Constitutional validity cannot be raised in rent fixation proceedings where the statutory authority lacks jurisdiction to decide it.

The Rent Controller, acting under the rent control framework, had no jurisdiction to decide the constitutional validity of the provisions that continued pending standard rent proceedings under the repealing statute. By the same principle, the appellate court and the High Court in revision could not examine that ultra vires challenge for the first time in proceedings arising from the rent fixation orders. The constitutional objection was therefore not entertainable in those proceedings, and the standard rent determined under the earlier Act remained undisturbed on that ground.

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Issues: Whether, in proceedings arising from fixation of standard rent, the constitutional validity of the provisions continuing pending proceedings under the repealing rent control statute could be examined by the Rent Controller, the appellate court, or the High Court in revision.

Analysis: The challenge was directed to the provisions of the later rent legislation which continued pending proceedings under the earlier Act and required rent already fixed or being fixed in such proceedings to remain governed by the earlier Act. The Court held that the Rent Controller, acting within the rent control framework, had no jurisdiction to determine the constitutional validity of the statutory provisions under which he was acting. By parity of reasoning with the rule applied in proceedings under taxing statutes, questions of ultra vires were treated as wholly foreign to the scope of the authority's jurisdiction. Since the appeals and revisions originated from orders fixing standard rent under the rent control statute, the High Court and the Supreme Court could not go into the constitutional challenge in those proceedings.

Conclusion: The constitutional validity challenge was not entertainable in the rent fixation proceedings and the standard rent determined under the earlier Act could not be disturbed on that ground.

Final Conclusion: The appeals were liable to fail because the impugned statutory provisions could not be examined in the proceedings from which the appeals arose, leaving the rent fixation orders undisturbed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the statutory authority lacks jurisdiction to decide constitutional validity, the same question cannot be raised for the first time in appellate or revisional proceedings arising out of that authority's order.

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