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"5. Inheritability of tenancy.--(1) In the event of death of a tenant, the right of tenancy shall devolve for a period of five years from the date of his death to his successors in the following order, namely.-
(a) spouse;
(b) son or daughter or where there are both son and daughter, both of them;
(c) parents;
(d) daughter-in-law, being the widow of his predeceased son:
Provided that the successor has ordinarily been living or carrying on business in the premises with the deceased tenant as a member of his family upto the date of his death and was dependent on the deceased tenant:
Provided further that a right to tenancy shall not devolve upon a successor in case such successor or his spouse or any of his dependent son or daughter is owning or occupying a premises in the local area in relation to the premises let.
(2) If a person, being a successor mentioned in Sub-section (1), was ordinarily living in or carrying on business in the premises with the deceased tenant but was not dependent on him on the date of his death, or he or his spouse or any of his dependent son or daughter is owning or occupying a premises in the local area in relation to the premises let to which this Act applies, such successor shall acquire a right to continue in possession as a tenant for a limited period of one year from the date of death of the tenant; and, on the expiry of that period, or on his death, whichever is earlier, the right of such successor to continue in possession of the premises shall become extinguished.
" 'Tenant' means any person by whom or on whose account or behalf the rent of any premises, is or but for a special contract would be, payable, and includes.-
(i) a Sub-tenant;
(ii) any person continuing in possession after the termination of his tenancy, but does not include any person to whom a licence as defined in Section 52 of the Indian Easements Act, 1882 (Central Act 5 of 1882) has been granted".

The definition clearly eschews from its ambit the legal representatives of the deceased tenant. A legal representative of the deceased person would not be a person by whom or on whose account or behalf the rent of any premises is payable because there is no privity of contract of tenancy between the landlord and the legal representatives of tenant. As the privity of contract was only between the landlord and the original tenant, any rent paid by the legal representatives of the deceased after the demise of the original tenant would be on account of the original tenant or on his behalf and not on their own behalf. If the meaning assigned to a tenant under the old Act has to be extended to persons who inherited the tenancy before the coming into force of the Act, then Section 5 would be rendered redundant and meaningless for, in that event Section 5 could be enforced only five years after the death of every one of the legal representatives of the original tenant because if they are all to be treated as tenants under the new Act, the tenancy would devolve in favour of all their successors. That could not have been the intention of the Legislature while narrowing down the meaning given to the term "tenant". The intention becomes clear and all the more obvious if we notice that the Legislature after giving a truncated meaning to the term, 'tenant' than what was provided in the repealed Act, has followed it up by introducing Section 5 which deals with the right of the successors on the death of the tenant and Section 5 clearly states who the successors are. The persons named in Section 5 as successors covers the spouse, children, parents and daughter-in-law being the widow of his predeceased son. Therefore, the respondents who could claim to be ten-