ROSHAN LAL Vs. BHAGWATI DEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This regular second appeal under section 100, Code of Civil Procedure, is directed against the order of the learned Senior-Subordinate Judge with enhanced appellate powers affirming on appeal the order of a learned Subordinate Judge 1st Class, dated 10th March, 1965, dismissing the plaintiff-appellant's suit for permanent injunction restraining defendant No. 1 from evicting him from the flat in dispute in execution of a decree for eviction passed against defendants Nos. 2 and 3 by the Kent Controller, Delhi. The suit was contested by defendant No 1, the other two defendants remaining absent and proceedings against them bing ex-parte.

(2.) It is unnecessary to narrate all the facts leading to the conversy in question, because in this appeal, the direct contest only centres round the construction of sections 17 and 18 of the Delhi Rent Control Act 59 of 1958 (hereafter called the Act) and facts relevant for this purpose alone need be stated.

(3.) The pleadings of the parties gave rise to five issue? on the merits. Issue No. 3 relating to the plaintiff's plea of his lawful possession as sub-tenant was decided in his favour, it being held that the plaintiff had been in occupation of the flat in dispute as a sub-tenant since April, 1948 and was, therefore, a lawful sub-tenant. This is the only material issue which concerns us at this stage. In the previous proceedings for eviction of defendants Nos. 2 and 3 the plaintiff-appellant had, it is admitted by the parties, made an application under Order I, Rule 10, Civil P. C for being impleaded as a defendant. The day on which this application was to be decided, the parties to that controversy entered into a compomise and in accordance therewith, an eviction decree was made against the tenants granting them more than two years for vacating the premises. The application under Order I, Rule 10, Civil P.O., filed by the present appellant-plaintiff for being impleaded was dismissed. According to the trial Court, it was not pressed. The Courts below have held that the plaintilff-appellant having omitted to give the requisite notice as required by section 17(2) of the Act, he could not claim benefit of section 18 thereof and, therefore, was not entitled to claim the injunction prayed in the prssent proceedings. It is not denied that a notice as required by section 17(2) has not been given, though there is some controversy at the bar whether otherwise some notice was given by the plaintiff-appellant to defendant No 1. As the learned counsel for the appellant has also relied on section 16 in support of his submission, I consider it appropriate to reproduce sections 16, 17 and 18 of the Act :- * * * (After reproducing sections 16 to 18, his lordship proceeded). According to the learned counsel for the appellant, where a sub-tenant is in lawful occupation of the premises let out to him by a tenant (who is his landlord) since prior to 9th June, 1952, then he is automatically entitled to the protection of section 18 of the Act and no notice under section 17(2) would be necessary as a condition precedent for claiming the status of a tenant under section 18. I am unable to sustain this submission. When section 16 speaks of the deeming provision of lawful subletting, then all that it means is that the tenant who has sublet the premises, is not to be deemed to have sublet, assigned or otherwise parted with possession of the premises or a part there o f which would constitute a ground for his eviction within the contemplation of section 14. It does not mean that the sub-tenant would be deemed automatically to become a tenant when an order for eviction of the tenant is made under s. 14. In order to fill the vacum created by the eviction of the tenant by permitting the sub-tenant to step into the evicted tenant's shoes, it is, in my opinion, essential that a notice within the contemplation of section 17 is served in accordance with Rule 21 of the Delhi Rent Control Rules, 1959 framed under section 56 of the Act. The submission that the expression "a notice of the sub-tenancy" contained in section 18 means any notice given by a sub-tenant to the landlord, has not impressed me and, in my opinion, on the plain language and scheme of sections 16 to 18, it is quite clear that this notice has a reference only to the notice mentioned in section 17, though in the present case, we are only concerned with s. 17(2). The object to be achieved seems no be obvious. It is to safeguard the Landlord's rights as against any secret dealing between his tenant and an alleged sub-tenant so that no one is forced on the landlord as a tenant with all his statutory rights of protection against eviction without the landlord's clear knowledge and acquiesence or detrirmination of the point by the Controller under the Act. If a sub-tenant is to continue to stay on the premises even after the expiry of the tenant's lease, then it can be done only with the clear knowledge of the landlord, whose rights are affected, and it is to ensure this knowledge that the provision of notice has been enacted in section 17 which should be so construed as to achieve the basic purpose and object of enacting it. It may in this connection be borne in mind that ordinarily no one can confer on others greater light, whether in duration or in quality, than he himself possessed and as a general rule, therefore, a tenant may not be vested with a power to confer on a subtenant a right, as against the landlord, to stay on the leased premises after the termination of his own tenancy. On the plain statutory language scheme of the Act, the deeming provision of lawful subletting coiitained in section 16, does not by itself confer on the sub-tenant a right to become a tenant on the eviction of the tenant through whom he claims his right to occupy the premises. Reference to the earlier rent control legislation is in my opinion, out of place for the purpose of construing the meaning, scope and effect of sections 16 to 18 of the Act.