RAVI GUPTA Vs. VIDYA WATI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision petition under Section 25-B(B) of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958, (for short 'the Act'), has been filed after petitioner's application for leave to contest the petition was declined. The eviction petition had been filed by the landlady under the provisions of Section 14-D of the Act, pleading that she was landlady of premises : bearing No. B-368, Nirman Vihar. Delhi, which were let out to the petitioner herein in the year 1981, and that she was a widow. She has set out in detail the reasons as to why she sought vacant possession, stating that the demised premises were the only property owned by her, and that these were let out to the tenant for residential purposes, and now she required them for her own residence as she had no other alternative reasonable accommodation. She further pleaded that she had been constrained to hire a rented accommodation in Delhi consisting of one room only with a small kitchen situated in a congested locality and the same were highly inadequate for her requirements, because she needed the amenity of a drawing-cum-dining room, a store room, as also a pooja room besides independent bath room which facility the tenanted premises did not offer. She further stated that she has only one son named R.K. Anand who belongs to Himachal Pradesh IAS cadre, and that after death of her husband in 1980. she went to live with the said son, but he was posted at Shimla which, being a hill station, was wholly unsuitable to her for reasons of health and that is why she was constrained to take some accommodation on rent in Delhi. It was, however, disclosed in the eviction petition filed in 1989, that the son of the petitioner was posted, at the time in Delhi, and was occupying a government allotted flat which was on the third floor in a seven storeyed building at Kharak Singh Marg, New Delhi, and that accommodation was also not suitable, for her in view of her old age and health problems, wholly, associated with old age.

(2.) In the application for leave to contest, the tenant (petitioner herein) controverted the pleas of the landlady as set out in the eviction petition by contending that she had always been living with her son wherever he was posted, and that she even at the time of filing of the eviction petition was residing with the said son in the flat at Kharak Singh Mark, and that it was wrong to say that she had taken on rent some other accommodation. He also disputed the fact that Shimla's climate was not suitable to her, contending that she had been staying with her son since 1981, after the death of her husband, and it was not out of any genuine need for the premises that the eviction petition had been filed, but only with the object of having increase in rent. It was also contended that the premises had been rented out for residential-cum-commercial purposes, and he was carrying on his business under the name and style of M/s. Ravi International in the said premises from the inception of the tenancy, and that demand for increase of rent was made persistently by the landlady through her son R.K. Anand by various letters and, in fact, caller rent was increased from Rs. 2000.00 to Rs. 2200.00 p.m under pressure and that on his declining to agree for further enhancement of rent, the. landlady came up with the eviction petition in the year 1985 invoking Clause (e) of Section 14 (1) of the Act, setting out pleas of bona fide requirement which are same as in the present petition.

(3.) The Additional Rent Controller, after consideration of the facts stated in the eviction petition, application for leave to contest filed by the tenant, and the reply affidavit filed by the landlady, came to the conclusion that in view of the fact that the petitioner before him had no other resident accommodation in Delhi, and further opining that judicial notice could be taken of the fact that places like Shimla, where her son was ordinarily posted as an IAS officer of Himachal Pradesh cadre, could not be suitable to a person of her age, and held to that extent her plea was justified. Tenant's contention that she was ordinarily residing with her son wherever he was posted, was not, however, wholly rejected, because there are certain observations in the order to the effect that landlady's plea that she was living in a tenanted accommodation consisting of a room and a small kitchen had not been specifically proved on record, and further that in view of the fact, as stated by the tenant, that the building where the son was staying had lifts; her plea that that flat was not suitable being on the third floor was not tenable. Nevertheless the Addl. Rent Controller held that since now the son has been posted back to Shimla, which fact as a subsequent event could be taken note of, and for the reason that owing to various factors, a place like Shimla cannot be comfortable for a lady of her age, particularly during winter months, and since she has no other residential accommodation in Delhi of her own, she was entitled to have vacant possession of her property, which was under tenancy of the petitioner herein. After dismissing the application for leave to contest, an eviction order was passed in terms of the site plan annexed with the eviction petition, allowing three months time to the tenant to vacate the premises.