Contractual rent under a registered lease cannot be varied by later oral conduct to include municipal tax for exemption purposes.

The expression "rent" in the exemption clause was confined to the contractual rent agreed in the registered lease deed. Additional municipal tax paid by the tenant could not be treated as rent where the deed did not make it part of the consideration for the demise, and a later oral arrangement or course of conduct could not vary the registered instrument for purposes of the Act. The right to recover excess tax under the statute remained distinct from any contractual agreement on rent. Accordingly, the extra tax payment was excluded from the rent calculation, the monthly rent stayed below the statutory ceiling, and the Rent Controller retained jurisdiction to hear the fair rent application.

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Issues: Whether the additional municipal tax paid by the tenant, over and above the rent reserved in the registered lease deed, could be treated as part of the contractual rent so as to bring the monthly rent above the statutory ceiling and exclude the premises from the Rent Control Act.

Analysis: The expression "rent" in the exemption provision was held to mean the contractual rent, namely, the amount agreed to be paid as consideration for the demise. Payments expressly stipulated in the registered lease deed formed part of the contractual arrangement, but a later oral arrangement or course of conduct could not vary the rent reserved under a registered lease so as to alter the tenant's liability for purposes of the Act. Evidence of such variation was barred by the rule against contradicting or varying the terms of a registered instrument, and the statutory right to recover excess tax under the Act was distinct from a contractual agreement that such payment formed part of rent. The Court therefore held that the extra municipal tax could not be added to the rent for deciding applicability of the Act.

Conclusion: The additional tax payment was not rent for the purpose of the exemption clause, the monthly rent remained below the ceiling, and the Rent Controller had jurisdiction to entertain the fair rent application.

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