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We do not consider it necessary to refer to the various English cases and the other English authorities cited from the Bar. The English cases and the other authorities turn on the provisions of the English Rent Acts. The provisions of the English Rent Acts are not in pari materia with the provisions of the Act in question or the other Rent Acts prevailing in other States in India. The English Rent Acts which have come into existence from time to time were no doubt introduced for the benefit of the tenants. It may be noted that the term "statutory tenant" which is not to be found in the Act in question or in the other analogous Rent Acts in force in other States in India, is indeed a creature of the English Rent Act. English Rent Act 1977 which was enacted to consolidate the Rent Act 1968, parts III, IV and VIII of the Housing Finance Act, 1972, the Rent Act 1974, sections 7 to 10 of the Housing Rents and Subsidies Act 1975 and certain related enactments, with amendments to give effect to recommendation of the Law Commission, speaks of protected tenants and tenancies in S.1 and defines statutory tenant in S. 2, English Rent Act, 1977 is in the nature of a complete Code governing the rights and obligations of the landlord and the tenant and their relationship in respect of tenancies covered by the Act. As the provisions of the English Act are materially different from the provisions of the Act in question and other Rent Control Acts in force in other States in India, the decisions of the English Courts and the passages from the various authoritative books including the passages from Halsbury which are all concerned with English Rent Acts are not of any particular assistance in deciding the question involved in this appeal. As we have already noticed, the term 'statutory tenant' is used in English Rent Act and though this term is not be found in the Indian Acts, in the Judgments of this Court and also of the various High Courts in India, this term has often been used to denote a tenant whose contractual tenancy has been terminated but who has become entitled to continue to remain in possession by virtue of the protection afforded to him by the statutes in question, namely, the various Rent Control Acts, prevailing in different States of India. It is also important to note that notwithstanding the termination of the contractual tenancy by the Landlord, the tenant is afforded protection against eviction and is permitted to continue to remain in possession even after the termination of the contractual tenancy by the Act in question and invariably by all the Rent Acts in force in various States so long as an order or decree for evictions against the tenant on any of the grounds specified in such Acts on the basis of which an order or decree for eviction against the tenant can be passed, is not passed.
Both these cases, Anand Nivas and Jagdish Chander Chatterjee, proceed on the basis that a tenant whose tenancy has been terminated, described as statutory tenant, has no estate or interest in the premises but only a personal right to remain in occupation. It would seem as if there is a distinct category of tenants called statutory tenants having separate and fixed incidents of tenancy. The term 'statutory tenancy' is borrowed from the English Rent Acts. This may be a convenient expression for referring to a tenant whose tenancy has been terminated and who would be liable to be evicted but for the protecting statute, but courts in this country have sometimes borrowed along with the expression certain notions regarding such tenancy from the decisions of the English Courts. In our opinion it has to be ascertained how far these notions are reconcilable with the provisions of the statute under consideration in any particular case. The expression 'statutory tenancy' was used in England in several judgments under the Increase of Rent and Mortgage interest (War Restrictions) Act, 1915, to refer to a tenant protected under that Act, but the term got currency from the marginal note to section 15 of the Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restriction) Act, 1920. That section which provided inter alia that a tenant who by virtue of that Act retained possession of any dwelling house to which the Act applied, so long as he retained possession, must observe and would be entitled to the benefit of all the terms and conditions of the original contract of tenancy which were consistent with the provisions of the Act, carried the description in the margin 'conditions of statutory tenancy'. Since then the term has been used in England to describe a tenant protected under the subsequent statutes until Section 49(1) of the Housing Repairs and Rent Act, 1954 for the first time define 'statutory tenant' and 'statutory tenancy'. 'Statutory Tenant' was defined as a tenant 'who retains possession by virtue of the Rent Acts and not as being entitled to a tenancy' and it was added, 'statutory tenancy' shall be construed accordingly.' This definition of 'statutory tenancy' has been incorporated in the Rent Acts of 1957 and 1965. In England 'statutory tenancy' does not appear to have had any clear and fixed incidents; the concept was developed over the years from the provisions of the successive Rent Restrictions Act which did not contain a clear indication as to the character of such tenancy. That a statutory tenant is entitled to the benefit of the terms and conditions of the original contract of tenancy so far as they were consistent with the provisions of the statute did not as Scrutton L.J. observed in Roe v. Russell(1) 'help very much when one came to the practical facts of life', according to him 'citizens are entitled to complain that their legislators did not address their minds to the probable events that might happen in cases of statutory tenancy, and consider how the legal interest they were granting was affected by those probable events'. He added, '........ it is pretty evident that the Legislature never considered as a whole the effect on the statutory tenancy of such ordinary incidents as death, bankruptcy, voluntary assignment, either inter vivos or by will, a total or partial sub-letting; but from time to time put into one of the series of Acts a provision as to one of the incidents without considering how it fitted in with the general nature of the tenancy which those incidents might affect.' On the provisions which gave no clear and comprehensive idea of the nature of statutory tenancy, the courts in England had been slowly 'trying to frame a consistent theory (2)' making bricks with very insufficient statutory straw' (3) Evershed M.R. in Boyer v. Warbey (4) said: 'The character of the statutory tenancy, I have already said, is a very special one. It has earned many epithets, including 'monstrum horrendum' and perhaps it has never been fully thought out by Parliament'. Courts in England have held that a statutory tenant has no estate or property in the premises he occupies because he retains possession by virtue of the Rent Acts and not as being entitled to a tenancy; it has been said that he has only a personal right to remain in occupation, the statutory right of 'irremovability', and nothing more.
Section 2(i) of the Madhya Pradesh Accommodation Control Act 1961 defines 'tenant' to mean, unless the context otherwise requires:
'a person by whom or on whose account or behalf the rent of any accommodation is, or, but for a contract express or implied would be payable for any accommodation and includes any person occupying the accommodation as a sub-tenant and also any person continuing in possession after the termination of his tenancy whether before or after the commencement of this Act; but shall not include any person against whom any order or decree for eviction has been made'.

Let us now analyse the provisions of the Delhi Act to find out whether there is anything in the other provisions to indicate that the tenant as defined in S. 2(1)(ii) will stand on any different footing from a contractual tenant in the matter of enjoyment of the protection and benefits sought to be conferred on a tenant by the Act.

S. 2(e) defines landlord and clearly indicates that the landlord continues to be the landlord for the purpose of the Act even after termination of the contractual tenancy. S. 2(1) which defines `tenant' has been set out earlier in its entirety. We shall consider the true effect of S. 2(1)(iii) on which as earlier noted, reliance has been placed by the learned counsel of the landlords, when we deal with the argument which has been advanced on the basis of this subsection. Section 3 mentions premises which are outside the purview of this Act and has no bearing on the question involved. Chapter II of the Act consists of Sections 4 to 13 and makes provision regarding rent. These sections indicate that they are applicable to tenants as defined in S. 2(1) including 2(1)(iii). Chapter III consists of sections 14 to 25 of the Act and deals with eviction and control of eviction of tenants. S. 14 starts as follows :-