MEERA KORI Vs. MOHD. FAHEEM SIDDQUI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this petition filed under Article 227 of the Constitution of India the Petitioner has challenged the order dated 17.8.2006 passed by the Civil Judge, Class -II, Itarsi District Hoshangabad in Civil Suit No. 2 -A/2005.

(2.) In the said suit the Petitioner/Defendant filed an application under Section 13(2) of the Act and raised a dispute about the arrears and rate of rent. Similar dispute was also raised in the written statement. It is stated by the Petitioner/Defendant that the suit premises was let out to her by the Plaintiff for Rs. 200/ - per month and she had already paid the rent upto July, 2004 and there is no arrears of rent as claimed by the Respondent Plaintiff from January, 2002.

(3.) Having heard the learned Counsel for the parties, in my view, the impugned order passed by the trial Court cannot be sustained. The fixation of reasonable provisional rent without summary enquiry by taking into the extraneous considerations like financial status of the parties, locality of the suit premises and the prevailing rent cannot be sustained. In order to fix the reasonable provisional rent in the absence of any documentary evidence the trial Court ought to have directed the parties to file affidavits to that effect. It is now well settled that the reasonable provisional rent can be fix on the basis of rent receipts, rent shown in the property tax register or in the absence of any documentary evidence only the basis of affidavits. See Bhagwan Das v. Smt. Savitri Bai [1977 (1) MPWN 328] & Ramnath Mahore v. Rakesh Kumar Gangil [ : 1986 MPLJ 471]. The trial Court without resorting to the aforesaid summary enquiry has taken into consideration irrelevant and extraneous considerations and has fixed the provisional rent.