MOHANSHET PURUSHOTTAM GUJAR Vs. JAYASHRI VASANTRAO MAHAGAONKAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner before me is the tenant in a house situate at Shukrawar Peth, Pune 2; the number of the house is 836. The tenant was occupying one room therein at a small rent. The said house belonged prior' to 21st December 1966 to one Baburao Gokule. It is the respondent's case that by a deed of a sale dated 21st December 1966 executed on behalf of Gokule by his constituted attorney, one Yadav Krishnaji Konde, the said house was sold by Gokule to the respondent. The sale-deed is duly registered. This Konde purported to act on behalf of Gokule under a power of attorney dated 14th March 1966. The sale deed was Exhibit 90 and the power of attorney was Exhibit 89 in the trial Court. It appears that thereafter the new owner instituted several proceedings against the tenants in the said house. Ultimately after exchange of notice a number of suits were filed in all these suits the allegation was that the tenants were defaulters inasmuch as they failed to pay the rent to the new owner. The tenants had contended that the rent claimed was not payable to the respondent landlady, and this wae based on a letter addressed by Gokule actually contending that he remains to be the owner and that the sale-deed had been procured by the respondent by practising fraud. The tenants also raised disputes regarding their rente. Ultimately at the trial the respondent succeeded against some of the tenants including the petitioner before me but failed in respect of other tenants. In the case of the petitioner it was held that the respondent was the owner and entitled to the rent and that the dispute as to standard rent raised in the written statement was not available to the petitioner. Ultimately, therefore a decree for eviction was passed against him, there was also a decree for certain amount being the arrears of rent. It may be mentioned that all the several suits against the various tenants were tried together, evidence was recorded in only one of them and there was a common judgment by the III Additional Judge of the Court of Small Causes, Pune, dated 15th December 1971, dealing with as many as seven suits- From this judgment various appeals were preferred and three such appeals and one civil revision application were disposed of by the learned IV Extra Assistant Judge. Pune, by his common judgment dated 27th February 1973. The petitioner's appeal against the decree for eviction was dismissed by the learned Extra Assistant Judge.

(2.) Now, going through the judgment I have found that considerable injustice has been done to this petitioner by reason of his trial being joined along with other tenants whose cases were not identical and the matter had proceeded in a haphazard manner. It is true that as far as the respondent's title was concerned, there was a common issue and an agreement could have been reached as regards joint disposal of that issue. Thereafter, however, as for as the case of each tenant was concerned, it would surely differ, and the way in which it has been disposed of by the learned Judge of the Court of Small Causes is not to be commended.

(3.) It appears to me, however, that it is unnecessary to go further into this aspect of the matter inasmuch as in the view that I have taken, which I will presently indicate, the respondent had failed to prove (at least for the purpose of this suit) her title to the suit house. If that be so, then it is clear that he was not entitled to the decree which she obtained against the petitioner, and which decree will be required to be quashed in this special civil application.