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1. The petitioner is a Hindi newspaper published from Patna and Dhanbad having its registered office in the premises in question, which is part of the building known as Pant Bhawan on Bailey Road in the town of Patna. The writ petition was initially filed for quashing the notice dated 5-5-97, issued by the Sub-Divisional Officer, Sadar, Patna (described as 'House Controller' in the notice) in Eviction Case No. 7 of 1997 calling upon the petitioner to appear and participate in the eviction proceedings on the dated fixed, namely, 6-5-97. The petitioner objected to the maintainability of the proceeding by filing an application to that effect on 7-7-97. Two days earlier on 5-7-97 it had filed the present writ petition in this Court. The objection was rejected by the Sub-Divisional Officer, Sadar, Patna, describing himself as 'competent authority' on 22-11 -97. It may be mentioned here that the Sub-Divisional Officer of the concerned Sub-division exercises the powers of 'Controller' Under the Bihar Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1982 ('BBC Act' for short) and 'competent authority' under the Bihar Government Premises (Rent Recovery and Eviction) Act, 1956 ('the Government Premises Act' for short). It may also be mentioned here that the objection of the petitioner as to the maintainability of the proceeding rested primarily on the ground that the Government Premises Act applies to 'Government premises' within the meaning of that Act and inasmuch as the building in question i.e. Pant Bhawan belongs to the Bihar State Agricultural Marketing Board ('the Board' for short) which is not a part of the Government, the eviction proceeding under the Government Premises Act was not maintainable. The Sub-divisional Officer held that the Board is a statutory body created under the Bihar Agricultural Produce Market Act, 1960 over which the State Government has full control and, therefore, the property and the assets of the Board are Government property. After passing the aforesaid order dated 22-11-97 the Sub-divisional Officer proceeded to pass final order on 2-12-97. He held by the said order that the petitioner was in huge arrear of rent to the tune of more than Rs. 3 lacs; running of the press business was also unauthorised and, therefore, the petitioner was in unauthorised occupation of the premises. The Sub-divisional Officer, accordingly, directed it to vacate the premises within 15 days from the date of receipt of the order under Section 4 of the Government Premises Act, failing which it would be evicted by use of force as may be necessary. I shall refer to the said two orders dated 22-11-97 and 2-12-97 again in this judgment.

3. Mr. Binod Kumar Kanth, learned Counsel for the petitioner, submitted that the impugned order of eviction dated 2-12-97 pursuant to which the petitioner has been evicted from the premises is without jurisdiction inasmuch as the premises cannot be called 'Government premises' within meaning of the Government Premises Act under which Sub-divisional Officer has jurisdiction to get unauthorised occupants evicted from the Government Premises on grounds mentioned in Section 4 of that Act. Mr. Kanth submitted that the order cannot be construed as one passed under the BBC Act, for, that Act contemplates eviction of a tenant pursuant to decree of the Civil Court on any of the grounds mentioned in Section 11 of the Act and, besides, the Sub-divisional Officer has no power of eviction under that Act. It was pointed out that as a matter of fact no such power is possessed by the Sub-divisional Officer under any other law except the Government Premises Act. Mr. Kanth also pooh-poohed the respondents' case regarding petitioner's alleged non-co-operation in the arrear ascertainment proceeding pursuant to order dated 2-2-98 passed by this Court. In this connection he pointed out that although both before the Sub-divisional Officer and this Court at the time of passing the interim order dated 2-2-98, the stand of the Board was that the petitioner was in arrear of Rs. 3.79 lacs, and it was the correctness of that amount which was to be gone into, in course of meeting on 5-3-98 the Board took the stand that the amount of arrear was Rs. 13,07,589/- up to February, 1998. Mr. Kanth highlighted that apart from the payment already made by the petitioner towards rental dues, it was entitled to adjustment of the amount which it had spent in making repairs of the basement floor when it started leaking. He pointed out that a huge amount was also outstanding against the State Government as cost of advertisement which were kept pending for long time for extraneous consideration. It was submitted that the State Government for extraneous reasons wanted to harass the petitioner as it had published some news items which were considered to be hostile to the powers-that-be. Mr. Kanth also made a grievance that many items of the Press were taken away end have not been accounted for by the respondents as yet.

7. Proceeding on the two assumptions afore-said, the dispute lies in a narrow compass. The only point for consideration is whether pursuant to the said impugned order dated 2-2-98 the petitioner could be evicted from the premises and, if not, whether it is entitled to any consequential relief of restoration of possession.

