P. K. SHYAMSUNDAR, J. ( 1 ) THIS writ petition succeeds without the assistance of learned counsel for the petitioner, who has remained absent although this writ petition is of the year 1988 and pending in this court for the last 4 years. Be that as it may, the short question arising for consideration is whether a Rent Controller acting under the provisions of the Rent Control Act (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act') can levy a fine as proposed under the impugned order at Annexure-B. ( 2 ) THE writ petition is the culmination of the fear of a landlord who was charged by the Rent Controller of having illegally inducted somebody into occupancy and therefore, liable for action under Section 10-A of the Act. ( 3 ) SECTION 10-A, reads:" 10-A. Eviction by the Controller. (1) Where in accordance with the provision of Section 4, the vacancy of any building is required to be intimated to the Controller and is not so intimated, and the Controller believes or has reason to believe that any person has in contravention of sub-section (2) of Section 4 occupied the building or any part thereof, he may by notice in writing, call upon the person in occupation to show cause, within a time to be fixed by the controler, why such person should not be convicted therefrom. (2) If the person to whom a notice was issued under sub-section (1) fails to appear before the Controller, or having appeared, fails to satisfy the Controller that he is entitled to remain in occupation of the building, the Controller may, without prejudice to any other action which may be taken against him under this act or under any other law for the time being in force, direct him by order in writing to vacate the building within such period as may be specified in the order and deliver possession thereof to the Controller. (3) (a) Upon service of an order under sub-section (2), the person against whom an order is made and every person claiming under him shall vacate the building and deliver possession thereof to the Controller. (3) (a) Upon service of an order under sub-section (2), the person against whom an order is made and every person claiming under him shall vacate the building and deliver possession thereof to the Controller. If the building is not vacated and its possession delivered to the Controller within the period specified in the order, the Controller may summarily dispossess the persons in occupation and take possession of the building and thereupon the provisions of Sections 4,5, 8,9 and 10 shall apply to the building as if intimation of vacancy of the building was given to the Controller on the date on which he took possession of it. (b) The provision of sub-section (2) of Section 10 shall apply to any action taken by the Controller under clause (a ). " the aforesaid provision enjoins the Controller to make an order for vacating the premises by one who in the view of the Controller was not entitled to occupy the same and even so having occupied the same without due authority of law; the concomitant action to be taken by the Controller is to rid the premises in question of the alleged unauthorised occupant. The Act also enjoins action being taken against the errent landlord who had in contravention of the provisions of the Act inducted into possession someone unauthorisedly as stipulated under Section 4 (3), that enjoins some punishment to be imposed in that behalf on the errent landlord. Section 4 (3) reads:" 4 (3) Any landlord who contravenes the provisions of sub-section (1) or (2) shall, on conviction, be punished with fine which may extend to one thousand rupees; Provided that such fine shall not be less than fifty rupees. " ( 4 ) I notice there are several other provisions which also provide for the punishment of a landlord who contravenes the provisions of the Act. For instance, there is Section 5 (2) of the Act under which a landlord who contravenes an order made under Section 5 (1) could on conviction, be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to three months or with fine or with both. ( 5 ) YET another provision under Section 11 (1) of the Act, contemplates any person who contravenes the provisions of sub-section (1) shall, on conviction, be punished with fine which may extend to five hundred rupees. ( 5 ) YET another provision under Section 11 (1) of the Act, contemplates any person who contravenes the provisions of sub-section (1) shall, on conviction, be punished with fine which may extend to five hundred rupees. ( 6 ) ANOTHER provision of a like nature is the one under Section 23 (2) of the Act under which any one contravening the provisions of Section 23 (1) in case of subletting or transferring a controlled premises after the commencement of the Act be punished, on conviction with a fine which may extend to five hundred rupees. ( 7 ) INTER alia we must read in the kindred provisions under Section 51-A of the Act, which invests power on the Controller or any other officer authorised by the state Government to prosecute any person for contravention of the Act. That section reads:"51-A. Power to prosecute. The Controller or any other officer authorised by the State Government in this behalf, may prosecute any person for contravention of any of the provisions of this Act or any rule made thereunder. " ( 8 ) THE other provision I may notice in this context is Section 57 of the Act, whichreads:"57. Power of Magistrate to levy fine exceeding two thousand rupees. Notwithstanding anything contained in Section 32 of the Code of Criminal procedure, 1892 (Central Act V of 1898), it shall be lawful for any Magistrate of the first class to pass a sentence of fine exceeding two thousand rupees on