TMI Blog1960 (2) TMI 67X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... d he may be dispossessed therefrom, that is why he would require the shop in the present proceedings for his personal use and that respondent 1 wanted to reconstruct the shop for which necessary sanction had been obtained by him from the Municipal Committee of Gurgaon and the plan prepared in that behalf had been duly approved. This claim was resisted by the appellant who disputed the correctness and the validity of all the pleas taken by respondent 1. The Rent Controller upheld the contentions of the appellant and rejected all the pleas made by respondent 1. In regard to the plea that the respondent wanted to reconstruct the shop the Rent Controller found that the evidence adduced by respondent 1 in support of the said plea had been created as a camouflage and that the said plea was a false pretext to obtain the eviction of the appellant. On these findings the application made by respondent 1 for evicting the appellant was dismissed. 2. Respondent 1 then appealed to the District Court against the said decision. His appeal, however, failed since the appellate court confirmed all the findings made by the Rent Controller. In respect of the last plea raised by respondent 1 about th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ed land, if he requires it to carry out any building work at the instance of the Government or Local Authority or any Improvement Trust under some improvement or development scheme or it has become unsafe or unfit for human habitation. One of the questions which we have to consider in this appeal is whether this amended provision applies to the present proceedings. 5. The other relevant section is s. 15, sub-s. (4). Under s. 15, sub-s. (4) as it stood on the date when the application was filed provided that the decision of the appellate authority, and subject only to such decision, an order of the Controller shall be final and shall not be liable to be called in question in any court of law whether in a suit or any other proceeding by way of appeal or revision. This has been subsequently amended by deleting the last clause in sub-s. (4) and substituting in its place the words except as provided in sub-s. (5) of this section. Sub-s. (5) which has been added reads thus : The High Court may, at any time, on the application of any aggrieved party or on its own motion, call for and examine the records relating to any order passed or proceedings taken under this Act for the ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ot disposed of until March 20, 1952, on which date the Additional Custodian passed an order confirming the exchange. Meanwhile the relevant provisions of the law had been amended and ultimately Central Act XXXI of 1950 was passed which, among other things, conferred revisional powers on the Custodian-General by s. 27. In exercise of these revisional powers the Custodian General after hearing the parties set aside the order of confirmation and directed that the matter should be reconsidered by the Custodian. The appellant urged before this Court that the order of confirmation originally passed was not open to revision on the ground that at the date when she filed the application in 1948 she got a vested right to have it determined under s. 5-A with the attribute of finality and conclusiveness under s. 5-B attaching such determination. Her argument was that the subsequent repeal and re-enactment of the said provisions cannot affect such a right in view of s. 6 of the General Clauses Act and s. 58(3) of Act XXXI of 1950. This contention was rejected and the revisional order impugned by the appellant was confirmed. It is true that the decision of this court was founded on two grounds. ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ntion that the amended provision of s. 13(3)(iii) applies. There is no doubt that if this amended provision applied to the present case respondent 1 would not be entitled to obtain an order of ejectment. It is plain that by the amendment Legislature has imposed rigorous limitations on a landlord's right to recover possession in the case of any building or rented land. The question is whether this can be said to be retrospective in operation. It is clear that the amendment made is not in relation to any procedure and cannot be characterised as procedural. It is in regard to a matter of substantive law since it affects the substantive rights of the landlord. It may be conceded that the Act is intended to provide relief to the tenants and in that sense is a beneficial measure and as such its provision should be liberally construed; but this principle would not be material or even relevant in deciding the question as to whether the new provision is retrospective or not. It is well-settled that where an amendment affects vested rights the amendment would operate prospectively unless it expressly made retrospective or its retrospective operation follows as a matter of necessary ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... e authority was that the claim made by respondent 1 that he required the shop for the purpose of reconstruction was not bona fide. The High Court has reversed this conclusion and Mr. Bindra challenges the correctness or the propriety of the said conclusion. The revisional power conferred upon the High Court under s. 15(5) is wider than that conferred by s. 115 of the Code Civil Procedure. Under s. 15(5) the High Court has jurisdiction to examine the legality or propriety of the order under revision and that would clearly justify the examination of the propriety or the legality of the finding made by the authorities in the present case about the requirement of the landlord under s. 13(3)(a)(iii). The High Court no doubt has accepted the appellant's argument that the requirement in question must be bona fide but it has observed that there was no legal evidence on which it could be said that the landlord's requirement was not bona fide. Indeed it is obvious that the tests applied both by the Rent Controller and the appellate authority in dealing with the question were based on the assumption that the amended provision of s. 13(3)(a)(iii) applied to the present proceeding ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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