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Judgment
Rai Chattopadhyay, J. :-
The two civil revisions as above are concerning with similar subject matter, hence, are heard analogously and are being disposed of by dint of this common judgment. An order of the Chief Judge, City Civil Court dated September 18, 2025 in Ejectment Suit No. 34 of 2025 is under challenge in the instant revisions. By dint of the same, the Chief Judge, City Civil Court has rejected the petitioner‟s application under Section 7(2) of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997, striking out the defence of the petitioners/defendants in the suit. The Court has cited the ground that rent for the month of July, 2024 has been tendered by the revisionist defendants in the month of September, 2024 which was beyond the period as prescribed in the statute. The Court held that in such a situation, the deposits made by the defendant can be declared as bad deposits. The Court in the said impugned order has expressed doubt about the bona fide intent and means of the defendants in obtaining the order from Court dated April 01, 2025.
Mr. Roy has represented the petitioners and challenges the legality and propriety of the said impugned order. Mr. Roy says by relying on the rent control challan Form (No. 3), that rents for the months July, 2024 and August, 2024 have been deposited by the petitioners/defendants on September 17, 2024 and September 21, 2024 respectively. He also relies on rent receipt dated June 08, 2024 showing deposit of rent paid by the present petitioner for the month of June, 2024, to the landlady/opposite party.
It is submitted that the landlady/opposite party refused to accept the amount of rent for the month of July, 2024, which was sent through post. Upon refusal by the landlady to accept the rent for the month of July, 2024, the petitioners tendered rent by money order on August 13, 2024 to the landlady. The same was refused by the landlady on August 17, 2024 and returned to the petitioners with postal remark „refused‟. The defendants deposited the said rent in the office of the Rent Controller, Kolkata. Likewise for all the subsequent months, the defendants/revisionists deposited the rent in the office of the Rent Controller, Kolkata till the month of March, 2025. Accordingly, the defendants/petitioners filed application under Section 21 of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997, before the Rent Controller. It is submitted that Rent Controller passed order only on August 30, 2024, permitting the petitioners to deposit the rent for the month of July, 2024. It is submitted that it is only after such permission being granted by the Rent Controller the petitioners proceeded to submit rent before the Court in the month of September, 2024.
It is further submitted that the petitioners have duly deposited rent of July, 2024 in the Court within the statutory period of limitation from the date of order of the Rent Controller, that is, the rent was submitted on September 17, 2024 after permission being granted by the Rent Controller on August 30, 2024 that is within a period of one month from the date of permission.
As such, Mr. Roy has contended that there is no violation of any legal provision or any legal infirmity is there, apparent in the entire process adopted by the revisionist/defendants, in depositing rent before the Court in accordance with law. It is submitted further that the defendants have ever accepted the default period as alleged. For the reasons as above stated, Mr. Roy for the defendant/petitioners has sought for setting aside of the impugned order dated September 18, 2025 of the learned Chief Judge, City Civil Court and further appropriate order allowing the petitioners to put forth their defence in the suit.
Mr. Tanmoy Mukherjee representing the opposite party/plaintiff landlady has raised strong objection as to the contentions and prayer of the petitioners in the instant revision. He submits that the revisionists are the habitual defaulters. He submits further that the money order returned back to the defendant/tenants with the endorsement „refused‟ on August 19, 2024. Hence, that is the date of knowledge of the defendant/petitioners, though the petitioners have not complied with statutory liability of them, within the statutorily prescribed time limit from such date of return. It is indicated that the petitioners‟ intentional latches would be evident from the fact that since after date of return of the money order on August 19, 2024, the petitioners sat tight over the matter and filed their prayer under Section 21 of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997, before the Rent Controller, only on August 27, 2024.
