Subhankar Samaddar vs Debasish Ghosh & Ors
2022 Latest Caselaw 1941 Cal

11.04.2022 Item No.20 Court No.18 AJ.

C.O. 2754 of 2019

Subhankar Samaddar

-Vs-

Debasish Ghosh & Ors.

Mr. Aril Ali.

....for the petitioner.

Mr. Kaushik Dey.

.....for the opposite parties.

The petitioner is the defendant of the

ejectment suit being Ejectment Suit No. 225 of 2002,

pending before the learned Judge, 5th Bench of the

Presidency Small Causes Court at Calcutta.

The petitioner in terms of Section 7(1) of the

West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997 was

depositing the current rent in the suit but failed to

deposit the current rent for the period from October,

2017 to April, 2018.

The learned Trial Judge by the order

impugned being order no. 71 dated December 06,

2018 has dismissed an application filed by the

petitioner for acceptance of the current rent for the

said period upon condonation of delay holding that

there is no scope to enlarge the time fixed under

Section 7(1)(c) of the said Act of 1997 for deposit of the

admitted current rent in the suit.

The petitioner in the said application has

alleged that although he had handed over the rent to

his erstwhile landlord for depositing the same within

the time but the said learned advocate failed to deposit

it.

A co-ordinate Bench of this Court by an order

dated January 21, 2019 passed in C.O. 175 of 2017

(THE CALCUTTA GUJARATI EDUCATION SOCIETY -

VS- SRI AJIT NARAYAN KAPOOR) and in C.O. 689 of

2019 (DR. BINOD KUMAR SINGH -VS- MAYA

BANERJEE & ORS.) formulated the following question

of law for determination by a suitable Bench:-

"Does the view of the Division Bench of this court that section 5 of the Limitation Act can be applied to condone delay in making applications under sub-sections (1) and (2) of section 7 of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997, as held in the Subrata Mukherjee case (supra), survive in view of the decisions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the Nasiruddin case (supra), the Ashoke Kumar Mishra case (supra), Manjushree Chakraborty case (supra)."

The Hon'ble Division Bench of this Court by

the judgment and order dated October 04, 2021 has

answered the said question as follows :-

"We answer the question referred to say that Limitation Act, 1963 has no application in respect of an appliction by a tenant, made under section 7 for determination of arrears of disputed rent."

In view of the aforesaid answer to the

reference the order impugned does not call for any

interference.

C.O. 2754 of 2019 is dismissed without any

order as to costs.

Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if

applied for, be supplied to the parties subject to

compliance with all requisite formalities.

(Biswajit Basu, J.)