Shambhoo Narain Trivedi and another vs Kishanlal Agarwal and others

P.V. Dixit, C.J.

This is a petition to revise an order passed by the Additional District Judge, Jabalpur, u/s 13(6) of the Madhya Pradesh Accommodation Control Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as the Act), striking out the Petitioners'' defence. The petition first came up for hearing before one of us. As the applicant raised the contention that Section 13 of the Act offended Article 14 of the Constitution and was invalid, the petition has come up before us for hearing.

Shri Sen, Learned Counsel for the applicant, argued that Section 13 discriminated between a tenant and a landlord and placed the tenant in a disadvantageous position inasmuch as in a suit instituted by the landlord on any of the grounds stated in Section 12 of the Act the tenant was required to deposit rent and that if he failed to do so, his defence was liable to be struck out. It was also said that Section 13 discriminated between a tenant who deposited rent u/s 13 and one who did not. There is no substance in this contention. Section 13 applies to all landlords and all tenants alike. It does not make any difference between one landlord and another or between one tenant and another. No doubt, a tenant who fails to deposit or pay any amount required of him u/s 13(1) or 13(2), incurs the risk of having his defence struck out; but the differentiation in the matter of striking out of the defence between a tenant who makes a deposit or payment as required by Sub-section (1) or Sub-section (2) of Section 13 and a tenant who does not is based on a reasonable classification. As pointed out by this Court in Inderlal Balki-ram v. Mahngi Bai 1967 M P L J 125 the object of Section 13(1) is clearly to prevent a tenant from stopping payment of rent the moment a suit for ejectment is filed against him. It is also to relieve the landlord of the necessity of filing separate suits for rent for the period covered by the pendency of his suit for eviction. It is with this object that Section 13(5) gives relief to the tenant who makes a deposit as required by Sub-section (1) or Sub-section (2) by providing that no decree for eviction on the ground u/s 12(1)(a) shall be passed against a Defendant who makes a payment or a deposit as required by Section 13. Likewise, Sub-section (6) of Section 13 provides that if a tenant fails to deposit or pay any amount as required by Section 13, the Court may order his defence to be struck out. The differentiation bet ween a tenant who makes a deposit and who does not has thus a rational relation to the object sought to be achieved by Section 13. In our judgment, Section 13 of the Act in no way violates Article 14 of the Constitution.

It was then urged that the learned Additional District Judge struck out the Petitioners'' defence without deciding the question whether there was any failure on the part of the Petitioners to deposit or pay any amount as required by Section 13(1) or 13(2) of the Act. This contention must be rejected for the simple reason that in the lower Court the Defendants'' stand all along has been that they never were the tenants of the Plaintiffs-non-applicants, and they did not pay any amount by way of rent to them. The plea raised by the Petitioners is that they have always been the owners of the house and that a sham sale deed in favour of the non-applicants was executed. Admittedly, the Petitioners did not deposit every month any rent after the filing of the suit. In these circumstances, the Petitioners'' defence was rightly struck out. Indeed, the order under revision does not in any way prejudice the Petitioners. The reason is that the Petitioners'' defence which has been struck out is one resting on Section 12 of the Act and the Petitioners are in no way relying on Section 12 in contesting the suit.

For these reasons, this petition is dismissed with costs. Counsel''s fee is fixed at Rs. 50.