K SUNIL Vs. KISHAN LAL MATTA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is a practicing Advocate. He is a tenant under the respondent allegedly on a monthly rent of Rs. 700.00 per month. He is neither paying rent nor water and electricity charges and yet is enjoying the premises with arrears mounting to Rs. 39,304.00 . The landlord, on the other hand is stated to be a retired Government servant aged about 70 years with failing eye sight. Driven to the wall, he filed a suit under Order 37 of the Code of Civil Procedure for recovery of Rs. 39,304 .00 . In response to that the present petitioner filed an application for leave to appear and defend the suit. The learned Civil Judge granted him the permission subject to his furnishing a bond for the suit amount. The petitioner is not prepared to furnish even that. Hence this revision petition.

(2.) The facts as narrated above paint a pathetic scene. The tenant wants to enjoy all the facilities - the premises, the supply of electricity and the flow of water and yet would not pay. He is not even prepared to furnish a bond. It appears, and this is not disputed even by the petitioner-tenant, that in the year 1994 a dispute led the parties to the Police Station. At the Police Station an agreement was entered into. Admittedly, it was in writing. It is also not disputed that by that agreement the petitioner-tenant admitted the agreed rate of rent to be Rs. 700.00 per month. He also admitted his liability to pay the arrears of rent with effect from March, 1993. Even that agreement has not been honoured.

(3.) It is now the case of the petitioner, and this happens to be the first ground of attack in the revision, that he was coerced to enter into the above-noted agreement. The suit was filed in October, 1995 and the plea of coercion was taken for the first time in the application for leave filed some time in 1996. Thus for all those long years sphinx-like silence was maintained. All this despite the fact that the petitioner happens to be a practising Advocate.