IMPORTANT POINT
Eviction – Remand of Case – Appellate Authority has no jurisdiction to remand the whole case to the Rent Controller for entirely a fresh decision

G.S. Sandhawalia, J.

1. The present order shall dispose of two revision petitions i.e. Civil Revision No.8683 and 8685 of 2014. The facts are being taken from Civil Revision No.8683 of 2014 Mohd. Hussain Vs. Mohd. Ashgar'.

2. The present revision petitions filed by the landlord are directed against the remand order of the Appellate Authority, Sangrur dated 07.11.2014 (Annexure P-2), whereby the Rent Controller has been directed to reconsider the evidence led by the parties and decide afresh under correct heads/issues expeditiously. Resultantly, the appeals filed by the respondent-tenant have been allowed.

3. Counsel for the petitioner has relied upon the Division Bench judgment of this Court in 'Raghu Nath Jalota Vs. Romesh Duggal and another' 1980 AIR (Punjab) 188 to argue that under the provisions of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act') and in view of Section 15 (3), the Appellate Authority has to re-decide the issue either by himself or through the Rent Controller. The power of remand as such accordingly to the Appellate Authority was held to be not existing under the Act. The question referred to the by the Division Bench and the answer reads as under:-

“Whether the appellate authority under Section 15(3) of the East Punjab Rent Controller Act, 1949, has the jurisdiction to remand the whole case to the Rent Controller for decision afresh is the sole, though meaningful, question which falls for determination in these two civil revision petitions before us on a reference. Directly linked therewith is also the issue of the correctness of the view expressed first by Grover J., in Civil Revision No. 54 of 1957 - Moti Ram s/o Daulat Ram v. Ram Sahai S/o Chamba Ram, decided on April 29, 1958, and its categoric affirmance by the Division Bench in Shri Krishan Lal Seth v. Shrimati Pritam Kumari, 1961, PLR 865.

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7. From the aforementioned history and the provisions of the present and the preceding rent legislation, it appears to be self-evident that apart from the larger purpose of restricting rents and giving special protection to the tenants. The specific intent of the legislature was to provide a special and expeditious procedure for the disposal of the matters under the Act. The jurisdiction for the determination of these matters was designedly and meaningfully taken away from the ordinary run of Civil Courts and vested in the Controllers. They were left to devise their own procedure free from technicalities and formalities of the Civil Procedure Code which governed the Civil Courts, Sections 16 and 17 of the Act brought in the Code of Civil Procedure only for the limited purpose of the summoning and enforcing the attendance of witnesses and the execution of the orders passed by the Controller or the Appellate Authority and by necessary implication exclude the strict application of its provisions to the authorities under Act. The underlying purpose was to rid the authorities under the Act from the shackles of technical procedure and to provide a summary and expeditious mode of disposal, is further evident from the fact that ordinarily only one appeal was provided by the statute to the Appellate Authority and all further appeals or revisions were barred by Section 15(4) of the Act. It was not till 1956 that by the Punjab Act No. XXIX, Sub-section (5) was added to Section 15 of the Act vesting the High Court with special revisional jurisdiction thereunder.

8. Now it may be recalled that under the Punjab Rent Restriction Act, 1941, the rent jurisdiction had continued to vest in the ordinary Civil Courts and therefore, was squarely covered by the Civil Procedure Code, 1908, including its appellate provisions laid out in Order 41 thereof. However, when the Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1947 was enacted, the Civil Procedure Code generally was excluded from the rent jurisdiction apart from the specific provisions thereof mentioned in the said statute itse