ANGOORI DEVI Vs. CHAMELI DEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The question whether this Court can interfere with the decision of the Judge, Court of Small Causes, Delhi depends on the true construction of the ambit of section 25 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act, 1887 under which this revision has been filed by the plaintiff-petitioner. Section 25 is as follows :-

(2.) The suit of the plaintiff petitioner for recovery of arrears of rent at the rate of Rs. 28.00 from 8-3-1969 to 7-1-1970 amounting to Rs. 280.00 from the defendant respondent, her tenant, was only partly decreed by the learned Small Cause Judge because he held that' the rent agreed to be payable by the defendant respondent to the plaintiff petitioner for a room measuring 8X6 sq. feet was only 5.00 per month as averred by the defendant respondent and not Rs. 28.00 per month as was claimed by the plaintiff petitioner. The evidence before the learned judge was (a) documentary and (b) oral.

(3.) The documentary evidence was a bound printed receipt book in which the various columns had to be filled up at the time of giving a rent receipt. At the relevant time, the plaintiff respondent had two tenants and the counterfoils of the receipts issued to them are contained in the receipt book. Exhibit P-1, while the victual receipts had been delivered to the tenants. As many as 31 counterfoils of receipts given to the defendant respondent are contained in this bound book and each of them bears the thumb impression of the defendant respondent. The rate of rent in the counterfoils is shown to be Rs. 30.00 per month. This was later reduced to Rs. 28.00 per month. The learned Small Cause Judge held that all the thumb impressions of the defendant respondent were taken by coercion by the plaintiff petitioner and her helpers at one time on these counterfoils the recitals of which are not. therefore, bind:ing on the defendant respondent. The reasons for this conclusion given by the learned judge were as follows :-