HARBANS LAL KAPOOR Vs. MOHINDER KUMAR MALHOTRA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The respondent before me admits to be a tenant in the premises. He, however, claims that agreed rate of rent is Rs 50.00 p.m. though petitioner alleges that it is Rs. 500.00 p.m. They are crossing swords on yet another issue. The petitioner says that respondent has been in arrears of rent w.e.f February, 1985 while the respondent has taken the stand that he has paid rent upto Feb. 1988 and thereafter had been depositing the same u/S. 27 of the Delhi Rent Control Act (the Act). What, however, is not disputed is that the petitioner served a notice of demand and thereafter filed a petition for eviction of the respondent u/S. 14(l)(a) of the Act.

(2.) The ARC accepted the stand taken by petitioner and passed an order u/S. 15(1) of the Act @ of Rs. 500.00 p.m. with effect from Feb. 1988. The respondent preferred an appeal. The R.C. Tribunal varied the order and directed payment of rent @ of Rs. 50.00 p.m. It was thereafter, the turn of the petitioner to find the order unpalatable. Hence this CM(M) petition.

(3.) The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that as he had filed before the court as many as 10 counter-foils of rent receipts duly signed by the respondent showing the agreed rate of rent to be Rs. 500.00 p.m. and as with the consent of the rsspondent those counter-foils had been sent to the Central Forensic Science Lab. for opinion of handwriting expert which had opined that the signatures on those counter-foils of rent receipts were in the handwriting of the respondent, therefore, Tribunal ought to have held the agreed rate to be Rs. 500.00 p.m. He has also leaned heavily on a reply dated 30.1.91 sent by respondent through his counsel to one of the notices of the petitioner. It is claimed that the said reply contained an admission that the rent agreed to was Rs. 500.00p.m. The particular sentence extracted from that repply and to which my pointed attention was drawn runs :