LAXMI KANT MUKT Vs. JITENDER KUMAR AGGARWAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a second appeal by the tenant seeking reversal of the judgment of the Rent Control Tribunal, Delhi, passed on March 15, 1979 dismissing the appeal of the tenant but allowing the appeal filed by the landlord, and directing the tenant's eviction under S. 14 (1) (e) of the Delhi Rent Control Act.

(2.) The first question required to be decided at the threshold is whether the respondent is the owner of the demised premises? If he is not, his requirement of those premises even if proved to be bonafide cannot be made the ground for tenant's eviction. Admittedly, the respondent herein had been held to be the landlord as also the owner of the demised premises in an earlier suit which he had filed for recovery of Rs. 5.000.00 on account of arrears of rent against the present appellant, by the trial court which finding was affirmed by the 1st Appellate Court. The tenant's second appeal (R. S. A. No. 105 of 1969) was dismissed on September 30, 1975, by.Avadh Behari, J. While upholding the concurrent Avadh Behari J. had expressed no opinion on the question of ownership and observed thus :

(3.) The said judgment of this Court is on the record of this case as Exhibit R. 6. Avadh Behari J , while affirming the decrees of the Courts below, had further observed in the penultimate paragraph of the judgment that "in the plaint the case of the plantiff was that he was the landlord and the defendant was his tenant. I have decided this appeal on this main ground. In the replication the questions of ownership, joint Hindu family, partition, re-arrangement were all set out. The Courts have decided those questions also in favour of the plaintiff. But in my opinion the suit could have been decided on this other ground."