In a civil revision challenging a conviction under the Rent Restriction Act for collecting excess rent, the Court allowed the revision, set aside the conviction, and held that accepting an explanation to give credit should preclude criminal penalty.
The impugned order is set aside and the civil revision is allowed.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH
Civil Revision No.367 of 2002 (O&M) Date of decision:16.01.2013
Smt. Bhupinder Kaur ...Petitioner
versus
Dr.Sharanjit Singh
....Respondent
CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN
Present: Mr. Sandeep Wadhawan, Advocate, for the petitioner.
None for the respondent.
K.Kannan, J. (Oral)
600/- more as constituting violation of the order of the Rent Controller and punished him to two months imprisonment under Section 19(2) of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949. On a notice issued to the landlord, it appears that the landlord contended that even if the amount received by the landlord in respect of600/- through a cheque were to be considered as in excess, he is prepared to give credit for the same for the tenant and deduct the same against the liability for future rent. The Court ought to have accepted this explanation and closed the petition instead of convicting the person for penalty. Penalty is an extremeCivil Revision No.367 of 2002 (O&M) - 2 -
remedy where any contumacious conduct is punished by the Court for a willful disobedience. If a party was accepting the mistake and was prepared to give credit, the Rent Controller ought to have let it reside there instead of allowing for the tenant to go after the landlord in hot pursuit as though he was a criminal.
appearance.
allowed.
(K.KANNAN) JUDGE
16.01.2013 sanjeev
2 issues framed by the court
Whether a landlord preparing to give credit for excess rent collected violates the penalty provisions.
Whether the Rent Controller petition should have been closed instead of convicting the landlord.
1 provisions across 1 enactments
Smt. Bhupinder Kaur
Dr. Sharanjit Singh
K. Kannan
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court