Kameswar Singh vs Sahadeb Singh

D. Basu, J.—The tenant-Defendant in a suit for ejectment is the Appellant before us. He has lost in both the Courts.

Though various questions were raised in this appeal, eventually the only one we have to deal with is a question of law or rather of statutory construction in respect of Section 3(A) as inserted into Section 13 of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1956, by the West Bengal Premises Tenancy (Second Amendment) Act, 1969, read with Section 13 of the said Amendment Act.

In Section 13 of the principal Act, there is provisions for the protection of tenants against eviction and, in various clauses, it lays down the only grounds upon which a tenant of a premises governed by that Act can be ejected by a landlord by suit. It is to be noted at once that in Section 13(1) of the opening words are:

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any other law, no order or decree for the recovery of possession of any premises shall be made by any Court in favour of the landlord against a tenant except on one or more of the following grounds namely It is evident that the bar which is imposed by Section 13(1) is aimed at the making of an order or decree by the Court contrary to what is provided in Sub-section (1) of the said Act. It does not say anything to bar the institution of a suit. The language of Section 3(A) which has been inserted by the Amendment Act of 1969, it may be noted at once, does not aim itself to the order or decree but to the institution of the- suit for ejectment and runs as follows ;

Where a landlord has acquired his interest in the premises by transfer no suit for the recovery of possession of the premises on any of the grounds mentioned in Clause (f) or Clause (ff) of Sub-section (1) shall be instituted by the landlord before the expiration of a period of three years from the date of his acquisition of such interest.

So- far as suits which are instituted after the coming into operation of the Second Amendment Act of 1969 are concerned, there is little trouble in literally complying with Sub-section (3A) because if any suit is sought to be instituted after November 14, 1969, in contravention of Sub-section (3A) the Court will forthwith dismiss the suit as being not maintainable.

The case before us relates to a suit which had been instituted prior to the commencement of the Amendment Act of 1969 or more precisely on May 13, 1958. The Plaintiff was a purchaser who had acquired superior interest in the premises by transfer on April 13, 1957. The suit, accordingly, was not instituted after the expiration but within the period of three years from the date of his acquisition of such interest as we have already stated. If such a suit were instituted after November 14, 1969, it would have been dismissed irrespective of any other consideration. The only question is whether a different construction of sub-S: (3A) can be made in respect of suits which had been instituted prior to Sub-section (3A) came into operation in contravention of the limitation which has been imposed by Section 3(A). The primary difficulty which has been presented before the Court in the application of Section 3(A) is that, instead of providing that Sub-section (3A) will have retrospective effect the Legislature in making the Amendment Act has used the words ''shall have effect'' which are not usually used � in statutes of such nature. Section 13 of the Second Amendment Act is as, follows:

The amendment made to the said Act by Sections 4, 7, 8 and 9 of this Act shall have effect in respect of suits including appeals which are pending at the date of commencement of this Act.

We have, therefore, to apply Sub-section (3A) to the suit from which this second appeal arises in view of Section 13 of the Amendment Act. If Sub-section (3A) is literally applied, then this suit must be dismissed by us -inasmuch as at the time of the institution of the suit, the period of three years'' bar of Sub-section (3A). did not expire. A question has, how* ever, been, raised; that this would, he totally meaningless and, unreasonable and would also involve the parties in, multiplicity of proceedings and unnecessary waste of time and money because even if the Court dismisses this suit today the Plaintiff-Respondent will be at liberty to institute an identical suit tomorrow morning, if not within the course of this day. The question which, therefore, arises is what interpretation should be given, as regards pending suits and appeals, to Sub-section (3A) read with|. 13 of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy (Second Amendment) Act, 1969.

So far as unreasonableness is concerned that it is no ground for departing from the literary interpretation of a statute was observed as early as 1882 by Lord Blackburn in the House of Lords'' case, the Countess of Rothes and Anr. v. The Kirkcaldy and Dysart Waterwork Commissioners (1882) 7 A.C. 694. There is, of course, one exception to the literary interpretation of statutes and that is the exception of absurdity. There is another exception, namely, that when the language of an enactment is ambiguous and two constructions are open, the Court may and should adopt the more reasonable of the Awe, Queen v. Judge of City of London Court (1892) 1 Q.B. 273 (290). In the instant case, however, the second exception cannot be applied particularly because the words shall be instituted in Sub-section (3A) are quite clear and not ambiguous. As to the first exception, namely that of absurdity, the principle has been explained in several authoritative decisions that a Court may depart from the literary construction of a statute only in one case, namely, where the absurdity is patent from a reading of the statute itself, that is to say, where the different provisions of the statute cannot be read together so as to give a consistent meaning Nuth v. Tamplin (1881) 8 Q.B.D. 247 (253); Vacher if Sons. v. London Society of Compositors (1913) A.C. 107 (118) unless the Court comes to the aid of the legislation like a surgeon. But, the Court cannot raise some sort of absurdity as may appear to the Court itself Cox v. Hakes (1890) A.C. 506 (542) and then seek to rewrite the language of the statute in a way different from that in, which it was originally framed as'' was observed by Lord Greene M.R. in Grundt v. Great Boulder Proprietary Mines (1948) 1 Ch. 145 (160) C.A.. The principle was expressed in a more picturesque language by Lord Wensleydale in the case of Grey v. Pearson (1857) 6 H.L.C. 61 (106). I have been long and deeply impressed with the wisdom of the rule now, I believe, universally adopted at -least in the Courts of law in Westminister Hall that in constructing wills and indeed statutes and all written instruments, the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words is to be adhered to unless that would lead to some absurdity or -some repugnance or inconsistency with the rest of the instrument, in which case the grammatical and ordinary, sense of the words may be modified so as to avoid that absurdity and inconsistency but no further.

