RAJINDER PERSHAD Vs. DARSHAN DEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave is granted.

(2.) In this order the parties will be referred to as the tenant and the landlady. The case of the landlady is that the tenant did not pay the rent of the suit premises from 1-7-985 in spite of service of notice of demand Exhibit A W 1/6' dated 5-8-1986 and committed three consecutive defaults in payment of rent. The tenant contested the case. He denied service of demand notice. The Rent Controller, Delhi, on the basis of the evidence on record found that the tenant refused to receive notice and there was default in payment of rent and, therefore, ordered eviction of the tenant from the suit premises on 1- 7-1986. The tenant's appeal presented to the Rent Control Tribunal, was dismissed. He then carried the case in second appeal before the High Court which was also dismissed by the judgment and order under challenge in this appeal

(3.) The only point urged albeit strenuously on behalf of the appellant, by Mr. P. S. Mishra, the learned senior counsel, is that as there has been no valid service of notice so all proceedings taken on the assumption of service of notice are illegal and void. He has invited our attention to the judgment of the learned Rent Control Tribunal wherein it is recorded that Exhibit A W 1/6 dated 5-8- 1986 was sent by registered post and the same was taken by the postman to the ad- dress of the tenant on 6-8-986, 8-8-1986, 19-8-1986 and 20-8-1986 but on those days the tenant was not available, on 21-8-1986 he met the tenant who refused to receive the notice. This finding remained undisturbed by both the Tribunal as well as the High Court. Learned counsel attacks this finding on the ground that the postman was on Leave on those days and submits that the record called for from the post office to prove that fact, were reported as not available. On those facts, submits the learned counsel, it follows that there was no refusal by the tenant and no service of notice. We are afraid we cannot accept these contentions of the learned counsel.In the Court of the Rent Controller, the postman was examined as A.W. 2. We have gone through his cross-examination. It was not suggested to him that he was not on duty during the period in question and the endorsement "refused" on the envelope was incorrect. In the absence of cross-examination of the postman on this crucial aspect his statement in the chief-examination has been rightly relied upon. There is an age old rule that if you dispute the correctness of the statement of a witness you must give him opportunity to explain his statement by drawing his attention to that part of it which is objected to as untrue, otherwise you cannot impeach his credit. In State of U.P. v. Nahar Singh (dead) (1998) 3 SCC 561, a Bench of this Court (to which I was a party) stated the principle that S. 138 of the Evidence Act confers a valuable right to cross-examine a witness tendered in evidence by opposite party. The scope of that provision is enlarged by S. 146 of the Evidence Act by permitting a witness to be questioned, inter alia, to test his veracity. It was observed :