8. It is an admitted position that the petitioner was a tenant under the respondent-Bihar State Agricultural Marketing Board. While according to the petitioner, the tenancy commenced from 1983, according to the respondents, the lease commenced from 6-7-87. According to the respondent's case, as stated in the counter-affidavit, the premises was let out to the petitioner for a period of three years on a monthly rent of Rs. 5,560/- @ Rs. 2/- per sq. ft. area. It was agreed that if the petitioner would continue to occupy the premises even after expiry of the period of lease i.e. three years without written consent of the Board, it would pay rent @ three times the monthly rent i.e. Rs. 16,680/-. The petitioner also agreed to pay interest @ 12% per annum on arrear of rent. In the event of default in payment of rent the petitioner would be liable to be evicted. It is said that between August, 1987 and July, 1998 the petitioner paid a sum of Rs. 11,120/-only as against Rs. 66,720/- rent due for the said period. No rent was paid thereafter up to July, 1990 when the period of three years expired. According to the respondents a sum of Rs. 21,461/- became payable as interest amount for delayed payment of rent since the beginning of the lease. No rent was paid even thereafter until 30-9-91 when the aforesaid sum of Rs. 66,720/- was paid. However, the petitioner again committed defaults. It is not necessary to mention the further details of the defaults committed by the petitioner. As I have already pointed out above, notwithstanding the counter-claim of the petitioner it appears to be rather an admitted position that the petitioner had committed defaults and was in arrear of rent. The point is whether for the defaults in payment of rent the petitioner could be evicted from the premises by taking recourse to summary proceedings. In view of the provisions of the BBC Act, the answer has to be given in the negative. The BBC Act has been enacted to regulate the letting of building and the rent of such building and also to prevent unreasonable eviction of tenants therefrom in the State of Bihar. Except the buildings owned by the local authority or the State Government or the Central Government or the Bihar State Swetambar Jain Trust Board or the Bihar State Digambar Jain Trust Board and the Wakfs under the control of the Bihar Wakf Board, as provided under Section 32 of the Act, the Act is applicable to all buildings within meaning of Section 2(b) of the Act in the whole of the State of Bihar. It is not the case of the respondent-Board that it comes under any of the classes mentioned in Section 32. There, thus, cannot be any doubt that the provisions of the BBC Act are applicable to the building in question. As noticed above, it is the admitted case of the Board that the petitioner was inducted as tenant and, therefore, the relationship of landlord and tenant i.e. the lessor and lessee cannot be doubted.

14. As on 19-12-97 and 2-2-98 the question for consideration before this Court was Whether the Sub-divisional Officer was competent to pass the order of eviction. While admitting writ petition on 2-2-98 this Court directed that the petitioner shall not be evicted from the premises but made the order subject to the condition that the rent is paid by the petitioner regularly by the 15th day of the next month. The latter part of the order, referred to above, was apparently passed in view of the stand of the respondents that the petitioner was also in arrear of rent. Jt was in that context that this Court directed the parties to sit across the table so that the arrear amount is ascertained. While permitting the respondents to take steps for eviction in the event of non-compliance of direction in this regard and non-payment of the rent -- current or arrear, this Court never intended to confer jurisdiction, and it could not have done so, to evict the petitioner pursuant to the impugned order dated 2-12-97 without deciding the controversy as to whether it was valid order or not. It is to be kept in mind that even the counsel for the respondents found it difficult to sustain the said order dated 2 -12-97. In that view of the matter, I do not think it would be a proper construction of the order dated 2-2-98 to hold that the order permitted the respondents to evict the petitioner by using force without taking recourse to suit. Although, it is well settled, the words of judgment or order cannot be read as words of statute, nevertheless, in view of painstaking reliance placed on behalf of the respondents on the said order, I would observe that the words "to take steps for evicting the petitioner from the premises in question" cannot be interested in the manner suggested on their behalf. In any view, the said words were followed by the words "in accordance with law" which clearly means that in the event of non-compliance of the direction and non-payment of rent, the respondents could have instituted suit for eviction even during pendency of writ petition in this Court. In my opinion, it was also open to the respondents to bring the subsequent conduct of the petitioner relating to non-compliance of the order to the notice of this Court and seek appropriate direction; instead, it proceeded to get the petitioner evicted say use of force assuming that default in payment of rent or, to use the phrase 'acts of omission', give them an occasion to evict the petitioner from the premises. If this were so, it would be patently in the teeth of the provisions of Section 11 of the BBC Act which by reason of non obstante clause overrides anything contained in any contract or law to the contrary. In other words, in all cases of default in payment of rent with respect to building governed by the BBC Act, tenant-lessee cannot be evicted except in execution of a decree passed by the Court on the ground of default.