S S PURI Vs. S P MALHOTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Petition under Article 227 of the Constitution has been filed assailing the Order of the Additional Rent Controller (hereinafter referred to as ARC) Delhi dated 3/11/2000, whereby leave to contest the eviction petition under Section 14(1)(e) read with Section 25-B of the Delhi Rent Control Act (hereinafter referred to as DRC Act) was granted to the Tenant.

(2.) The ARC has applied the ratio of Precision Steel Engineering vs. Premdev 1982 (3) SCC 270, which judgment was delivered by a Bench of three Learned Judges, to the effect that leave to contest should be granted if the tenants' affidavit disclosed facts which, if proved, would disentitle the landlord from recovering possession of the demised premises. In the partly dissenting judgment of his Lordship A.P. Sen J. it was opined that the whole object of sub-section (5) of Section 25-B is to prevent the taking of frivolous pleas by tenants to protract the trial and that only if the ARC finds that the pleadings are such as would entail a trial, then the tenant should be granted leave to contest. The rigours of the majority judgment have been diluted over the years, and the Apex Court has veered towards to this minority view. In Inder jeet Kaur ys., Nirpal Singh. 2000 (3) 397 the Apex Court has recently clarified that if a prima facie case is made out by the Tenant, the ARC should not embark on a pretrial but should grant leave to contest. The following observations should be noted;-

(3.) A disturbing trend can be perceived in the manner in which the Controllers are disposing-off applications for 'leave to contest'. Detailed Orders are passed at this stage itself. In doing so, the ARC is essentially finally deciding the disputed questions raised by the Tenant on the explanation given by the Landlord in his reply which exercise should be carried out after the trial. This approach is to be deprecated. In a given case the Tenant may deny the ownership of the Landlord but if a copy.of the Sale Deed is produced, or if it is the Landlord who had put the Tenant into possession, such grounds could rightly not be construed as having disclosed a prime facie case warranting a trial. But, to expand the illustration father, if the Tenant produces a document to the effect that the Landlord has divested or proposes to divert /transfer his ownership to a third party, and the Landlord puts forward an explanation which appears to be plausible, yet leave to contest the petition should be granted to the Tenant, since a prima facie case has been shown to exist which can be conclusively be decided only after considering in evidence on The record. Of course if the Court is of the opinion that such a plea is only a device to delay, he should reject the Tenant's application. The case of Col Surinder Pal vs. Rakesh Kumar. 1996 RLR 361 recommends this approach.