Fair rent under West Bengal tenancy law requires Rent Controller fixation; notice alone does not trigger automatic increase.

Section 17(4A) of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997 does not create an automatic fair-rent increase on service of notice under Section 20 for long-standing commercial tenancies in premises constructed in or before 1984. Read with Section 17 as a whole, the provision only supplies the method of calculation, while the Rent Controller remains the prescribed authority to fix fair rent on an application under Section 17(1). The statutory scheme, including Section 18, Section 20 and Rule 8 of the 1999 Rules, confirms that even an arithmetical determination must be made by the Controller. The increase is therefore not self-operative.

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Issues: Whether, on a tenancy subsisting for twenty years or more in premises constructed in or before 1984 and used for commercial purpose, fair rent under Section 17(4A) of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997 is automatically determined on notice under Section 20 or whether an application to the Rent Controller under Section 17(1) is still necessary.

Analysis: Section 17(4A) was read with Section 17 as a whole, not in isolation. The scheme of the Act showed that Section 17(1) continues to make the Controller the authority to fix fair rent, while Section 17(4A) only prescribes the method by which the fair rent is to be determined in the specified class of tenancies. The use of different expressions in Section 18 and Section 17(4A), the language of Section 20, and the continued operation of Rule 8 of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Rules, 1999 all indicated that the legislature did not intend an automatic increase without recourse to the Rent Controller. Even where the calculation is arithmetical, the determination must still be made by the prescribed authority on an application.

Conclusion: An application before the Rent Controller is for fixation of fair rent under Section 17(4A), and the increase is not automatic upon notice under Section 20.

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