The main legal point established is the interpretation of the appellate authority's jurisdiction under Section 15 of the Haryana Urban (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1973, regarding the maintainability of appeals against orders passed by the Rent Controller.

I.S.Tiwana, J.

1. This order would dispose of two revision petitions No. 2150 and 2151 of 1980, filed under Section 15 (6) of the Haryana Urban (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1973 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) by the two respondent-landlords against the petitioner-tenants on the same pleas and thus undisputably involve identical questions of law and fact for consideration.

2. Initially the shop in question was rented out by Siri Ram, father of the present respondents to the Delhi Cloth and General Mills, petitioner No. 1. Siri Ram filed an application for the ejectment of the said tenant on the plea that it had sub-let the demised premises to Mam Chand, father of Vinod Kumar petitioner. That application of Siri Ram was dismissed by the Rent Controller and the said order was affirmed by the appellate authority. After the death of Siri Ram and Mam Chand, the present respondents, who as already stated are the sons of Siri Ram, brought these two separate applications under Section 13 of the Act with the same plea that the Delhi Cloth and General Mills, the tenant, had sub-let this property to Vinod Kumar son of Mam Chand. The tenant and the alleged sub lessee in their replies raised an objection in the light of Section 14 of the Act on the ground that the matter in controversy having already been decided in the former proceedings, the present applications deserved to be rejected summarily. They have concurrently remained unsuccessful before the lower Courts. The Rent Controller held that in view of the changed circumstances, the applications filed by the respondents could not be dismissed summarily and thus overruling the objection, proceeded to decide the case on merits. On an appeal the proceedings before him having been stayed, the two applications filed under Section 13 of the Act are still pending and are yet to be disposed of on merits. In the appeals filed by the petitioners the appellate authority vide two different but similar orders of the same date held that the appeals were not maintainable primarily in view of an earlier judgment of this Court in Bikramjit Singh Paul v. Jaswant Singh, 1976 P.L.R. 16. That was a case where the Rent Controller had declined set aside an ex-parte order passed against the respondent-tenant. In that case the learned judge following an earlier judgment of this Court in Lakhi Ram v. Sagar Chand and Another, 1963 P. L. R. 691 held that in view of Notification No. 1562 cr.47/9228 the appellate authorities had been authorised to hear appeals against the orders of the Rent Controllers passed under Sections 4, 10, 12 and 13 of the Act. An order declining to set aside an ex-parte proceedings not being under any of these Sections, the appeal against the said order was held to be not maintainable That was not the situation here. A plain reading or Sub-section (2) of Section 15 reveals that the appellate authority can hear appeals against any order passed by the Rent Controller of which the appellant may feel aggrieved of. It is not a matter of dispute that in Haryana all the Additional District Judges have been conferred with the powers of appellate authority under the provisions of Section 15 of the Act. Thus it is patent that the appeals in these cases before the Additional District Judge as appellate Authority, Karnal were maintainable and the same have wrongly been dismissed.

3. In this view of the matter I allow these petitions and send the cases back to the said appellate authority for disposal in accordance with law, and the observations made above. The parties through their counsel are directed to appear before the said appellate authority on May 6, 1981. Revision allowed.