It was contended that it would be against the notice of wisdom to dismiss a suit on a technical ground to enable a Plaintiff to bring about a suit at the next moment. But, it is difficult or sometimes unprofitable to try to find out the wisdom from the provisions of a drastic legislation like the one with which we are concerned in the present appeal. The West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1956, is the resultant of a scheme of urban tenancy legislation launched since 1946 and each time the Legislature takes up the matter into its hands the law is made more and more in favour of the tenant and prejudicial to the landlord''s right under the general law of landlord and tenant. In fact, we may be excused in observing that in the anxiety of the Legislature to give protection to the tenant, even the drafting of the statutes, sometimes becomes unscientific so as to give rise to a number of unnecessary litigations as has been commented upon by this Court in various previous decisions.

If one goes through the different provisions of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy (Second Amendment) Act, 1969, it will be quite evident that some of the provisions of this Amending Act have the patent object of overriding the effect of some of the decisions of this Court, then though the result may be apparently incongruous. By way of illustration, we would like only to point out the provision in Section 7 of the Amendment Act which has inserted in Section 18(A). As a result of this new provisions, even though a tenant might have been evicted, in fact, from a premises on the ground that the landlord would rebuild the structure after the lapse of a considerable period when the building has actually been reconstructed, perhaps to a colossal magnitude, even then if the evicted tenant makes an application to the Controller for being restored to a portion of the rebuilt structure the Revenue officer has got the jurisdiction to put in the evicted tenant in such part of the premises and at such rent as he likes. By applying the standard of common sense, it may be difficult to understand the logic behind this provision, because the newly built structure may be out of tune with what had been in the enjoyment of the tenant, say some three or four years back, and such restoration also does not solve the problem of the tenant once he has been evicted from the premises and thrown out to the street.

Nevertheless, since the Legislature has in corroborated this provision, the Courts have to see that ft is applied even though the provision might be repugnant to or out of harmony with our ordinary sense of fairness.

In Anglo-Saxon jurisdiction, it is firmly established that it is no business of the Courts to question the wisdom of the policy behind a statute. In the words of Lord Macnaghten in Vacher & Sons v. London Society of Compositors (Supra).

Some people think the policy of the Act unwise and even dangerous to the community. But a judicial tribunal has nothing to do with the policy of any Act which it may be called upon to interpret. That may be a matter for private judgment. The duty of the Court and its only duty is to expound the language of the Act in accordance with the settled rules of construction.

Again, in King Emperor v. Benoarilal (1944) L.R. 72 LA. 57 (70) Viscount Simon expressed the principle forcefully. Again and again, this Board has insisted that in construing enacted words we are not concerned with the policy involved or with the results, injurious or otherwise, which may follow from giving effect to the language used.

In the case before us, the only object of the Legislature in getting the pending suits dismissed where the landlord might bring a fresh suit at the next moment may be to interpose mere delay and discouragement to the landlord and also to enable the tenant to take advantage of the change of circumstances. To a layman it may appear to be futile or meaningless, but there being nothing inherently absurd in this the Court cannot twist the language of the enactment so as to continue the pending suits whose institution itself comes within the mischief of Section 13(3A) of the Act. It is not the province of this Court to Legislature so as to cure defects:

Queen v. Commissioners under the Boiler Explosions Act 1882 (1891) L.R. 1 Q.B. 703 (716). If it be a question of statute law, �we must take the law as we find it;

and if it be unjust or inconvenient, we must leave it to the constitutional authority to amend it: Garland v. Carlisle (1873) 4 Ch : F. 693 ( H.L.

In the above view the Courts below had no jurisdiction to decree this suit for ejectment. The appeal is, accordingly, allowed and the judgments and decrees of the Courts below are set aside and the suit is dismissed.

We do not, however, make any order for costs nor do we express any opinion on the merits of this suit.

M.M. Dutt, J.

I agree.