Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)
Lakshmi Singh vs Samir Roy & Ors on 2 September, 2019
1 15. 02.09.2019
mb In the High Court at Calcutta Civil Revisional Jurisdiction Appellate Side C.O. No. 3256 of 2018 Lakshmi Singh
-Vs.-
Samir Roy & Ors.
Mr. Milan Nandi ...for the petitioner The present challenge arises against an order, whereby the defendant/petitioner's application under Order VII Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure was rejected by the trial court.
The connected suit, from which the present petition arises, was filed for eviction under the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1956 in the year 1988.
The defendant/petitioner, in his application for rejection of plaint, took the plea that the civil court had no jurisdiction to take up a suit for eviction of a bharatia by a thika tenant due to the bar as contemplated in Section 21 of the West Bengal Thika Tenancy (Acquisition and Regulation) Act, 2001. Such application being turned down by the trial court, the present revisional application has been filed.
2It is seen from a comparative perusal of the relevant provisions of law, that the provision as to the eviction of bharatia by a thika controller was introduced by Section 8 of the Act of 2001. However, Section 27 of the Act of 2001, which provides for repeals and savings, excludes from the purview of the Act, pending legal proceedings at the juncture when the Act came into force.
As such, by virtue of Section 27 of the Act of 2001, the suit- in-question, which was instituted in the year 1988, was excluded from the purview of the 2001 Act.
Hence, the relevant provisions pertaining to the suit property can be found in Chapter-III, Sections 9 and 11 of the Calcutta Thika and other Tenancies and Lands (Acquisition and Regulation) Act, 1981, which was prevalent at the relevant juncture, when the suit was instituted.
The said sections provided that the monthly and other periodical tenancies of bharatias in respect of the structure occupied by it on payment of rent to the thika tenants, shall, with effect from the date of coming into force of the Act of 1981, be governed by the provisions of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act 1956, in all matters coming within the purview of the said Act, that is, the Act of 1956, and, for such purpose, owners of the structures shall be deemed to be landlords and the bharatias shall 3 be deemed to be tenants under the said Act, that is, the Act of 1956.
In view of such conjoint reading of the relevant provisions of law, it is evident that the bar contemplated in the relevant sections, that is, Sections 8 and 21 of the Act of 2001, do not govern the present suit and, as such, it was the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1956, which was applicable to the instant suit by virtue of Section 9(1) of the Act of 1981, as indicated above.
In such view of the matter, the trial court was justified in rejecting the petitioner's application under Order VII Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure.
Accordingly, C.O. No. 3256 of 2018 is dismissed, thereby affirming the impugned order.
There will be no order as to costs.
Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be made available to the petitioner upon compliance of necessary formalities.
(Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya, J.)