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10. We do not see any force in any of these contentions. The Bombay Rent Act was enacted originally as a temporary measure in order to protect the tenants from eviction from their premises and also from arbitrary enhancement of rent. The necessity for the control of rents by special legislation for properties located within the urban areas was felt during World War II. At that time not much by way of new construction for civil population was possible. A good proportion of private accommodation was requisitioned by the authorities for the war effort. In consequence, rents were beginning to shoot up. Landlords were trying to get rid of their existing tenants to get better rents. The legislation was undertaken primarily to save the tenants from harassment of unscrupulous landlords. To quote the words of Sarkaria J, Nagindas Ramdas v. Dalpatram Ichharam, : "The strain of the last World War, industrial Revolution, the large scale exodus of the working people to the urban areas and the social and political changes brought in their wake social problems of considerable magnitude and complexity and their concommitment evils. The country was faced with spiralling inflation, soaring cost of living, increasing urban population and scarcity of accommodation. Rack renting and large scale eviction of tenants under the guise of the ordinary law, exacerbated those conditions making the economic life of the community unstable and insecure. To tackle these problems and curb these evils the Legislatures of the States in India enacted "Rent Control Regulation".

11. The rent control laws are in force in the State for more than 60 years. As a result of these legislations a host of problems have cropped up. These problems have been discussed by various committees appointed by the Central Government and State Governments. The reports of such committees indicate that freezing of rentals at old historic levels, the excessive protection of tenancy rights and the extreme difficulties of recovering possession even for the owner's own use hit hard the house owners of modest means; rendered investment in housing for rental unattractive; inhibited the letting out of available accommodation and thus had aggravated the acute scarcity of accommodation for hire . It was felt that the laws were being often abused by the rich tenants against the poor or middle class landlords.

19. In R.K. Garg v. Union of India, the Supreme Court held that it is a rule of equal importance that laws relating to economic activities should be viewed with greater latitude than law touching civil rights, such as freedom of speech, religion etc. The Supreme Court observed that (SCC pp. 690-91 para 8):

"It has been said by no less a person than Holmes, J. that the legislature should be allowed some play in the joints, because it has to deal with complex problems which do not admit of solution through any doctrinaire or straightjacket formula and this is particularly true in case of legislation dealing with economic matters, where, having regard to the nature of the problems required to be dealt with greater play in the joints has to be allowed to the legislature. The court should feel more inclined to give judicial deference to legislative judgment in the field of economic regulation than in other areas where fundamental human rights are involved. Nowhere has this admonition been more felicitously expressed than in Morey v. Doud where Frakfurter, J said in his inimitable style :

The Court must always remember that "legislation is directed to practical problems, that the economic mechanism is highly sensitive and complex, that many problems are singular and contingent, that laws are not abstract proposition and do not relate to abstract units and are not to be measured by abstract symmetry"; "that exact wisdom and nice adaption of remedy are not always possible" and that "judgment is largely a prophecy based on meager and uninterpreted experience" Every legislation particularly in economic matters is essentially empiric and it is based on experimentation or what one may call trial and error method and therefore it cannot provide for all possible situations or anticipate all possible abuses. There may be crudities and inequities in complicated experimental economic legislation but on that account alone it cannot be struck down as invalid. The courts cannot, as pointed out by the United States Supreme Court in Secy, of Agriculture v. Central Reig Refining Co. be converted into tribunals for relief from such crudities and inequities. There may even be possibilities of abuse, but that too cannot of itself be a ground for invalidating the legislation, because it is not possible for any legislature to anticipate as if by some divine prescience, distortions and abuses of its legislation which may be made by those subject to its provisions and to provide against such distortions and abuses. Indeed, howsoever great may be the care bestowed on its framing, it is difficult to conceive of a legislation which is not capable of being abused by perverted human ingenuity. The court must therefore adjudge the constitutionality of such legislation by the generality of its provisions and not by its crudities or inequities or by the possibilities of abuses of any of its provisions. If any crudities, inequities or possibilities of abuse come to light, the legislature can always step in and enact suitable amendatory legislation. That is the essence of pragmatic approach which must guide and inspire the legislature in dealing with complex economic issues."