a person convicted of an offence punishable under this Act. "the foregoing provision enables the Magistrate of the First Class to pass a sentence of fine beyond 2,000 rupees on a person convicted for an offence punishable under the Act. The non-abstante clause with which the clause opens indicates that the power of the Magistrate for levying fine of more than 2,000 rupees vis-a-vis, an offence committed under the Act was without reference to any direction and constraint imposed under Section 32 of the Code of Criminal Procedure under which a particular officer is vested with defined power. In other words, without reference to the vesting of any particular type of power a Magistrate of the First class could in relation to an offence under the Act is free to impose a sentence of fine exceeding 2,000 rupees. In other words, without reference to the vesting of any particular type of power a Magistrate of the First class could in relation to an offence under the Act is free to impose a sentence of fine exceeding 2,000 rupees. ( 9 ) FROM this background of the conspectus of the several provisions, to which I have adverted to at length, the question now arises is: Whether a Rent Controller who was in seizure of proceedings for allotment, or as in this case for ejecting an unauthorised occupant under Section 10-A of the Act, is he empowered and is he competent to impose a fine enjoined under the Act as a measure of punishment for the infraction of the law, even without there being a conviction? ( 10 ) HEREIN the Rent Controller (R. 2) upon being satisfied that one Rameshwarappa (R. 3) referred to in his order at Annexure-B had unauthorisedly occupied the premises belonging to the petitioner who was admittedly the landlord of a house in Davanagere, did in the course of the order at Annexure-B, apart from directing the unauthorised occupant to vacate the premises in question by the end of december 1987, also proceeded to levy a Gne on the petitioner to wit: the landlord in the sum of Rs. 300/-, granting 7 days time to remit the fine to his office failing which the same was ordered to be recovered as arrears of land revenue. That portion of the learned Rent Controller's order is as follows: ( 11 ) IN the proceedings before the Rent Controller the alleged unauthorised occupant asserted that he was taking shelter in the landlord's premises because of the dire circumstances of being forced to take recourse to some available shelter following his inability to secure other rental accommodation. The said person also prayed for the indulgence of the Controller to be allowed to stay in the house till the end of December 1987. Presumably taking notice of the plight of that person the controller allowed him to remain in the house till the end of December 1987, but at the same time found it expedient to impose a punishment on the landlord in letting into possession the unauthorised occupant by imposing on him a fine of Rs. 300/- as stated herein before. Presumably taking notice of the plight of that person the controller allowed him to remain in the house till the end of December 1987, but at the same time found it expedient to impose a punishment on the landlord in letting into possession the unauthorised occupant by imposing on him a fine of Rs. 300/- as stated herein before. ( 12 ) FROM this order of the Rent Controller an appeal was preferred to the Deputy Commissioner, Chitradurga, i. e. , the 1st respondent in the writ petition. Before the deputy Commissioner, as I see from the memorandum of appeal produced as annexure-D, the only question raised for consideration was all about the tenability of the order passed by the Rent Controller proceeding to impose the fine, referred to supra, and whether he had the necessary competence and jurisdiction? But notwithstanding the same, it appears the Deputy Commissioner rejected the appeal on grounds of limitation, as could be seen from the order at Annexure-A. It would appear the appeal was late by 4 months. Therefore, the Deputy Commissioner rejected the appeal as barred after declining to condone the delay in the filing of the appeal. The result was the petitioner failed to get any redress of the wrong suffered by him at the hands of the Rent Controller, and hence this writ petition. ( 13 ) THE scheme of the Act with reference to punishment to be imposed on some one who has fallen foul of the law namely, the Rent Control Act, indicates the wrong doer is liable to be punished either by imposing a fine and at times even by imposing a sentence of imprisonment, or a mere sentence of fine without imprisonment. Sections 4, 5, 11 and 23 of the Act to which I have drawn attention are instances under which any one who had committed an infraction of the statute namely the Act can be punished in terms as indicated in the said provisions. ( 14 ) IN this case the indictment against the petitioner, i. e. , in other words, the allegations against the petitioner is that he had unauthorisedly let into possession somebody without going through the channels provided by the Act, in that without notifying the vacancy of the premises to the Rent Controller's office and awaiting an order of allotment following which the notified premises could be filled up. The said procedure not having been adopted is the complaint made against the landlord and that position more or less appears to be correct, as at any rate it was accepted by rameshwarappa, the person stated to have secured unauthorised possession of a part of the landlord's premises. ( 15 ) THE question I have posed for consideration herein is whether the action taken in that behalf namely of punishing a defaulter could have been done by the