Mr. Mukherjee has argued that belated submission of rent, even for one month, is not condonable as per the strict provisions under the statute. He refers to the judgment of the Supreme Court in Seventh Day Adventist Senior Secondary School versus Ismat Ahmed and others reported in 2025 SCC OnLine SC 1696. Learned advocate has argued that the requirement under Section 7(1)(a), (b) and (c), as also the first part of Section 7(2) of the WBPT Act, to deposit/pay rent and, where necessary, to file an application for determination of rent within the prescribed period, is mandatory. The time so prescribed cannot be enlarged by resort to Section 5 of the Limitation Act or by invoking the proviso to Section 7(2).
The Supreme Court in the judgment as above has held that the proviso to Section 7(2) of the Act of 1997 does not confer a general power upon the Civil Judge to extend the initial thirty-day period. Its operation is confined to the subsequent stage, after the Civil Judge has determined the amount of rent payable. Hence, learned advocate for the opposite party has elaborated that there are provisions to address pre suit default by the tenant as well as the post suit default committed by him, and the Court is empowered to take into consideration both the factors. He has submitted that the order of the Trial Court is just, legal and proper and needs no interference. He submits that the instant revision is liable to be dismissed.
The principal question requiring determination is whether the statutory consequence contemplated by Section 7(3) of the Act of 1997, can be attracted to the present case when the tenant had, prior to making the deposit before the Civil Court, taken steps to tender the rent, had suffered refusal at the hands of the landlady, had thereafter tendered the rent by money order, and had approached the Rent Controller under Section 21 of the Act for permission to deposit the rent, which permission was ultimately granted on August 30, 2024.
The statutory scheme contained in Section 7 of the Act undoubtedly imposes a discipline upon the tenant seeking protection against eviction. The obligation to pay or deposit rent within the time prescribed by the statute cannot ordinarily be treated as a matter of mere procedural convenience. The protection available to a tenant under the rent control legislation is a statutory protection and its enjoyment is conditioned upon compliance with the requirements enacted by the Legislature. Equally well settled is the principle that where a special statute prescribes a particular consequence for failure to comply with a statutory condition, the Court cannot, under the guise of equitable jurisdiction, rewrite the statutory scheme or extend a period which the statute itself does not permit to be extended.
The materials placed before this Court disclose that the rent for July 2024 was not withheld by the petitioners. The rent was initially tendered to the landlady through post. Upon refusal, the petitioners again tendered the rent by money order on August 13, 2024. The money order was refused and returned to the petitioners with the postal endorsement “refused”. Thereafter, instead of retaining the amount or remaining supine, the petitioners approached the Rent Controller under Section 21 of the Act on August 27, 2024. The Rent Controller ultimately permitted the petitioners to deposit the July rent by order dated August 30, 2024. The petitioners thereafter deposited the amount before the Civil Court on September 17, 2024, i.e. within one month from the date upon which the statutory authority permitted such deposit. These facts have been specifically placed on record by the petitioners and have not been displaced by any material demonstrating that the rent was deliberately withheld. The significance of these facts cannot be lost sight of while applying Section 7(3) of the Act. The expression “default” in a rent control statute cannot be considered in a vacuum, divorced from the tenant‟s conduct in relation to tender of rent and the statutory mechanism which the Legislature itself has provided for situations where the landlord refuses to accept rent. The statutory scheme must be construed as a whole. Section 7 cannot be read in isolation from the other provisions of the Act which recognise and regulate the tenant‟s right to deposit rent upon refusal by the landlord. A construction which treats a tenant, who has bona fide tendered rent and whose tender has been refused by the landlord, on the same footing as a tenant who has simply chosen not to pay rent, would attribute to the Legislature such an intention, which does not readily appear from the statutory scheme.
The conduct of the present petitioners assumes further significance because, after the money order was returned, they did not simply wait until the litigation progressed. They approached the Rent Controller under Section 21, West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997, on August 27, 2024, shortly after the refusal of the money order, and the competent statutory authority granted permission on August 30, 2024. The submission of rent before the Civil Court on September 17, 2024, was consequently not an independent or unexplained act of belated payment. It followed the order of the Rent Controller. The impugned order, however, appears to have treated September 17, 2024, as the only relevant date and thereby omitted from consideration the preceding statutory steps taken by the petitioners.
