Supreme Court was considering a real situation of Indian Courts of the inability to dispose of appeals within short time frame and the landlords who had the benefit of order of eviction could not secure possession for a long period although they had favourable orders. In many a situation the tenant was only interested in prolonging his possession by litigation on payment of low rents. The Court, therefore made a judicial innovation, as it were, by allowing for making the scales even and compensating the landlord appropriately as a quit pro quo for an interim order of stay obtained by the tenant. This payment was not to be final and if the landlord was unsuccessful and the tenant was successful in assailing the order of eviction, the amount received in excess by landlord was bound to be set off against the future rent accruals. In other words, the payment that a tenant makes at the time of securing interim order when the order of stay is made absolute during the pendency of the appeal, is still provisional since that the liability of mesne profits would be taken as becoming final only when the ground of eviction was sustained at the Appellate Forum and the order passed already was upheld in the Appellate Forum also. On the other hand, in the event of the tenant's success, it is not as if the tenant resurrects himself as statutory tenant for the first time and that he was an unlawful occupant during the pendency of appeal. The tenant if he is evicted and possession is not taken by the landlord, he continues to be a statutory tenant. That status cannot be vacated merely by the fact of order of eviction when the proceedings are still pending and await consideration at the appellate forum. I cannot allow for an interpretation which is
