ASHOK KUMAR Vs. VITH ADDITIONAL DISTRICT JUDGE KANPUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioners are the landlord of an accommodation 18/200, Mohalla Kursawan, Kanpur. In this accommodation resides a tenant by the name of Laxmi Narain, arrayed as respondent no. 3. THE landlord filed an application under section 21 of U. P. Act XIII of 1972 seeking its release on the ground of personal need. This application under section 21 was allowed exparte. THE landlord applied for enforcement of the order to evict this tenant under section 23, and was successful in wresting the accommodation out from the hands of this tenant.

(2.) SUBSEQUENTLY, the tenant appeared before the Court of the Munsif Haveli, Kanpur, exercising powers as the Prescribed Authority. He pleaded that he had no knowledge of the proceeding which occasioned an exparte order under section 21 of the Act, and the exparte order had been obtained by playing a fraud upon the Court. The Prescribed Authority examined the pleas of the tenant, Laxmi Narain, by giving an opportunity to the landlord also. On facts, the Prescribed Authority found that the notices and summons and the Vakalatnama filed on behalf of the tenant, Laxmi Narain, had in fact been filed by some one other than Laxmi Narain. In fact, the counsel named and mentioned in the Vakalatnama was untraceable and no counsel at the Bar was prepared to take the responsibility that a Vakalatnama was filed for and on behalf of the tenant. These were findings on facts, after the Prescribed Authority had made an inquiry to that effect. The Prescribed Authority found that, indeed, the tenant never received notices on the Section 21 application, nor the summons of the Court. The exercise of receipt of these essential documents of his court was manufactured. So was the Vakalatnama. The Advocate who is supposed to have signed and accepted the Vakalatnama, did not exist. The Prescribed Authority has set it on record that these facts are discernible to the naked eye and were clear from the record. It is for this reason that the Prescribed Authority passed two orders which were otherwise equitable. The Prescribed Authority ordered (a) that the exparte order by which Section 21 application had been decreed, would be recalled and consequently, (b) he further directed that the possession which had been wrested from the hands of the tenant, Laxmi Narain, would be restored to him. Thereafter, he directed that the application under section 21 of the Act can proceed and considered on merits.

(3.) WITH such a background, this petition needs dismissal. There is no illegality, manifest or otherwise in the Prescribed Authority's order in directing restitution of the tenant into the accommodation he occupied and thereafter the consideration of the landlord's application under section 21 of the Act, on merits. In fact, the Prescribed Authority will ensure that the tenant is put back into the premises which he had once occupied. The application for release under section 21 will be considered on merits thereafter.