- (1.)In these revision petitions, it is contended that once a finding is given that the sufficient cause shown does not exist and that delay which has occasioned cannot be condoned, the Rent Tribunal had no jurisdiction to still condone the delay on extraneous factors or out of sympathetic considerations, as claimed by it.
(2.)Mr. Yamunan, the learned counsel for the revision petitioner, submits that in the light of the decision in Randal v. Rewa Coalfields Limited1, proof of sufficient cause is a condition precedent for the exercise of the discretionary jurisdiction vested in Court under section 5 of the Limitation Act. In these matters, it is rule 14 of the Rules framed under the Tamil Nadu Act XXV of 1955, which is akin to section 5 of the Limitation Act that has been invoked. In the said decision, it was held that, if sufficient cause is not proved, then nothing further has to be done and the application has to be dismissed on that ground alone. Therefore, he pleads that the Rent Tribunal having held that the delay caused deserved not to be condoned, it had no further jurisdiction to excuse the delay on sympathetic grounds. In the light of the decision of the Supreme Court, undoubtedly, there was no jurisdiction vested in the Rent Tribunal to condone the delay on any extraneous grounds or sympathetic considerations, when the condition precedent of sufficient cause had not been established.
(3.)In petitions of this nature, it is common knowledge, of the practice of Courts, that they are disposed of only on the averments found in the solemn affidavits. There is nothing on record to show that respondents had been ever communicated that in the light of the stand taken in the counter-affidavit unless oral or documentary evidence is adduced, the Court would have to dispose of the matter adversely to the interest of the respondent tenants.