P L D 1965 (W (PLP)

SAJJAD AHMAD, J.‑The facts leading up to this certified Letters Patent Appeal are these : The respondent, Haji Muhammad Aslam, brought a petition for ejectment of the appellant, Jamal Din, under section 13 of the West Pakistan Urban Rent Restriction Ordinance (VI of 1959) (hereinafter referred to as the Ordinance) on the ground that the appellant, who was his tenant, had made a default in the payment of rent. The appellant pleaded that he had been duly paying the rent and was not in arrears and offered that if the landlord respondent were to take an oath on the Holy Qur'an that the rent had not been paid, he would vacate the house and also pay the amount of rent under claim. Later, on the 29th of March 1961, the parties affirmed before the Rent Controller that they would be bound by the statement of one Muhammad Hayat on the Holy Qur'an on the point in dispute. In pursuance of this agreement, the oath was administered to Muhammad Hayat who deposed that the appellant had been regularly paying the rent to the respondent. The Rent Controller thereupon directed the appellant to make a deposit of Rs. 65 only, representing the rent for the period from the date of the application for ejectment filed by the respondent to the date of taking the oath by Muhammad Hayat. A further direction was made that the appellant shall pay the future rent before the 5th of each succeeding month. The respondent appealed against this order to the learned District fudge, Lahore, as an appellate authority under section 15 of the Ordinance. The main question contested in the appeal was that the learned Rent Controller not being a "Court" had acted illegally in administering oath to Muhammad Hayat even though it was in pursuance of an agreement between the parties and that his decision on that basis was without jurisdiction. The contention did not prevail with the learned District Judge who dismissed the appeal. On second appeal to the High Court the learned Single Judge accepted the appeal of the respondent and held that the Rent Controller was not a "Court" and, therefore, the proceedings taken by him "under the Oaths Act" lacked legal sanction.

2. The learned counsel for the parties have canvassed before us the same question: Whether the Rent Controller, acting under the Ordinance, is a Court or not? The learned counsel for the respondent has argued that the Rent Controller does not possess all the attributes of a civil Court and' that under section 8 of the Oaths Act it is only a "Court" that can administer an oath to a party or to a witness which can bind the parties. He referred to sections 16 and 17 of the Ordinance, the first stating that the Controller or the appellate authority appointed under the Ordinance has the same powers of summon ing and enforcing the attendance of witnesses and compelling the production of evidence as are vested in a Court under the Code of Civil Procedure, and the second laying down that an order passed by the Controller under section 10 or 13 of the Ordinance and every order passed in appeal under section 15 shall be executed by a civil Court having jurisdiction in the area as if it were a decree of that Court. These provisions were referred to by the learned counsel to emphasise that if the Tribunal of a Rent Controller were by itself a Court, there would have been no need to confer the powers on it as contained in section 16 of the Ordinance, nor would it` have been necessary to make provision for the execution of the ‑‑orders of the Rent Controllers by the civil Courts as if they‑: Never decrees of the civil Courts. In essence, the argument is that a Rent Controller is not a civil Court but has merely been entrusted with certain functions with similar powers as conferred by the Ordinance which are analogous to those performed by judicial officers. He is thus not a Court but a persona designata for the specific ‑ purpose of performing functions of a judicial character. The learned Single Judge in Chambers in upholding the view that the Rent Controller is not a Court, has relied on a Full Bench judgment of the Lahore High Court, reported as the Corporation of the City of Lahore v. Mst. Fahmida Begum (P L D 1952 Lah. 258). That was a case under the Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act (VI of 1947) wherein the question for con sideration before their Lordships was whether an order passed by the Rent Controller under that Act was amenable to revision by the High Court under section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure. It was held that the "preponderating balance of authority is in favour of the proposition that special tribunals created under circumstances analogous to those obtaining under the Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act (VI of 1947) are not Courts and in any case are not Courts subordinate to the High Court." The learned District Judge in his appellate judgment has also referred to this authority and has distinguished it by the circumstance that whereas under the Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1947, any person could be appointed as a Rent Controller and any officer could be invested with powers of an appellate authority for the purposes of that Act, under the Ordinance of 1959 a person appointed by the Provincial Govern ment to perform the functions of a Controller has to be a judicial officer, and similarly a' District Judge alone can be invested with the powers of an appellate authority. This distinction, according to him, constitutes the Rent Controllers and the appellate authorities under the Ordinance as Courts.

