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P.K. Chatterjee, G. S. Chatterjee, and Sukumar Basu, for the Advocate General for the State of West Bengal. Sukumar Ghose, for the appellants. (In C.A. No. 1304/73). D. N. Mukherjee, for the respondents (in C.A. No. 1304/73). The judgment of M. H. Beg and V. R. Krishna Iyer, JJ was delivered by Krishna Iyer, J. P. K. Goswami, J. gave a separate Opinion.

KRISHNA IYER, J.-Calcutta or Cochin, for the urban people of India, the shocking scarcity of a roof to rest one's tired bones is an

-L346SupCI/75 unhappy problem of social justice that compels control of rent. and eviction laws. In the case now before us, attacking the constitutionality of legislation handcuffing the landlord-proprietariat's right of eviction, the law has to be tested not merely by the cold print of Art. 19(1)(f) but also by the public concern of Art. 19(5) and the, compassionate animus of Art. 39, Parts III and IV of the Constitution together constitute a complex of promises the nation has to keep and the legislation challenged before us is in partial fulfilment of this tryst with the people. These observations become necessary in limine since counsel for the respondents dismissed the concept of social justice as extraneous to an insightful understanding of the section invalidated by the High Court, while we think that judicial conscience is not a mere matter of citations of precedents but of activist appraisal of social tears to wipe out which the State is obligated under the Constitution. The two appeals before us, raising substantially identical points, have been heard together and are being disposed of by a common judgment. Both of them stem from a decision of the Calcutta High Court reported as Sailendra Nath v. S. E. Dutt(1). One of the decisions under appeal (C.A. 2063 of 1973) was rendered by a Single Judge of the High Court following a Division Bench ruling of the same Court (i.e., the one reported as Sailendra Nath v. S. E. Dull) since he was obviously bound by it.

he latter for the misfortune. Courts cannot help cover up the Executive's drowsy default or half-hearted help in making the socioconomic conspectus available. The West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1956 (Act XII of 956) (for short, referred to as the basic Act) clamped down several restrictions on ejectment of tenants by landlords from buildings, the policy behind it being alleviation of the lot of the weaker segment of the urban community without their own homes in the context of the scarcity of accommodation and the colossal sociceconomic upheaval which would follow if unbridled evictions were allowed. The temptation to evict or rack-rent under scarcity conditions is an irresistible evil in our economic order and it is an all India phenomenon that the social conscience of the State Legislatures has responded to this large scale threat by effective control measures. Indeed, for decades now, every State in India has on, the statute book rent control law and, what is more pertinent to the present case, tactics of circumvention have compelled the enactment of additional safeguards from time to time by vigilant statutory measures. West Bengal, a populous State, with an overcrowded city choked by the largest human congregation in the country, enacted the basic Act whereby the plenary right of landlords to recover possession of their buildings was shackled in many ways. Industrial growth and other factors induced demographic congestion such as was witnessed in the urban areas of that State. Consequently, the legislature, was faced with a fresh danger in the shape of ingenious transfers of ownership of buildings by indigenous but indigent landlords and the transferees resorting to eviction on a large scale equipped as they were with better financial muscles and motivated as they were by hope of speculative returns from their investments oil eviction. Presumably, the phenomenal increase of the menance of eviction by the new species of transferee-owners of building was countered by a legislative measure-the West Bengal Premises Tenancy (Second Amendment) Act, 1969 (Act XXXIV of 1959) (hereinafter referred to as the amendment Act). By this legislation the new class of transferee landlords was subject to a stringent trammel viz.. that they should not sue for eviction within three years of the date of transfer (We are not immediately concerned here with certain other changes effected by the Amendment Act). The social objective and the practical effect of this fetter will be con Court has upheldthis provision which is now contained in s. 13(3A) sidered briefly the little later. Suffice it to say at this stage the High of the basic Act. However , while holding the provision substantial intra vires the Court has invalidated the giving effect to the provision to pending suits and appeals. Such limited retrospectivity had been incorporated by s. 13 of the amending Act and, if the law were only prospective the landlords in the two cases who had initiated their litigation several years prior to the enactment of the Amendment Act would be free from the three year interdict and the other extra restrictions. Once the embargo is out of their way, the decree-, for eviction they have secured must stand. On tile contrary, if the restriction on eviction by the transferee landlords were to operate on pending litigation the appellants-tenants are immune to eviction in the current proceedings as they now stand. Thus the short constitutional issue is as to whether s. 13(3A) of the basic Act to the extent it applies to pending litigation on the strength of s. 13 of the Amending Act is violative of Arts. 14 and 19(1)(f) of the Constitution, weapons relied upon for the attack before the High Court, and here. We will proceed to consider the constitutional vulnerability of this limb of the protective legislation. By way of anticipating our conclusion we may also pose the problem whether ss. 1 3 and 4 of the Amendment Act can be validly implemented vis-a-vis pending actions in any other just manner which will preserve the additional protection, minimise multiplicity of litigation and make law and justice bedfellows in the &hanged statutory circumstances. Some background observations to appreciate the contest in court are necessary. No social realist will deny the frightful dimensions of the problem of homeless families and precarious tenancies; and if the Directive Principles of State Policy are not to be dismissed by the masses as a 'teasing illusion and promise of unreality', curtailment, in public interest, of such extreme rights of the landlord as are 'red in tooth and claw' is a constitutional compulsion. The Court, informed by this sore economic situation and reinforced by the initial presumption of constitutionality, hesitates to strike a socially beneficial statute dead, leading to escalation of the mischief to suppress which the House legislated-unless, of course, a plain breach of the fundamental right of the citizen is manifest. The perspective of the amending Act is sketched by the High Court in lurid language :

"The scarcity of accommodation is a burning problem, not only of the State of West Bengal but of the other States as well. Keeping pace with the needs of the gradually swelling population of West Bengal, new buildings have not been built owing to abnormal high price of land and materials. A large majority of the people of West Bengal live in those premises at the mercy of the landlords."

The explosive import of neglecting such a distressing urban development reasonably obliges the State to impose drastic restrictions on landlords' right to property. And when circumvention of wholesome legal inhibitions are practised on a large scale the new challenge is met by clothing the law with more effective amount and that is the rationale of the Amendment Act. The learned Judges rightly refer to the legislative proceedings, notorious common knowledge and other relevant factors properly brought to their ken. The 'sound-proof theory' of ignoring voices from parliamentary debates, once sanctified by British tradition, has been replaced by the more legally realistic and socially responsible canon of listening to the legislative authors when their artifact is being interpreted We agree with the High Court when it observes :

"Proceedings of legislature can be referred to for the limited purpose of ascertaining the conditions, prevailing at or about the time of the enactment in question, which actuated the sponsor of the bill to introduce the same and the extent and urgency of the evil, sought to be remedied. In the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy (Second Amendment) Bill, 1969, it is stated that it has been consider necessary that some more reliefs should- be given to the tenants against eviction. It is found from the speech of the Minister at the time of introducing the Bill in the legislature, that the problems of tenants are many : there are landlords of different kinds : there is one class-original owners who are the old inhabitants of the city : these owner-landlords are Dot affluent: they solely depend upon the rents received from the tenants. It has been ascertained from experience that two of the, grounds of eviction, namely, of the landlords and for the purpose of building and rebuilding, have been misused by the landlords. In the city of Calcutta and other towns, there are millions of tenants who are left at the mercy of the landlords. In this background and after taking into account similar provisions in other States, it has been decided that some restrictions ought to have been imposed upon transferee-landlords prohibiting them from bringing ejectment suits against the tenants within three years from their purchase. On the above two grounds and for that purpose, the said classification has been made."