1951 (7) TMI 24

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....ffect of the West Bengal Premises Rent Control (Amendment) Act LXII [62] of 1950. I may say at once that in my opinion the decision of the lower appellate Court is correct although the reasons on which the decision is based are quite unsound. 3. The suit was instituted on 29-7-1949, before the West Bengal Premises Rent Control Act XVII [17] of 1950 came into force. During the pendency of the suit on 31-3-1950, the West Bengal Premises Rent Control Act XVII [17] of 1950 came into force. The ground of eviction was that the tenant was an ipso facto defaulter under Section 12 (3) of the Act of 1948. 4. The West Bengal Premises Rent Control Act of 1950 came into force on 31-3-1950 and the decree in suit was passed on 31-8-1950. By that dat....

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....W.N. 756, had been taken away and was to be deemed never to have existed as from 31-3-1960. 6. On 4-12-1950, an appeal was filed against the decree of the Munsif passed on 31-8-1950. Thus, at the time when the West Bengal Premises Rent Control (Amendment) Act LXII [62] of 1950 came into force on 30-11-1950, there was no actual appeal pending in the strict sense that on that date no actual" appeal had been filed although in fact at the time when the Act came into force the period for filing an appeal had not expired and there was at any rate a contingency that such an appeal might be filed. 7. The lower appellate Court gave its decision on 31-1-1951. That Court dealt with the matter as though Section 6 of Act LXII [62] of 1950 had some....

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.... of 1948. 9. The question is thus whether we are to give a very strict interpretation to the word "pending" in Section 5 of Act LXII [62], So that we are to hold that the Act does not give relief in cases such as the present, where, although the time for filing an appeal had not expired when the Act came into force, no actual appeal had been filed, or whether we should interpret "pending" somewhat loosely to cover cases not only where the actual appeal had been filed on or before 30-11-1950, but also cases in which an appeal was subsequently filed. On this question, there is some analogy in the decisions on the interpretation to be given to the definition of "a suit to which this Act applies" in Section 2(22), Bengal Money Lenders Act, 1....