K P RAO Vs. T LAKSHMANAMURTY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two writ applications arise out of the same appellate judgement in a House Rent Control case disposing of two House Rent Control Appeals respectively preferred by the landlord and the tenant as against an order of the House Rent Controller dismissing the landlord's application for eviction even though recording adverse findings against the tenant as being a wilful defaulter and having negatived the title of the landlord. Two writ petitions have been filed against the same order since originally there were two appeals before the appellate authority and both are being disposed of by this common judgement.

(2.) Two questions have been urged by Mr. Panigrahi, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner-tenant to press for reversal of the appellate judgement. The first is whether a person who was a tenant but was evicted from the house in execution of an ex parte order of eviction, but occupied the house thereafter forcibly could still be called a tenant in the house rent control proceeding restored after setting aside of the ex parte order; and second, whether the House Rent Controller functioning under the Orissa House Rent Control Act, 1967 has the authority to set aside an ex parte order of eviction and restore the house rent control case for fresh hearing.

(3.) The facts, shorn of details, are that the opposite party No. 1 filed the house rent control case seeking eviction of the petitioner on the ground of wilful default of the petitioner in payment of the rent and denying the landlord's title and also on the ground of bona fide requirement. Besides, he also filed a petition for fixation of fair rent. The learned House Rent Controller found in fact that the petitioner was a wilful defaulter and had denied the title of the landlord, but however rejected the petition finding that opposite party No. 1 had obtained an ex parte order of eviction of the petitioner which he had put into execution and had taken delivery of possession of the house, but the petitioner had thereafter forcibly occupied the house as a trespasser and hence no relationship of landlord and tenant subsisted between the parties so as to maintain the petition under the Orissa House Rent Control Act. Both the petitioner and opposite party No. 1 preferred appeals before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Ganjam, Berhampur, who reversed the decision of the House Rent Controller and directed eviction of the petitioner and also fixed the fair rent of the house at Rs. 200/- per month.