RAM KRISHNA GUPTA Vs. HARI KRISHNA TANDON

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application Under Sec. 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure against an order Under Sec. 7E of the UP Control of Rent and Eviction Act.

(2.) The tenant filed an application that there were certain repairs needed in the house which the Defendant-landlord had not made. The defence was that there was no liability on the Plaintiff to do all these repairs, nor was there any agreement or custom by virtue of which he was bound to make these repairs. The learned Munsif came to the conclusion that since the Defendant had made repairs once or twice, he was bound to make the repairs. In the repairs that he has ordered are-fitting a gate to the garage, repairs of the soak-pit and flush latrine, fixing of glass-panes in all the doors and windows and repairing of the roofs of the kitchen and the godown which were leaking.

(3.) So far as the gate is concerned, it was not the case of the Plaintiff that there were gates fixed to the garage which were broken but he wanted new gates to be fixed. A reading of Sec. 7E makes it quite clear that it is not incumbent upon the landlord to make any new constructions or additions. He is, Under Sec. 7E of the Act "bound to keep the accommodation in the occupation of a tenant wind-proof and water-proof and to carry out other repairs which he is bound to make by law, contract or custom." The word used is "keep". The relevant meaning which will be applicable to the facts of the present case, according to Oxford English Dictionary, is "to lake care, to maintain in proper order and to preserve in being or operation." Thus the meaning of the words "to keep" appears to me to be that he will maintain it in the condition in which it was originally let out to him. If a person takes a house without doors or verandah on rent, he cannot later on ask the landlord to fix doors and windows or to make a construction all round the verandah so that the verandah may become wind proof. Here, the garage had no gate and, therefore, fixing a gate would not be keeping the garage or maintaining it in the condition in which it was let out. It would be adding a something new to it.