3. We consider that it is not at all necessary in the present case to decide the question whether a Rent Controller is a Court stricto senso with all the attributes of a Court qua its' subordination to the High Court as considered in the Full Bench ruling cited above. The point at issue in the matter before us is whether as a Court or as a persona designata the Rent Controller was authorised to administer the oath to Muhammad Hayat or not, and whether the proceedings taken by him in pursuance of that action were legal. The word "Court" is not defined in the Ordinance nor in the Oaths Act, but its definition 'is given in section 3 of the Evidence Act, which reads:‑ "Court, includes all Judges and Magistrates and all persons except arbitrators, legally authorised to take evidence." Section 4 of the Oaths Act (X of 1873), dealing with the authority to administer oaths and affirmations may here be referred to. It reads:‑ "The following Courts and persons are authorised to adminis ter, by themselves, or by an officer empowered by them in this behalf, oaths and affirmations in discharge of the duties or in exercise of the powers imposed or conferred upon them respec tively by law:‑ (a) all Courts and persons having by law or consent of parties authority to, receive evidence; . . . . . . . . . . . It will be noticed that 'as regards the powers to administer oath and affirmation as contemplated by this section, all persons having by law or consent of parties authority to receive evidence are also mentioned in addition to all Courts as possessing the authority to administer the oath. This would include the arbitrators who are omitted from the definition of "Court" as contained in the Evidence Act, cited above. The learned counsel for the respondent laid stress on the fact that section 8 of the Oaths Act mentions the word "Court" only as having the power to tender oaths to parties and witnesses and that all other persons, even though they have the authority to receive evidence, are therefore excluded. We are unable to accept this contention. It is a well‑settled rule of construction that the provisions contained in an Act bearing on the same subject‑matter should be so interpreted a, to yield a harmonious result, avoiding a conflict and a contradiction, It seems to us anomalous to hold that whereas section 4 of the Oaths Act gives the authority to all Courts and persons having by law or consent of parties authority to receive evidence to administer oaths, section 8 confines that authority merely to civil Courts set up under the Code of Civil Procedure to tender such oaths, depriving all the other persons of this authority, although they have the powers to receive evidence and to administer justice and are thus competent to administer oaths under section 4 of the Oaths Act. We consider that the Legislature has employed the word "Court" in section 8 of the Oaths Act in a wide and comprehensive sense‑in the enlarged sense of that word as envisaged in section 4 of the Oaths Act, and defined in section 3 of the Evidence Act including all Courts and persons having the authority to receive evidence. It was, therefore, redundant to add the words "other persons" authorised to receive evidence" in section 8, as all such persons must be deemed to be included in the word "Court" as employed in that section. The dictionary meaning of the word "Court" is "a place where justice is administered." (See Osborn's Law Dictionary, Second Edition). It cannot' be doubted that the Rent Controller does administer justice. He has also the legal powers to receive evidence. Therefore, in the context o section 8 of the Oaths Act, the word "Court" cannot be limited to its technical connotation of a civil Court set up under the C. P. Code, particularly as this word has not been defined either in the Ordinance or in the Oaths Act. Therefore, in our view, the proceedings taken by the Rent Controller under the Oaths Act were perfectly valid and fell within his jurisdiction as a Court or as an officer authorised to receive evidence under the Oaths Act, in the discharge of his duties under the Ordinance. The point on which the oath was administered to Muhammad Hayat by agreement between the parties was thus concluded by his oath and cannot be re‑opened again. The result is that we set aside the order of the learned Single Judge in Chambers and restore that of the Rent Controller, as affirmed by the learned District Judge. The case is remanded to the learned Rent Controller for further proceedings. Parties are directed to appear before him on the 30th of January 1965. K. B. A. Appeal accepted.