The argument advanced on behalf of the opposite party that the money order returned with the endorsement “refused” on August 19, 2024 and that the petitioners ought to have completed the statutory requirement within the prescribed period thereafter, cannot, by itself, justify the striking out of the defence. The petitioners‟ approach to the Rent Controller on August 27, 2024 and the subsequent order dated August 30, 2024 are circumstances which require consideration in determining whether the subsequent deposit was a wilful statutory default. The statutory provisions cannot be applied in a manner which renders the remedy expressly contemplated by Section 21, West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997, practically meaningless, in a case where the landlord has refused to accept the rent.
It is also necessary to distinguish between condonation of a statutory delay and determination of whether there was, in the first place, a default attracting the statutory consequence. The judgment of Seventh Day Adventist (supra) is concerned with the former proposition: a Court cannot invoke Section 5 of the Limitation Act or the proviso to Section 7(2) to enlarge the initial statutory period prescribed for the acts contemplated by Section 7. The present case does not require this Court to condone a delay contrary to the ratio of that decision. The question here is whether, upon the landlord‟s refusal to accept rent and the tenant‟s consequent invocation of the statutory machinery under Section 21, West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997, the subsequent deposit made pursuant to the permission granted by the competent authority can mechanically be characterised as a “bad deposit” and made the foundation for striking out the defence. The distinction is not merely factual but rests upon the different statutory situations involved. Seventh Day Adventist (supra) cannot be understood as laying down that a tenant who has tendered rent to the landlord, whose tender has been refused, and who thereafter acts under the statutory mechanism available to him for depositing the rent, is necessarily to be treated as a tenant who has simply allowed the statutory period to lapse without payment. Such an interpretation would convert a judgment concerning the non-extendability of the initial period under Section 7 of the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act, 1997 into an authority for disregarding the statutory consequences of refusal of rent by the landlord. The latter question did not constitute the ratio of the said judgment.
In the present case, therefore, the chronology is decisive. Rent for June 2024 had been paid to the landlady; the rent for July 2024 was tendered and refused; the petitioners thereafter sent the rent by money order, which was again refused; they approached the Rent Controller under Section 21 of the Act; permission to deposit was granted on August 30, 2024; and the rent was thereafter deposited before the Court on September 17, 2024. The petitioners had thus demonstrated a continuing attempt to discharge their liability rather than an intention to withhold rent. The deposit made after obtaining permission from the competent statutory authority cannot, in the peculiar facts of the present case, be equated with an unexplained or wilful failure to comply with Section 7 of the 1997 Act.
The learned Chief Judge, City Civil Court, therefore, fell into error in treating the date of deposit before the Court as determinative, without appropriately considering the earlier tenders, the refusal by the landlady, the recourse to Section 21 of the Act and the order of the Rent Controller permitting the deposit. The impugned order also proceeds on an erroneous application of Seventh Day Adventist (supra). That decision certainly binds this Court on the proposition that the initial statutory period under Section 7 cannot be enlarged by resort to Section 5 of the Limitation Act or the proviso to Section 7(2) of the 1997 Act; but it does not mandate the striking out of the defence in a case where the tenant‟s inability to deposit before the Court within the period arose in the course of bona fide tender and statutory recourse following refusal by the landlord. Tested on the aforesaid principles, this Court is of the view that the petitioners cannot, in the circumstances disclosed herein, be visited with the extreme consequence of striking out their defence. The impugned order dated September 18, 2025, passed by the learned Chief Judge, City Civil Court in Ejectment Suit No. 34 of 2025, therefore, suffers from an error of law and material irregularity in the exercise of jurisdiction. The order is accordingly set aside.
The petitioners shall be permitted to contest the suit subject to their continued compliance with the statutory obligations regarding payment/deposit of current rent.
Both the revisions are, accordingly, allowed.
Urgent certified copy of this judgment, if applied for, be supplied to the parties upon compliance with all requisite formalities.