evicted even though a decree had been obtained. Sub-clause (2) makes the matter even clearer; because the procedure to be adopted by a landlord who desires to evict his tenant is not to apply to the Civil Court in execution of his decree, but to the Rent Controller for a direction that the tenant be evicted. The Controller has then, after giving the tenant a reasonable opportunity of showing cause against the application, to consider whether the tenant has been guilty of any of the laches or defaults referred to in the various paragraphs of sub-clause (2). If he is satisfied that he has, then he shall order the eviction; if he is not so satisfied, then he is bound to reject the application.

The difficulty which the learned Judge felt in giving clause 8 its plain interpretation was that to do so would be to infringe the principle that a new legislation should not affect existing rights unless the wording of the statute makes it clear, expressly or by necessary implication, that it is to have retrospective effect. Although the suit was still pending at the time when the amendment was made, yet it has not been contended that the introduction of this legislation created a new law to be applied by the Court and that the decree passed by the Court was consequently not a valid one. The execution proceedings were filed long after the amendment came into force. Mr. Venkatasubramaniam has been constrained to argue that the moment a person files a suit he obtains thereby a vested right to have applied not only to the suit, but to all execution proceedings also, the law relating to execution as it existed at the time of filing the suit. We know of no such principle; and we find no reason to think from the cases that have been cited before us that if a new law is introduced restricting the right to execute, exec