SHEELA DEVI Vs. VARINDER KHANNA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner-tenant herein has applied for the invalidation of the impugned order vide which the learned Rent Controller made provisional assessment of rent at the rate of Rs. 36,200/- per month. Before the learned Rent Controller, the presentation made on behalf of the respondent-landlord was that rent at the rate of Rs. 36,200/- per month was payable for the tenanted premises. Reliance, in support of the averment, was placed upon a cheque which had been issued by the petitioner tenant for a sum of Rs. 36,200/-. The plea qua the rate of rent was resisted by the petitioner-tenant who averred that the agreed rate of rent was Rs. 3620/- and that cheque aforementioned had been issued to clear the arrears of rent for a period of ten months. Reliance, in support of the averment aforementioned was placed upon an endrosement on the rear of the cheque aforementioned wherein it is categorically indicated that the amount represented the rent for ten months. Qua the above averment, it is the presentation on behalf of the respondent-landlord that the endorsement aforementioned had been gone into by the police which had registered a case bearing FIR No. 60/2009 and put up a charge sheet against the petitioner tenant for the offences 465, 467, 468, 471 and 120-B IPC, for the forgery thereof.

(2.) The learned Rent Controller held that the rate of rent payable for the premises was Rs. 36,200/- per month. The tenancy was in favour of the husband of the petitioner-tenant who was an income tax assessee and whose income tax returns have been placed on record. The respondent landlord is also an income tax assessee whose income tax returns have also been placed on record.

(3.) In the case of an oral averment by one party against a counter averment by the other, the contents of income tax documentation could be determinative of the controversy atleast for purpose of provisional assessment in the income tax return for the assessment year 2004-05. The respondent-landlord had shown the income from house property as Rs. 51,628/-. In the certification issued by the tax Consultant to the respondent, the income from house property has been shown to be Rs. 1,59,842/-. Like wise, in the income tax return for the assessment year 2005-06, the income from house property has been shown as Rs. 88,235/-. By no stretch of imagination can be said that the rental income indicated by the respondent-landlord in those returns corresponds to the averment made by him in this petition that the rent for the tenanted premises was payable at the rate of Rs. 36,200/- per month. On the other hand, the income tax documentation placed on record by the petitioner-tenant-Sheela Devi indicates that total income shown from various assessment years was far short of the amount claimed by the respondent-landlord as rent.