Amendment status not verified — confirm the current text below against the official source.
Application to Rent Courts and appeals to Rent Tribunals.- (1) Notwithstanding any agreement between a landowner and the cultivating tenant, or any decree or order of a Court, either party may apply to the Rent Court for fixation of fair rent or for deciding any dispute arising under this Act. (2) From every decision of a Rent Court, an appeal shall, within such time as may be prescribed, lie to the Rent Tribunal whose decision shall be final, subject to revision, if any, under section 11. SECTION 9 – NOTES Fair rent under the Act has got to be fixed by the Rent Court or the Rent Tribunal as the case may be, in terms of the formula laid down by section 4 of the Act. Where the land in question is of a category, which falls under section 4 (1) (iii), the fair rent for the land is to be fixed as equivalent to 33 1/3 per cent of the normal gross produce or its value in money. Normal gross produce in respect of any land is defined under the Act to mean the produce which would be obtained, if the rainfall and the seasons were of the normal character, from lands of the same class a the land in question, similarly situated and possessing similar advantages. In order to enable the Rent Court and the Rent Tribunal determine the fair rent for any land on the above basis, the legislature had made appropriate provision in the Act. It had also empowered the rule making authority to lay down guidelines in this regard in rules to be prescribed for the purpose. The relevant rules framed by the State Government under the Act make more elaborate provision for enabling the Rent Court and Rent Tribunal to determine the fair rent it particular cases by reference to relevant data. The Rules also confer requisite powers on the Rent Court and Rent Tribunal, by the exercise of which, they could get at the relevant data and information. The rules make it quite clear that the be all and end all of the power , both of the Rent Court and Rent Tribunal, is to fix a fair rent on the basis of all available and relevant data. Both the statute and statutory rules have been made to the end that these two authorities are supplied with such data without the inhibitions of any formalisms of procedure cluttering up the enquiry. The provisions relating to the furnishing of figures of average market prices of the main crops of a district, gazetting them in the District Gazette and making available the copies of the District Gazette to the Rent Court and Rent Tribunal, have all got to be understood only from the stand point that the task of these two authorities is essentially to get at the requisite material to arrive at the fair rent in the given case. The proceedings for fixation of fair rent and the subsequent enquiry as such cannot be likened in all respects to a judicial proceedings before a common law court. Where the Rent Tribunal had remanded the whole case for no other reason that the landlord, for his part, did not produce before the Tribunal the District Gazette containing the data of market prices, held, that finding fault with the landlord for not producing a copy of the gazette is an act of the Rent Tribunal which is founded on a thorough misconception of what its role is under the statutory scheme of things. Likewise, the Tribunal could not remand the case on the ground that the landlord had not called in the testimony of neighbowring property owners and cultivators of adjacent lands. Even if the parties do not call them to the witness box, it would still be the bounden duty of the Rent Court or the Rent Tribunal to call for their evidence, if it thinks it would be relevant and it would assist the determination of the fair rent in given case. Govinda Gounder v. Deenappa Gounder, AIR 1981 Mad 240.