Revenue Court Lacks Jurisdiction to Unilaterally Fix Fair Rent or Evict Without Granting Mandatory Time to Deposit Arrears: Madras High Court

“Statutory provisions cannot be taken away or whittled down by forensic sophistry and Courts should not allow themselves to become tools for defeating expressed statutory intentions.”— In a seminal ruling the Madras High Court, comprising Justice P.B. Balaji, allowed a Civil Revision Petition filed by the legal representatives of a deceased cultivating tenant, setting aside an eviction order passed by the Revenue Court, Puducherry, after holding that the lower authority had acted without jurisdiction in fixing fair rent and had committed a grave error in keeping the tenant's applications to deposit rent pending for nearly three decades.

The case has a chequered history dating back to 1990. The original cultivating tenant had filed a petition (PCTPA No. 7 of 1990) merely seeking permission to deposit rent. Although the tenant later filed a memo to withdraw the petition as the rent was paid, the Revenue Court, in an order dated 08.09.1999, unilaterally determined arrears of Rs. 93,418/- based on the market value of paddy and revenue reports. The Court further directed that failure to pay would result in the dismissal of the tenant's petition.

Subsequently, the landlords filed an eviction petition (PCTPA No. 1 of 2001) alleging non-compliance with the 1999 order. The Revenue Court eventually ordered eviction on 29.11.2023, leading to the present revision.

Jurisdictional Error in Fixing Fair Rent

Justice Balaji scrutinized the validity of the 1999 order which formed the basis of the eviction. The High Court observed that the Puducherry Cultivating Tenants Payment of Fair Rent Act, 1970 provides a specific mechanism and competent authority for the fixation of fair rent. The Revenue Court, dealing with a petition to deposit rent, lacked the jurisdiction to unilaterally assess arrears based on extraneous factors like "market price furnished by Revenue authorities" which were at variance with the contract between the parties.

“The Revenue Court clearly fell in error in proceeding to hear the counsel and issue directions for payment of an amount arbitrarily fixed and not in line with the provisions of the Puducherry Cultivating Tenant Payment of Fair Rent Act, 1970.”

Counsel’s Concession Cannot Override Law

A critical legal point addressed was whether the concession made by the tenant's counsel in 1999 regarding the arrears calculation was binding on the client. Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Himalayan Coop. Group Housing Society vs. Balwan Singh, the High Court held that a lawyer has no implied authority to make admissions that surrender substantive rights or concede on questions of law. The Court ruled that the concession regarding arrears, which was contrary to the contractual rent and statutory procedure, did not bind the tenant.

Violation of Mandatory Opportunity to Pay

The High Court expressed deep concern over the Revenue Court's handling of the tenant's bona fides. The tenant had filed multiple applications (in 2002 and 2003) expressing readiness to pay the arrears and seeking permission to deposit the same. Shockingly, the Revenue Court kept these applications pending for 20 to 28 years, only to dismiss them simultaneously with the final eviction order in 2023.

Justice Balaji held that this violated Section 3(4)(b) of the Puducherry Cultivating Tenants Protection Act, 1970, which mandates that the Revenue Court must grant the tenant a reasonable time to deposit arrears before ordering eviction. By ignoring the pending applications, the lower court denied the tenant this statutory protection.

“The Revenue Court failed to see that the cultivating tenant himself sought for withdrawal of the said PCTPA since the rents sought to be deposited under the said PCTPA had already been paid and nothing survived for consideration.”

Abandonment of Cultivation: No Pleading, No Evidence

The Revenue Court had also justified eviction on the ground that the tenants had "abandoned" cultivation, relying on a Tahsildar’s report. The High Court struck down this finding as perverse, noting that the landlord had never pleaded abandonment in the eviction petition. Citing the principle that evidence without pleadings is impermissible, the Court held that the Revenue Court erred in suo motu calling for a report and treating it as an admission by the tenant.

Reiterating the principles laid down in Govindappa Gounder vs. K. Vijayakumar (2025), the High Court emphasized that the Cultivating Tenants Protection Act is a beneficial legislation intended to protect tenants from unjust eviction. The Court held that the Revenue Court failed to adopt a tenant-oriented interpretation and instead allowed the landlord to take advantage of an inexecutable order.

The High Court allowed the Civil Revision Petition, set aside the eviction order dated 29.11.2023, and directed the petitioners to deposit the entire arrears of rent strictly in terms of the contract within eight weeks. Upon such deposit, the Court ordered the restoration of possession to the tenants within one week.

Date of Decision: 09/01/2026