LALIT KUMAR SAHU Vs. SHANTI DEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The landlord-petitioner filed an application for the release of the shop in question for carrying on business of sanitary wares. The application for release was allowed by the Prescribed Authority on 25.2.2003 and it released the shop no.84, Vivekanand Marg, Allahabad in favour of the petitioner. The tenant-respondent, however, filed an Appeal which was numbered as Rent Control Appeal No.14 of 2003 and when this Appeal came to be allowed on 12.10.2007 the instant writ petition was filed by the petitioner.

(2.) When the petitioner-landlord had filed the Release Application, he had specifically stated that the shop in question was a commercial shop and that after he had bought the same he required it for the purposes of establishing himself. He had stated that he required the shop to run the business of sanitary wares etc. The plaintiff-landlord had very categorically stated that the shop was a commercial one from which the tenant was selling flowers and garments etc. The opposite party-tenant had filed a written statement/reply to the Release Application in which she had admitted that the applicant was a landlord and the owner of the shop. However, in paragraph-4 of the written statement she had stated that the premises in question was not a shop but a residential accommodation and in it the opposite party-tenant had been residing for the past 17 years. Simply because she was by caste a Gardner, she had also started with the business of selling flowers. She also stated that the comparative hardship to her would be much greater than the hardship which the petitioner might be facing if the tenant-respondent vacated the shop in question which was not a commercial shop. The Prescribed Authority found for sure that the shop was a commercial one and allowed the Release Application. It also found that the petitioner-landlord bonafidely required the shop in question. The Prescribed Authority also found that comparative hardship of the landlord was much greater without the shop and thereafter released the shop in question on 25.2.2003. Upon Appeal, the Appellate Court reversed the judgment of the Prescribed Authority and found that the shop in question was predominantly being used for residential purposes and that the respondents were also staying in it and, therefore, the Release Application was, under law, not maintainable.

(3.) Apart from the fact that the Appellate Court found that the premises in question were not commercial in nature and was being used for residential purposes, it also found that the landlord had other properties and allowed the Appeal on 12.10.2007.