NABI Vs. DISTRICT JUDGE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN the town of Shahjahanpur there is a building No. 465 (new) corresponding to old No. 261, Baru Zai Peshwari, District Shahjahanpur. In this resides the family of the landlords and tenants. One set of tenants has one room along with a 'Sehan'. Another set of tenants also have a small room (Kothari) and a verandah. The landlords reside on the top -most floor of the accommodation, which is not exactly a room but a covered 'barsati'. Between the landlords and the tenants, they are Muslims. The landlords are three brothers with their wives and children, their mother and a sister, their living conditions are devoid of privacy. Likewise, the tenants have a large family. There is hardly any occasion to make adjustment between the two sets of tenants and the landlords because barring the little open space on the floor occupied, the landlords do not have even a room between them. There is hardship amongst all of them and it cannot be adjusted by sacrificing an accommodation between the landlord and the tenant, which is virtually impossible. There is no accommodation to adjust. With this situation the Prescribed Authority and the District Judge have weighed the needs carefully taking every aspect into mind and came to the conclusion that it is not possible to ignore the need of the landlords as they are virtually without any accommodation. The quantum of accommodation is not in dispute between the parties. It is further not possible for the authorities below to extract one accommodation out of either of the tenants and to give it to the landlords. That will make the hardship even worse for the tenants. Also on record is a fact that the tenants have acquired an accommodation of their own and it is lying vacant and unoccupied. This has not been dented by the tenants, but accepted.

(2.) TWO pleas submitted initially when the writ petition was presented were subsequently given up. These were (1) adverse possession and (2) that the parties between them were related and thus claimed ownership right through a common ancestor. The pleas were given up after the learned counsel for the petitioners acquiesced that before the two courts below this claim was hopelessly unsuccessful for want of proof and evidence. In fact, the courts below have given a finding that this was set up solely for the purpose of harassing the landlords. The two courts below have held that should any of the tenants have any claim as owner then such a plea can be appropriately adjudicated in an appropriate proceeding. In the proceedings before the two courts below a relationship of landlord and tenant stood established.