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Issues: (i) Whether the High Court, in exercise of jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, could interfere with concurrent or differing findings of fact recorded by the Small Causes Court and the Appellate Bench; and (ii) whether a statutory tenant under the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, 1947 could create a valid licence before 1 February 1973 so as to attract the deeming protection of Section 15A.
Issue (i): Whether the High Court, in exercise of jurisdiction under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, could interfere with concurrent or differing findings of fact recorded by the Small Causes Court and the Appellate Bench.
Analysis: Interference under Article 227 is confined to cases where the subordinate tribunal acts without evidence, commits a manifest error of law, or reaches a perverse conclusion which no reasonable person could reach. Where two views are possible on the evidence, the High Court cannot sit as a court of appeal or reappreciate the evidence merely to substitute its own factual conclusion.
Conclusion: The High Court was not justified in overturning the factual findings of the Appellate Bench on the evidence.
Issue (ii): Whether a statutory tenant under the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, 1947 could create a valid licence before 1 February 1973 so as to attract the deeming protection of Section 15A.
Analysis: Section 15A was enacted to protect persons actually in occupation as licensees on 1 February 1973. The term "licensee" in Section 15A is not confined to a licensee created by the landlord alone. A statutory tenant stands on the same footing as a contractual tenant until a decree for eviction is passed, and a licence is a personal privilege, not a transfer of interest. The non-obstante language of Section 15A must be given full effect, and the construction that denies protection to licensees created by statutory tenants before the appointed date would defeat the legislative purpose.
Conclusion: A statutory tenant could create a valid licence before 1 February 1973, and a person in occupation as such licensee on that date was entitled to be treated as a tenant under Section 15A.
Final Conclusion: The appeal succeeded, the High Court's order was set aside, and the appellant retained the benefit of the statutory protection available to pre-existing licensees in occupation on the appointed date.
Ratio Decidendi: In proceedings under Article 227, factual findings may be interfered with only if perverse or unsupported by evidence, and a pre-existing licensee in occupation on 1 February 1973 is protected by Section 15A even if the licence was granted by a statutory tenant before eviction.
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