Express retrospective amendment to tenancy limitation applied to pending suits and appeals under the amended law.

Where an amending tenancy statute expressly directed that pending suits, appeals and revisions be decided under the law as amended, the reduced limitation period applied retrospectively to suits already instituted before commencement. The court held that this express legislative intent displaced the ordinary presumption against retrospectivity, so pending trial proceedings were governed by the amended rule. It further held that the same amended limitation applied at the appellate stage, because an appellate court reconsiders the matter while the proceeding remains pending and the statute covered pending appeals and revisions. The retrospective change therefore governed both pending suits and pending appeals.

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Issues: (i) Whether the amendment reducing the limitation period for a suit under Section 180 of the U. P. Tenancy Act applied to suits instituted before the amending Act came into force. (ii) Whether the amended limitation rule applied to cases pending in appeal.

Issue (i): Whether the amendment reducing the limitation period for a suit under Section 180 of the U. P. Tenancy Act applied to suits instituted before the amending Act came into force.

Analysis: Section 31 of the amending Act expressly directed that all pending suits, appeals and revisions under the principal Act, and all appeals and revisions filed after commencement against decrees or orders passed under it, were to be decided or executed in accordance with the Act as amended. The provision was held to be clear and to evince a contrary legislative intention sufficient to displace the ordinary presumption against retrospectivity. Since the suit was pending when the amendment came into force, the altered limitation period governed it.

Conclusion: The amendment applied retrospectively to suits pending on the date of commencement, and the answer was in the affirmative.

Issue (ii): Whether the amended limitation rule applied to cases pending in appeal.

Analysis: An appellate court was treated as deciding the suit itself in a rehearing, and could take into account subsequent legislative changes where the statute so provided. Section 31 was read as extending to appeals and revisions already pending, not merely to proceedings at first instance. The amended limitation therefore had to be applied at the appellate stage as well, because the decree under challenge was part of a proceeding still pending when the amendment took effect.

Conclusion: The amended limitation rule applied to appeals pending when the amending Act came into force, and the answer was in the affirmative.

Final Conclusion: The amended tenancy limitation regime governed pending suits and pending appeals alike, with the result that the appellant obtained the benefit of the retrospective change.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a statute expressly provides that pending suits, appeals and revisions shall be decided in accordance with the law as amended, the amended law applies retrospectively to those pending proceedings, and an appellate court must decide the appeal on that footing.

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