P L D 1960 (W (PLP)

This II appeal is against the judgment of the District Judge, Sukkur, whereby he allowed the appeal against the order of the First Class Sub‑Judge and Rent Controller Sukkur, who had fixed the rent of the premises in question at the rate of Rs. 150 per month. The premises are situated in the brothel area of Sukkur and had been let out to the appellants at a rent of Rs. 65 per month including the electric charges, some years ago the occupants who are the appellants before me approached the Rent Controller for fixation of fair rent and the Rent Controller by his order dated 30‑11‑56 fixed the fair rent at Rs. 25 per month plus Rs. 15 as electric charges and Rs. 2‑8‑0 as house tax. The land ladies, who are now appellants before me, went in appeal against the order of the Rent Controller but the appellate authority con firmed that order and dismissed the appeal by his order dated ' 13‑4‑

57. Thereafter, the occupants sent the rent so fixed by the Rent Controller by money‑order but the land ladies refused to accept it. On 15‑3‑58 the land ladies made an application asking for the ejectment of the occupants on the ground that the premises were needed by them for use in good faith and they made a separate application for the fixation of fair rent in the alternative. The learned First Class Sub‑Judge and Rent Controller, Sukkur rejected the prayer of the land ladies in so far as the relief of ejectment was concerned, but refixed the rent at Rs. 150 per month. It was against this order that an appeal was preferred to the District Judge who set aside the order of the Rent Controller and allowed the appeal as stated above. The land ladies have now come up in second appeal. It appears to me that the learned Rent Controller had dealt with the matter in a most extraordinary manner, which necessitated the making of adverse observation by the learned District Judge, which I must say, are clearly apt. The only reason why the learned Rent Controller who proceeded to fix this rent inspite of the fact that the matter had been concluded by the previous order of the then Rent Controller which had been upheld in appeal, was according to the learned Rent Controller that the previous Rent Controller had not taken into consideration certain factors in determining the rent. This is what he said under Issue No. 2 :‑ "So far this issue is concerned, it is crystal clear that the parties had not fixed rent of the house in question between themselves. The Controller had fixed the rent at a rate of Rs. 25 per month of the house in question without taking into consideration all the necessary factors in determining the rent. He took into consideration only the house tax while fixing the rent. It is strange to note as to why all the other necessary factors were not considered in fixing the fair rent. So when the applicants have applied to me for the fixation of fair rent then definitely I will be acting within my powers in fixing the monthly rent of the house in question by taking into consider ation all the factors necessary in determining the fair rent. Definitely I will be acting within my powers if I ask the opponents to pay the rent at the rate of the fair rent fixed by me for the months for which they had not paid the rent or for the months for which the applicants in protest had not accepted the rent of Rs. 25 p.m. from the opponents. It appears that as the rent fixed was very low the applicants had not accepted the rent. It is admitted by both the parties that rent for 31 months is due from the opponents. So far second point of this issue is concerned I will answer it while discussing the issue No.

5. The least that can be said about this part of the order of the learned Rent Controller is that he had not taken the trouble of comprehending the provisions of the Act under which he was purporting to act. It should have been quite clear to him that an order once passed by the Rent Controller subject to any appeal or revision as the case may be, becomes final and it is not for another Rent Controller to sit in appeal against an order passed by his predecessor, and this is what precisely the learned Rent A Controller had done. It was because of this that the learned District Judge was constrained to say that the learned Rent Controller had lost his judicial balance. Mr. Nasiruddin, the learned counsel for the appellants, contended that if the first order of the Rent Controller was vitiated because the Rent Controller had not taken into account certain provisions of the Act with regard to determining the proper amount of rent then that order was a nullity and the successor Rent Controller would therefore have jurisdiction to fix the rent himself ignoring the previous order. In the alternative he submitted that since this matter is now before this Court, the Court should examine the validity of the first order of the Rent Controller. I cannot accept either of these contentions. The Rent Controller who fixed the rent in the first instance had jurisdiction to do so, and even assuming as alleged that he did not take into consideration certain matters ; it is impossible to say that that order could be treated as a nullity. The only remedy which the land ladies had was to get declaration in proper proceedings, to the effect that the order of the Rent Controller was. either without jurisdiction or bad for other reasons recognized in such cases. This was not done and it is quite clear to me that the order of the Rent Controller passed in the previous case had become final. It would of course, be always open to the land ladies to seek re‑fixation of rent upon fresh ground ; for example, improvement in the property. But that is not the same thing as saying that a successor in office of the previous Rent Controller could fix fresh rent upon the ground that his predecessor had committed certain error. If this was allowed to be done it would lead to a chaos and there would be no finality of the order passed in such proceedings. I, therefore, see no force in this appeal and dismiss it summarily. A. H. Appeal dismissed.