SAROOPI DEVI Vs. BHARTIYA BRAHMAN CHARITABLE TRUST

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY this petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner has assailed the order dated 17th July 2007 passed by learned additional Rent Control Tribunal (ARCT) whereby an appeal filed by the petitioner against the judgment of learned Additional Rent Controller was dismissed.

(2.) THE landlord (respondent herein) in this case is a Society registered under the Societies Registration Act, which filed a petition for eviction under sections 14 (1) (a) (b) (h) and (j) and under Section 22 of the Delhi Rent control Act (for short, ?the DRC Act? ). Evidence was led by both the parties on different grounds of eviction raised by the landlord. The learned ARC found only two grounds having been made out. The first ground made out was non-payment of rent under Section 14 (1) (a) and the second ground made out was under Section 14 (1) (d) that the petitioners were not living in the premises for more than six months. The learned ARC dismissed the eviction petition on rest of the grounds. As far as Section 14 (1) (a) of the DRC Act was concerned, the benefit of Section 14 (2) was given to the tenant and the tenant deposited the rent. Therefore, that ground became not available to the landlord. However, eviction petition was allowed under Section 14 (1) (d) of DRC Act. Both, the landlord and the tenant, preferred an appeal against this order of the learned ARC before the ARCT and the learned ARCT dismissed both the appeals thereby upholding the eviction order against the petitioner on the ground of Section 14 (1) (d ). The tenant (the petitioner herein) aggrieved by the order of learned ARC as well as learned arct, has preferred the instant petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India.

(3.) THE contention of the petitioners is that the landlord was a trust and the petition could have been filed only by all the trustees together. The eviction petition filed by secretary of society was not maintainable. The other ground taken is that the learned ARC and the learned ARCT wrongly came to conclusion that the tenant was not living in the premises.