Summary
The Supreme Court set aside an eviction decree passed as a judgment on admission, holding that a son's deposition in another case that the tenancy stood in his late mother's name was not an unequivocal admission under Order XII Rule 6 CPC, and that the children who jointly inherited the tenancy in 1970 under the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1956 did not lose it under the five-year limit in Section 2(g) of the 1997 Act, which has no retrospective operation.
Issues
- Whether a statement in a deposition in an unconnected case that the tenancy was in the deponent's mother's name was an admission on which a decree for eviction could be passed under Order XII Rule 6 CPC.
- Whether the heirs of a tenant who died in 1970 became joint tenants under Section 2(h) of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1956.
- Whether Section 2(g) of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997, limiting heirs' tenancy to five years 'from the date of death of such tenant or from the date of coming into force of this Act, whichever is later', extinguished tenancies inherited under the 1956 Act.
Provisions considered
- Order XII Rule 6, Code of Civil Procedure, 1908Treated as an enabling, discretionary provision usable only on clear, unambiguous, unequivocal and unconditional admissions; the deposition relied on did not qualify, and the question was a mixed question of fact and law on which there can be no admission against law. (¶¶ 2, 3, 5, 6)
- Section 2(h), West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1956Under the definition of tenant, on a tenant's death the tenancy devolved on heirs ordinarily residing with him; on the original tenant's death in 1970 it devolved jointly on his widow and the appellants, his children. (¶¶ 4, 6, 22)
- Section 2(g), West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997The five-year limit on heirs' status as tenants applies to deaths after the Act came into force on 10.07.2001; the phrase 'or from the date of coming into force of this Act, whichever is later' was held superfluous loose drafting and cannot be read to extinguish tenancies inherited under the 1956 Act. (¶¶ 4, 7, 9, 10, 12, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22)
- Section 45, West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997The repeal of the 1956 Act does not by itself extinguish rights accrued under it. (¶ 17)
- Section 8(c), Bengal General Clauses Act, 1899Relied on, through Goutam Dey v. Jyotsna Chatterjee, for the principle that repeal does not affect rights accrued under the repealed enactment. (¶¶ 8, 17)
Held
- Order XII Rule 6 CPC confers a discretion that no party can claim as of right; a court may pass judgment on an admission made in another case, but only where the admission is clear, unequivocal, unambiguous and unconditional. Because a judgment on admission is passed without trial, the power must be used cautiously and must not deprive a defendant of the right to contest the claim. (¶ 3)
- The deposition that the flat was a tenancy in the deponent's mother's name was a commonplace answer, not a clear admission. Whether the appellants were tenants was a mixed question of fact and law, and there can be no admission against law; rights given by statute cannot be taken away on an unclear deposition, so the decree on admission was wrongly passed. (¶¶ 3, 6)
- Dismissal of a special leave petition in limine by a non-speaking order, as in the challenge to Sushil Kumar Jain v. Pilani Properties Ltd., does not mean that the Supreme Court affirmed the law laid down in the impugned judgment. (¶ 14)
- A new statute does not take away rights accrued under a repealed statute unless that intention is clearly expressed; statutes operate prospectively and retrospectivity must appear clearly and unambiguously from the statute itself, not from a court's interpretation. (¶¶ 17, 21)
- The phrase 'or from the date of coming into force of this Act, whichever is later' in Section 2(g) of the 1997 Act was rightly held superfluous in Goutam Dey; read literally it would end every tenancy inherited under the 1956 Act on a single date, and nothing in the 1997 Act shows an intention to extinguish such tenancies retrospectively. The contrary view of the Calcutta High Court in Sushil Kumar Jain and Satyanarayan More, and in the impugned judgment, cannot be sustained. (¶¶ 15, 17, 18, 19, 21)
- The widow and the appellants jointly inherited the tenancy from the original tenant in 1970, and the appellants' tenancy did not expire in 2006 on the coming into force of the 1997 Act. (¶ 22)
Result
Appeals allowed; the Single Judge's decree on admission dated 29.06.2022 and the Division Bench's judgment dated 08.12.2022 set aside; interim orders vacated.