LexP. J. IRANI versus THE STATE OF MADRAS
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2 s.c.R. SUPREME COURT REPORTS 169 is limited to suits filed after the Act comes into force· z96z in a particular area cannot be accepted. The conclu- c·h 1 1,, . . , . b d .J a 1 JflO)taj s10n must follow that the present smt cu.nnot e e- 1,·uvnji 011 Mills creed in favour of the respondent. The decisions of & Giuniug Facto>y the High Court and the Court of First Instance u,re v. thus erroneous, and must be set aside. Subbasl• CJiandrn In the result, the appeal is allowed, and the two Yograj Sinha preliminary Issues are answered in favonr of the Hidayatullah J. appellants. Under the orders of this Court, the judg- ment of the Civil Judge was stayed. The suit will now be decided in conformity with our judgment. The respondent shall pay the costs of this Court and of the High Court. Appeal allowed. P. J. IRANI v. THE STATE OF MADRAS (B. P. SINHA, c. J., s. K. DAS, A. K. SARKAR, N. RAJAGOPALA AYYANGAR and J. R. MUDHOLKAR, JJ.) Rent Control-Restrictions on evictio'tl--Statute empJwering Government to exemp# any premises from restrictions -C onstitutiona~ lily-Order exempting premises-Validity-When can be challen- ged-Practice, whether respondent can raise question decided against him-Madras Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, r949 (Mad. XXV of r949), s. r3-Constitulion of India, Art. r4. One Chad obtained a lease of a cinema house which \\'as to expire in l\fci.y i942. In the ml::antime litigation ensuerl between the owners of the cinema house, and the High Court appointed receivers to administer the property. In 1940 one I offered to take a lease of the cinema house for zr years. The High Court offered C the option of taking the lease for 21 years but C was willing to take it only for 7 years upto May 1947. Thereupon the High Court ordered that a lease be given to C upto May 1947, and thereafter the lease be given to I upto May 196r. In accordance with this order t11e receivers executed t\.VO leases, one in favour of C and a reversionary lease in favour of!. Btfore the lease in favour of C expired the Madras (Lease & Rent Control) Act, 1946, came into force which protected tenants in 2l April 21. 170 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1962) I96r possession from eviction even after the expiry of their leases. This Act was replaced by the Madras Buildings (Lease & Rent P. J. hani Control) Act, r949, which contained similar provisions. Sec· v. tion r3 of the r949 Act empowered the State Government to State of Madras "exempt any building or class of buildings from all or any of the provisions of this Act." On the application of I the Govern- ment passed an order on June 4, r952, under s. 13 exempting the cinema house from all the provisions of the Act. Subsequently, the reasons for making the order were given by the Govern- ment to be: (i) Chad deliberately, though he had been offered a lease for 21 years by the High Court, taken a lease for 7 years and he was seeking to take advantage of the Act after the \ expiry of bis lease, (ii) C was an absentee lessee and bad several other business and (iii) C had already been in possession for - 5 years more than he was legitimately entitled to be. C filed a writ petition before the High Court for quashing the order on the grounds that s. r3 of the Act vested in the Government an unguided and uncontrolled discretion and violated Art. r4 of the Constitution and that the order deprived C of the equal protec- tion of the beneficial provisions of the Act. The High Court held that s. r3 was not unconstitutional but that the order of the Government was ultra vires. I appealed to the Supreme Court. At the bearing C sought to challenge the validity of s. r3 also. Held, that s. r3 of the Act did not violate Art. r4 and was not unconstitutional. Enough guidance was afforded by the preamble and the operative provisions of the Act for the exer- cise of the discretionary power vested in the Government. The power under s. 13 was to be exercised in cases where the protec- tion given by the Act caused great hardship to the landlord or was the subject of abuse by the tenant. Ram Krishna Dalmia v. Sri Justice Tendolkar, [r959] S.C.R. 279 and Sardar Inder Singh v. State of Rajasthan, [r957] S.C.R. 605, followed. H dd, (per Sinha, C.J., Ayyangar and Mudholkar, JJ.), that the order passed by the Government under s. r3 was ultra vires and void. An order made under s. r3 was subject to judicial review on the grounds th
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