controller. Sub-clause (3) of Section 4 refers to punishment to be imposed on a landlord who contravenes the provisions of Section 4 (1) and (2) of the Act, goes on to indict a landlord who behaves with contamacious disrespect of the provisions of the Act shall on conviction be punished with fine to one thousand rupees etc. , etc. ( 16 ) THE aforesaid provisions make it clear that it is only the court of the Magistrate which can impose a sentence following a conviction with reference to some particular indictment alleging the infraction of one or the other provisions of the Act, as in the instant case of Section 4 (1) and (2) of the Act. The fact that under section 51-A of the Act the Controller is provided with a outlet for lodging a complaint with reference to an infraction of the Act culminating with Section 57 of the Act indicating the landlord who is arrayed before court could be inflicted a sentence of fine would leave little doubt that the fining of an offender who more often than not the landlord can under the Act be done only by the court of the magistrate following the establishment of the indictment or charge levelled against the landlord before the Court of the Magistrate. It has got to be emphasised that a fine under the Criminal Law is a pecuniary punishment imposed by a lawful tribunal upon a person convicted of a crime or any misdemeanour. The idea of pecuniary duress has various other shades also as understood in law. In L. L. Iyer's Law Lexicon, 'pecuniary Punishment' has a variety of sentences, as follows: other definitions: "a pecuniary punishment for fines an offence or a contempt committed against the King on Court. " " A pecuniary punishment imposed by the judgment of a court upon a person convicted of crime. In L. L. Iyer's Law Lexicon, 'pecuniary Punishment' has a variety of sentences, as follows: other definitions: "a pecuniary punishment for fines an offence or a contempt committed against the King on Court. " " A pecuniary punishment imposed by the judgment of a court upon a person convicted of crime. " "pecuniary punishments for offences, which are inflcted by sentences of a court in the exercise of criminal jurisdiction. " "a'sum of money exacted a person guilty of misdemeanour or acrime, the amount of which may be fixed by law or left to the discretion of the court. " "a sum of money ordered to be paid by an offender as a punishment for the offence. " (Rapalie and L. L. Diet) "fine" is derived from "finis", and is so-called because its payment)puts an end to the offence for which it is imposed. (The Law Lexicon, Reprint Edition, 1987, page 445 ). ( 17 ) IT is not necessary to advert to the legal implications of passing a sentence of fine upon conviction, since these are all matters with which courts are familiar being something that trenches on their power to punish somebody guilty of ani offence on some one accused of committing a mischief in the eye of law, and that power of punishing the guilty is under the legal charter of the country bestowed only on the prescribed court. An administrative authority or a quasi-judicial authority, while it may undoubtedly have the power of imposing a financial burden on someone and also recover the same in accordance with law does not however have the power of imposing punishment on such person after holding him guilty of having committed an offence under the law. ( 18 ) IN this case, the landlord is held to have committed the offence of thwar ting the jurisdiction of the Controller in the making of an order of allotment under the act. ( 18 ) IN this case, the landlord is held to have committed the offence of thwar ting the jurisdiction of the Controller in the making of an order of allotment under the act. May be the Controller was justified in reaching a conclusion that the landlord had thwarted the process of the law but on that conclusion he could not have proceeded to levy a fine, which power as indicated supra lies within the domain of the court of the Magistrate and the series of the provisions to which I have referred to supra ending with a reference to the court of Magistrate under Section 57 of the act albeit in the context of raising the limit of punishment read with Section 51-A of the Act, enjoin the Controller or anybody else authorised in that behalf to lodge a complaint to the court alleging the commission of an offence or infraction of the Act, should make it abundantly clear that it is the Magistrate who alone can impose punishment, be it imprisonment for a stipulated period or of fine. Hence it is I must hold on these facts, the Controller could not impose a sentence of fine in the instant case. The action of the Controller in that behalf is clearly ultra vires of his powers under the Act. Notwithstanding the circumstance of an appeal from that order having failed on the ground of limitation I am not detained from interfering with the impugned order and to strike down the order insofar as it relates to the imposition of the fine of Rs. 300/- carrying as well a stringent threat of recovering it as arrears of land revenue if it was not paid within 7 days, stipulated by the order. The imposition of fine of Rs. 300/- and the threat to recover the same as arrears of land revenue in case of default are wholly without jurisdiction and are therefore liable to be struck down. ( 19 ) FOR the reasons stated above, this writ petition succeeds in part in that the portion of the impugned order at Annexure-B imposing a sentence of fine of Rs. 300/- granting 7 days time for payment, in default ordering it to recover as arrears of land revenue shall stand quashed. The Rule issued herein stands affirmed. No costs. --- *** --- .