Validating amendment cured defect in tenant decree, and earlier nullity ruling did not bar execution as res judicata.

The amended Cantonments (Extension of Rent Control Laws) Act, 1957 was construed broadly to validate decrees passed by applying State rent control law to a cantonment area before the law was formally extended there, so the compromise decree against the tenant remained enforceable. The earlier order declaring the decree a nullity did not bar execution as res judicata because the defect it relied on had been removed by subsequent validating legislation, and a prior jurisdictional ruling based on the mistaken non-application of the rent law could not override that statutory cure. The tenant's objections to execution were rejected.

---

---

Issues: (i) Whether the compromise decree obtained against the tenant was saved by the Cantonments (Extension of Rent Control Laws) Act, 1957 as amended in 1972; (ii) Whether the earlier order declaring the decree a nullity operated as res judicata in the execution proceedings.

Issue (i): Whether the compromise decree obtained against the tenant was saved by the Cantonments (Extension of Rent Control Laws) Act, 1957 as amended in 1972.

Analysis: The amended scheme of Section 3 empowered extension of State rent control law to a cantonment from an earlier date and, by the saving provision, deemed decrees or orders made before such extension to have been made under the corresponding valid law. The provision was held wide enough to cover decrees passed by applying the State rent law to a cantonment area when that law was not in force there at the time, and the validation was not confined to extensions given retrospective effect under the earlier sub-section.

Conclusion: The decree was saved by the amended Act, and the challenge to its executability failed.

Issue (ii): Whether the earlier order declaring the decree a nullity operated as res judicata in the execution proceedings.

Analysis: A prior determination on jurisdiction cannot, where the legal defect has been removed by subsequent legislation and the earlier decree has been validated, bar the subsequent execution proceedings as res judicata. A decision which had proceeded on the mistaken premise that the rent law did not apply to cantonment areas could not override the later legislative validation of such decrees.

Conclusion: The earlier order did not operate as res judicata against the landlords.

Final Conclusion: The decree was held enforceable and the tenant's objections to execution were rejected, so the appeals failed.

Ratio Decidendi: A validating amendment may cure the defect in decrees passed on an earlier mistaken application of law to a cantonment area, and a prior jurisdictional ruling will not operate as res judicata where the legal basis of that ruling has been removed by the legislature.

---