A Rent Controller cannot fix the standard rent of a newly constructed building without affording an opportunity of hearing to the tenants.

Order. - The only point for decision in the present case is whether a certain order made by the Rent Controller of Delhi without affording a reasonable opportunity to the tenants to have their say in the matter offends against the principles of natural justice and should be set aside. It appears that on 22-2-1949 one L. Parma Nand Jain, a retired Assistant Comr. of Income-tax and at present a Deputy Custodian of Evacuee Property submitted an appln. to the Bent Controller at New Delhi requesting him to fix the fair rent of house No. e/47, Kamla Nagar, Sabzi Mandi which had been recently constructed by him. After a due consideration of the facts and circumstances presented before him by the landlord the Controller fixed the rent at a sum of Rs. 1,074 on 23-3-1949. On the 7th June L. Balmokand Shah a refugee from the Rawalpindi District submitted a similar appln. in which he alleged that he was an occupier of certain rooms on the first floor of the building, that he had taken the said rooms on rent on 15-10-1948 and was the first tenant thereof, and that the landlord was charging rent at the rate of Rs. 400 per mensem for the said accommodation. It was accordingly prayed that as the rent charged by the landlord was excessive and wholly incommensurate with the accommodation let to the tenant an enquiry be made in accordance with the provisions of S. 7-a, Delhi and Ajmer Merwara Bent Control Act of 1947. No action was taken on this appln. and on 17th September L. Balmokand Shah submitted another appln. in which the above statements were repeated. The Controller sent a notice of this appln. to the landlord and the landlord replied that the rent of the accommodation in question had already been fixed at Rs. 221 per mensem. In view of this communication the Controller sent a copy of his order dated 23-3-1949 to the tenant and informed him that no further action could be taken in the matter. The tenant preferred an appeal to the learned Dist. J., Delhi but the learned Dist. J. declined to interfere with the order of the Controller. The tenant has come to this Ct. in revn. and the question for this Ct. is whether the learned Dist. J. came to a correct determination in point of law.

2. Before the learned Dist. J. it was contended that the proceedings taken by the Rent Controller in connection with the fixation of rent on the motion of the landlord were wholly incompetent as at that time there was no complaint before the Rent Controller that the rent actually charged was excessive, that the order of 23-3-1949 fixing the rent was not, therefore, a proper order under the Rent Control Act at all, that if that particular order were to be ignored then the Rent Controller was bound in law to make an enquiry into the merits of the case when the tenant approached him in June 1949, that the proceedings taken by the Rent Controller in February and March 1949 should be ignored and should be taken to be nonexistent and that as the Rent Controller had made no other enquiry on the complaint of the tenant he should be directed to make an enquiry under the provisions of the Act. The learned Dist. J. agreed that if the technicalities of the matter alone were concerned there could be some force in the arguments addressed to him by the counsel for the tenant, but held that as far as the substance of the matter was concerned it was wholly futile to reopen the matter. It was true that in February or March. 1949 no one had specifically complained to the Controller that the rent charged was excessive and that the tenants in any case had not moved in the matter but the Dist. J. held that in view of the provisions of the Fourth Schedule to the Act, a Rent Controller is not bound to wait till some one makes a complaint to him and that he has sufficient power to initiate proceedings as soon as he has reason to believe that the rent of any newly constructed premises is excessive. The learned Dist. J. admitted that the proceedings by which the fair rent was fixed were

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