RAKESH VIJ Vs. RAMINDER PAL SINGH SETHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal, by special leave, has been filed against the judgment and order dated 20. 12.2000 of the High Court of Punjab and haryana at Chandigarh by which the revision preferred by the appellant against the order of eviction passed against him by the rent Controller as affirmed by the Appellate Authority was dismissed.

(2.) Before examining the legal issues raised by the learned counsel for the parties it will be convenient to notice the facts of the case in brief. The respondent Dr. Raminder Pal singh Sethi is a Dental Surgeon and he is co-owner along with his wife of a premises described as shop-cum-flat (for short "scf"). in Sector 37a, Chandigarh, in which father of the appellant late O. P. Vij was a tenant. The respondent filed a petition for eviction of O. P. Vij on the grounds, inter alia, that he was having his clinic in House no. 5, Sector 16a, Chandigarh, but the owner of the said premises, namely, Shri wasan Singh had filed an eviction petition against him on the ground that he was a specified landlord within the meaning of section 2 (hh) of the East Punjab Urban rent Restriction Act, 1949 (for short '1949 act') and the said petition was pending adjudication before the Rent Controller. The respondent wanted to set up a bigger dental clinic with modern gadgets, more number of dental chairs, provision for x-ray examination, orthopentamorgrams and radio video graphs and other facilities for which the space required was wholly inadequate in the rented premises currently in his occupation. The tenant O. P. Vij contested the eviction petition on various grounds and the principal ground urged was that eviction of a tenant cannot be sought on the ground of personal requirement of the landlord under the relevant provisions of East punjab Urban Rent Restriction (Extension to Chandigarh) Act, 1974 or the amendment made to the said Act in the year 1982. The Rent Controller, after a thorough examination of evidence on record, allowed the eviction petition by the judgment and order dated 16.9.1999 and the said order was affirmed in appeal by the Appellate authority on 16.11.2000. During the pendency of the appeal the original tenant O. P. Vij died and his legal heirs including the present appellant Rakesh Vij, who is his son, were substituted in his place. Rakesh vij then preferred a revision under Section 15 (5) of the 1949 Act in the High Court, but the same was dismissed on 20. 12.2000.

(3.) The principal submission made by Shri ashwani Chopra, learned senior counsel for the appellant, is that eviction of a tenant on the ground of bona fide requirement of the landlord is not provided for in the East punjab Urban Rent Restriction (Extension to Chandigarh) Act, 1974 and also after the amendment of the said Act in 1982 and, therefore, the eviction petition filed by the respondent landlord wherein he had sought eviction of the appellant's father, who was the sitting tenant, was not maintainable and the view taken by the Rent Control Authorities and also by the High Court is erroneous in law.