KAILASH CHAND Vs. RAM WATI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This second appeal under Sections' of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958, hereinafter criled "the Act", is directed against an order of the Rent Control Tribunal confirming that of the Rent Controller made in proceedings under Section 25 of the Act initiated by the appellant as a sequel to the threat of eviction from the premises in dispute by virtus of an order of eviction obtained by the respondant/landlady for the eviction of the tenant/respondent No 2 in the appeal. The order of eviction was obained by the landlady in proceedings under Section 14(l)(a) of the Act, inter alia, on the ground that the landlady, who was the owner of the premises, required the same for her residence and that the tenant had built, acquired vacant porseision or had been allotted a residence. The application for eviction was also grounded on the allegation that the tenant had unauthorisedly sublet a portion of the premises in favour of Raj Bahadur and lakshmi Chand. The application did not contain any allegation that the appellant was one of the unauthorised sub-tenants nor the appellant was even impleaded as a party to the said procedings. The order of eviction was confirmed in appeal by the Tribunal and by this Court in Second Appeal.

(2.) The application under Section 25 of the Act out of which the present Second Appeal has arisen was grounded on the allegation that the appellant had been in occupation of one room, two kothas, one kitchen with common latrine, common bath and common court yard on the ground floor of the house in dispute in his independt right as a tenant since 1940 originally under Shri Gujar Mal, father of the landlady and late." after his death, under his widow Smt. Saro Devi, mother of the landlady and. after the letter's death, under the landlady/ respondent No. 1, and hid been paying rent regularly and had paid upto October 31, 1971 The appellant surther ftated that none of these owners had issued any receipt to the appellant but that the appellant had obtained a no-objection certificate in the year 1952 from the respondent/ landlady and had obtained an electric connection from the Delhi Electric Supply Undertaking on that basis. Ex.CW 4/" was alleged to be the no objection certificate purporting to have been signed by resoondent/ landlady and attested by Ram Babu Maheshwari who was a Municipal Councillor of Delhi.

(3.) The application was resisted on behalf of the landlady and on a consideration of the oral and documentary evidence produced before it, the Rent Controller returned the finding that, although the appellant had been residing in the premises for many years before 1962 and bad even obtained an electric connection from the Delhi Electric Supply Undertaking in his name in the premises in dispute, it had not been proved that the no objection certificate Ex. CW4/2 was executed by the respondent/landlady and that the appellant had even otherwise failed to establish that he had been in occupation of the premises in dispute as a direct tenant under any of the owners. The-Rent Controller, however, did not give any definite finding, if assuming that the appellant was not a tenant under any of the owners independently in his own right, the appellant was a subtenant whether authorised or unauthorised under the tenant or could be considered to be a licensee or a person otherwise in possession of the authorisation of any of the owners ineluding respondent/landlady or in permissive possession. The Controller also did not consider if, having regard to the fact that in the original proceedings for the eviction of the tenant the respondent/ landlady had not allseed that the appellant was one of the unauthorised sub-tenant and had even given up the case for eviction on the ground of unauthorised sub-letting, it was open to the respondent/landlady to contend that the appell ant was an unauthorised sub-tenant as distinct from a contention that he was not in occupation in his own right as a tenant or otherwise than on an authorisation from any of the owners.