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(3) An appeal by the tenant or the landlord shall lie from the decision of a reference committee on any question sub- mitted to it under sub-section (2). Such appeal shall be made in a summary manner to a judge in chambers within one month from the date of the decision.
New sub- section (4) for section 6
5: Section 6 of the Prevention of Eviction Ordinance, 1938, as renumbered by section 2 of this Ordinance, is further amended by the addition thereto of the following sub-section of Ordinance
(4) Any decision of a reference committee on any question submitted to it under this section may by leave of the court be enforced in the same manner as a judgment or order of the court to the same effect.
No. 6 of 1938 as renumbered.
Objects und Reasons.
1. Clause 2 of the Bill adds a new sub-section (1) to section 3 of the Prevention of Eviction Ordinance, No. 6 of 1938, and makes a consequential renumbering of the existing sub-sections.
2. The principal Ordinance contained no express provision preventing a landlord exercising his common law rights of re-entry and so defeating the object of the Ordinance.
3. These common law rights are thus stated in 20 Hailsham's Halsbury s. 315 :-
"Where the tenant fails to deliver up possession, the landlord is entitled to re-enter and take possession, subject only to certain statutory restrictions. Thus he can re-enter where the tenant has abandoned possession, or where he can effect entry peaceably; and even if he enters forcibly, and is thus liable to criminal proceedings under the statutes, yet the tenant has no civil remedy against him, in respect of the re-entry, or in respect of the eviction, if no more force than is necessary is used."
4. The object of the new sub-section is to suspend the landlord's common law rights during the continuance in force of the principal Ordinance, except where the tenant has abandoned possession, and also to give to the tenant a civil remedy by way of injunction and damages.
5. Clause 3 of the Bill renumbers sections 4, 5 and 6 of the Prevention of Eviction Ordinance, No. 6 of 1938, as sections 6, 7 and 8 thereof and adds two new sections 4 and 5 to the principal Ordinance, of which new section 4 gives to the court similar powers to those which a reference committee has to determine any question in relation to the rent payable or to be paid by a sitting tenant under section 4 (2) of the principal Ordinance.
6. Cases have occurred in which landlords have sought to evade the provisions of the principal Ordinance by not collecting rent, or avoiding receipt of rent when the tenant attempts to render it, and then exercising their powers of distress under the Distress for Rent Ordinance, 1883. In such cases it is often difficult to show that there has been any wrongful distress. New section 5 therefore, added by clause