USHA RAMCHANDRA KULKARNI Vs. SHANTARAM KASHIRAM GOTRI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision application raises an interesting question of law becoming more interesting by the peculiar facts of this case. This revision application has been brought of this Court. Under sec. 29(2) of the Bombay Rent Act (she Act for short).

(2.) In order to comprehend fully the controversy thai has been raised in this revision application the facts required to he noted fully. The opponent herein is the plaintiff of a rent Suit No. 2414 of 1975 which was initially registered as the Regular Civil Suit No. 904 of 1974 in the Court of the Civil Judge (J.D.) Baroda but it came to be transferred to the; Small Causes Court at Baroda itself on that court being established in the year 1975. The landlord had filed the said suit for possession of the rented premises situated at Baroda. The landlords case in the plaint was that the defendant No. 1 Usha Ramchandra Kulkarni the wife of the defendant no. 2 Ramchandra Nineji Kulkarni was his tenant that she was in arrears of rent right from 1st of April 1972 that despite the demand notice under sec. 12(2) of the Act she had not paid any rent and that the defendant no. 2 her husband claimed to be the tenant and had even filed an application for fixation of standard rent and because of this dispute raised by the defendant no.2 he impleaded him: as a party to the suit in older to avoid the plea of the suit being bad at law for want of a necessary or proper party though the plaintiff reiterated that he stuck to his case that the defendant no. 1 has his tenant. It is to he noted that in the application for fixation of standard rent filed bad the defendant no. 2 an interim rent at the rate of Rs. 18.00 per month was fixed though the contractual rent are stated to be Rs. 20.00 per month. The defendant husband had also deposited some amount at the rate of Rs. 18 per month on the record of the said Misc. Application filed under sec. 11 of the Act. In response to the suit both the defendants had filed a joint written statement at Exhibit contending that the defendant no. 1 was not the tenant but the defendant no. 2 was the tenant that there was a dispute about standard rent and so the defendant no. 2 had filed an Application No. 2 of 1978 wherein the defendant No. 2 had deposited the lent and that the plaintiffs suit was liable to be dismissed.

(3.) Soon after the written statement was filed by the defendants the opponent landlord filed an application Exhibit 8 on 10-11-1976 setting out how the defendant no. 1 was in arrears of Rs. 1 700.21 In that application Exhibit 8 he ultimately prayed as under.