AJIT SINGH Vs. INDER SARAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) When can an owner be said to bona fide require a premises for his residence ? Are the need of the owner an,d its extent justifiable ? If so. what is the criterion to determine the reasonable need of an owner ? These are some of the important questions that fall for coiisideration in these Second Appeals, four by different tenants and three by the owners of the property in dispute which assail a common order of the Rent Control Tribunal by which the Tribunal confirmed the order of the Additional Rent Controller allowing eviction of four tenants and dismissing lhe petitions of the owners for the eviction of the other three. These appeals were filed in the backdrop of the following circumstances;

(2.) Inder Saran and his widowed mother, lndrani Saran, for short, the owners, are displaced persons from West Pakistan and had apparently affluent background prior to the partition of lndia. Their claim to the immoveable property left by the family behind on, the partition of India is said to have been verified at a figure of Rs. 35 laths. That the family lived in Lahore before partition in, a 20 room mansion and soon after partition the owners, being then the only members of the family, apart from a married sister of Inder Saran, rented a comfortable residential flat in 19A, Alipur Road, Civil Lines, which was then considered the best residential locality in Delhi, were said to be the other measures of their standard of living. In course of time, Inder Saran got married and when the proceedings, out of which the appeals have arisen, were launched some time in the year 1964, he was blessed with a son, who would now be around 14115 years of age. During this period Inder Saran, made progress in his business and he set up a factory in Shahdara which he has since been running. In 1957, the owners purchased in a public auction in, different shares the property in dispute known, as 19. Faiz Bazar, Darya Ganj, Delhi. It is a three storeyed building standing on a plot of land said to be on, lease from the' President of India. The ground floor is being used for a commercial purpose partly by Inder Saran, for his own business and partly by a tenant. On both the 1st and 2nd floors, there are in all 8 residential units. In the year 1964, the owners filed 8 different petitions for eviction of each of the tenants of the 1st and 2nd floor on the common, ground that each of the 8 premises were bona fide required by the owners for their residence and that the tenanted premises in the occupation of the owners were not suitable for their requirements. During the pendency of the proceedings, one of the tenants, who held one of the units on the 2nd floor, died and the petition was allowed to abate. The proceedings were consolidated. The owners justified the eviction of the seven tenants on the ground that the owners bona fide required both the floors' so as to convert these, after alteration and modification, into two independent units, one for the mother and the other for the son and his family, guests, and domestic servants. The claim was sought to be reinforced by the plans of the two floors in a redesigned shape. The seven tenants resisted the plea for eviction on a variety of grounds such as invalidity of the notice of termination, lack of title of the owners in the property, lack of bona fides in the need, the composite nature of the tenancy and he suitability of the tenanted premise in the occupation, of the owners. By a common order of March 26, 1975, the Additional Rent Controller steered clear of all the grounds of resistence to eviction and held that the need of the owners was bona fide, the tenanted premises in their occupation were not suitable for their requirements but that the eviction, of all the seven tenants would not be justified as the reasonable needs of the owners would be satisfied with the eviction of the four tenants of the 1st floor, the present appellants. The petitions of the owners with regard to these four tenants were allowed while the petitions with regard to the three tenants on the 2nd floor were dismissed. The foul tenants, who were ordered to be evicted, appealed to the Rent Control Tribunal and so did the owners in so far as the eviction of the remaining three was not allowed. The various contentions and counter-contentions were, by and large, reiterated before the Tribunal and the Tribunal affirmed the order of the Controller by a common order of January 2, 1978, and dismissed all the seven appeals. In the four Second Appeals, the tenants seek a reversal of the order of eviction. In the three appeals, filed by the owners, eviction of the remaining three tenants are also sought ostensibly on the ground that the need of the owners would not be satisfied with the eviction of four tenants but more as a measure of counter blast and with a view to ensure that at least the orders of eviction of four tenants are maintained.

(3.) In the course of their rather elaborate and indeed learned arguments, counsel for the partics dealt with different facets of the concept of bona fide personal need, the measure of reasonable requirement of an owner for residential accommodation, the standard of suitability of an existing accommodation, and the criteria to determine if a tenancy was for a composite purpose. While the owners sought to justify a larger area on the ground of their affluence, status and standard of living to which they were used and claimed a right to determine how much area they would need to make themselves comfortable, the claim for any accommodation was resisted on behalf of the tenants on the ground that the owners' fantastic demands to evict 7 or 8 tenants to provide them with a luxurious residence was so fantastic that it was by itself destructive of any element of reasonableness, honesty or bona fide. In an apparent effort to take advantage of the obvious sympathy that the Court would have for the tenants, it was urged that there would be no justification to sacrifice the bare minimum needs of seven tenants to ingratiate the luxurious whims of an affluent owner. Some of the tenants, who also appeared in person to reinforce their cases, invoked either their advanced ages, their respectable background and in the case of one at least her windowed statis with the obvious difficulty, if required, to make alternative arrangements. There was also considerable' controversy as to the precise scope of Second Appeal under the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958, for short, the Act, and the obvious limitations on the power of the Court while dealing with such proceedings. In the face of rather heavy onslaught on behalf of the tenants, learned counsel for the owners even while pressing his three tenants, learned counsel fur the owners even while pressing his three appeals did not leave any doubt that consistent with the requirement to be reasonable in seeking eviction, the owners, even though initially desirous of having both the floors, would be satisfied if the orders of the courts below were maintained with or without the necessary peripheral modifications. Some of the tenants sought leave to urge additional grounds and even to produce additional evidence. There was some controversy arising out of the claim of the owners that they would have to make ;i number of alterations and modifications in the existing plans to make the premises suitable for their peculiar requirements and an attempi was made on behalf of the tenants to resist eviction on the ground that such modifications or alterations would be hit by the Land Ceiling laws and would also require prior municipal sanction. A contention was also raised that inasmuch as the owners proposed to make alterations and modifications in the existing structure, their case for eviction, if at all. fell within clause (g) of proviso to Section 14 of the Act and the petitions must fail because neither the said clause had been invoked nor were its requirements satisfied. It would, therefore, be necessary to consider and decide all these' questions. as indeed. certain minor pleas, raised on behalf of the parties.