The court clarified that arrears of rent under the proviso to clause (i) of sub-section (2) of Section 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 are to be reckoned down to the date of the eviction application, and the interest on those arrears is also to be reckoned to the same date.

Maher Singh, J.

1. The landlord, who is the petitioner in this revision application, succeeded before the Rent Controller in obtaining an order of eviction against the tenant-respondent on the ground that the latter had not paid full amount of interest payable under the proviso to clause (i) of sub-section (2) of Section 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 (East Punjab Act 3 of 1949), but before the Appellate Authority the tenant succeeded in his appeal, of which the result was the dismissal of the application of the landlord for eviction of the tenant.

2. The rent of the demised premises is Rs. 5.12 paise per mensum. The application for eviction was filed by the landlord on October 31, 1962. There has been no agreement between the parties fixing the date of payment of the rent. So according to clause (i) of sub-section (2) of Section 13 of the Act, the rent due for a month is payable by the tenant by the last date of the month next following. On the date of the application, on October 31, 1962, the rent for the month of October had not yet become due and definitely it was not yet payable by the tenant. With regard to the earlier month of September, the rent for that month had become due by the end of the month of September, 1962, but it was payable by October 31, 1962, and the whole of the day of October 31, 1962 would be available to the tenant to make the payment. So when the landlord made the application on October 31, 1962, rent due was down to September, 1962 but was only payable for 25 months down to August, 1962. It has been held by a Division Bench of this Court in Ishar Dass Tara Chand v. Harcharan Dass, (1961)14 Punjab 315, that under the proviso to clause (i) of sub-section (2) of Section 13, arrears of rent mean arrears down to the date of the application for eviction. So far the purposes of that proviso, on the first hearing of the application for eviction by the landlord, the tenant was to pay arrears of rent up to October 31, 1962, with interest and costs of the application. The first date of hearing was October 9, 1963. On that date the tenant paid into Court two sums of money : one sum of Rs. 25/- was towards costs for setting aside the ex parte eviction order, and the second amount of Rs. 170/4/- was towards the arrears of rent, interest and costs of the application. The Rent Controller was of the opinion that rent for the month of September, 1962 was also in arrears and, if the amount of rent for that month was taken into consideration, although the arrears of rent had been duly paid, but the interest was short by Re. 1/- and, therefore, the tenant had not complied with the terms of the proviso to clause (i) of sub-section (2) of Section 13. He, therefore, made an order of eviction against him. On appeal the Appellate Authority agreed with the Rent Controller that the full amount of the interest had not been paid on the first date of hearing and in fact was of the opinion that the payment of interest was short by Rs. 4/8/- and not only Re. 1/-, but reversed the order of the Rent Controller on the ground that under Section 13 it is discretionary with the Rent Controller to order or not to order eviction in spite of there being arrears of rent and non-compliance with the proviso to clause (i) of sub-section (2) of Section 13. In this approach obviously the Appellate Authority has been in error. The Rent Controller, on a finding like this, has no option but to proceed to order the eviction in the terms of Section 13.

3. If this was the consideration, this revision application by the landlord would have to be accepted and the order of the Rent Controller restored, but the learned counsel for the tenant contends that in this case the rent for month of September, 1962 was not payable on October 31, 1962, and consequently it had not come within the scope of the words arrears of rent. He points out that although rent for the month of September had become due in October, but, as there was