The facts of this case are briefly these: The petitioner is living in a house in Madras City formerly owned by one Baggiammal, wife of one Babu Mudaliar, from whom the respondent has subsequently bought it for residential purposes. The respondent got an order from the Additional Rent Controller, Madras, on 6th September, 1947, directing the petitioner to vacate and hand over possession of the premises to her on or before 31st October, 1947. Before the Additional Rent Controller the petitioner had contended that a portion of the house was used by him for non-residential purposes, viz., for making appalams, or pappadams, and that, therefore, the Additional Rent Controller could not order eviction under the Act since the respondent wanted the house only for residential purposes. The Additional Rent Controller has remarked as follows in the course of his order:

“Further, a premises is residential or not residential according to the main purpose for which it was taken. It is not the respondent’s case that he took the premises or portion of it for making appalams. Respondent admits that even the portion of the house used for making appalams is used as sleeping apartments during the night. A portion of a lawyer’s or doctor’s residential house used for professional work cannot be treated separately as non-residential premises. For the above reasons, I am unable to accept the respondent’s contention that a portion of the house is non-residential and confine this application to the remaining portion.”

The petitioner took the matter in appeal to the Small Causes Court, Madras. The Second Judge of the Small Causes Court, who heard the appeal, disbelieved the petitioner’s contention that a portion of the house was used for non-residential purposes, and dismissed the appeal. Hence this petition.

At the outset, the learned Counsel for the respondent urged that a revision petition would not lie to this Court since the “authority” which heard the appeal, viz., the Small Causes Court, is not a “Court” subordinate to this Court when deciding appeals against orders of the House Rent Controller. The learned Counsel for the petitioner relied on the rulings in National Telephone Co., Ltd. v. Postmaster General1, the Municipal Corporation of Rangoon v. N.A. Shakur2, and Kiron Chandra v. Kalidas Chatterjee3; for the proposition that if a statute or rule names a “Court” as an “authority” the usual appeals and revisions lying to the High Court from that Court will lie. I agree, as in this case, the second Judge of the Small Causes Court did not act as a persona designata but as a Judge of the Small Causes Court, and as a part of the Small Causes Court. So, this petition will lie. The learned Counsel for the petitioner raised three main contentions. The first was that the rule making the Small Causes Court itself the “authority” to hear appeals against the orders of the House Rent Controller, instead of the Chief Judge of the Small Causes Court, as formerly was ultra vires, since a Court can never be an “authority” I cannot agree. A Court can certainly be an “authority” though every “authority” need not be a Court. It is commonly stated that the High Court is the highest authority in the Province in Judicial matters. There is no inherent absurdity or incorrectness about this expression. I have not been referred to any rulings by the learned Counsel for the petitioner in support of this startling proposition. Indeed, the very rulings relied on by him for showing that a revision petition would lie to this Court are to cases where a Court is named as the “authority.”

The next contention was that both the Courts erred in ordering eviction, since the premises were used by the petitioner for non-residential purposes, and were required by the respondent for residential purposes, and that the lower appellate Court erred in not referring to the affidavit filed by the former owner’s husband stating that the premises were taken by the petitioner on rent only fo