(1.) This judgment of ours will dispose of Civil Writ No. 1938 of 1976 (Krishan Lal vs. Financial Commissioner and others) and Civil Writ No. 7467 of 1976 (Som Dutt Malik vs. The State of Haryana and others).
(2.) It is not necessary to state the facts as the only contention raised before us by the learned counsel for the petitioner is that the learned Financial Commissioner has committed a patent illegality in recording some findings on merits when he was remanding the case to the Rent Controller for deciding the ejectment application afresh on merits after permitting the landlord to amend the application for eviction by including the three ingredients stated in Section 13(3) (a) (i) of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act.
(3.) After hearing the learned counsel for the parties, we are of the view that there is considerable force in the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner. It is evident from the judgment of the learned Financial Commissioner that he has permitted the landlord to amend his eviction application and include all the three ingredients. The case has been sent back to the Rent Controller for deciding it afresh on merits. The parties would now be leading evidence after the amendment. The Rent Controller would be deciding the whole case on the evidence that would be led before him. In case the parties are relying on the earlier evidence, then that too would have to be taken into consideration by the Rent Controller. It would be the Rent Controller who would have to record a finding on merits on re-appraisal of the entire evidence. In case the findings which have been recorded on some of the evidence available on the record by the Financial Commissioner, are allowed to stand, then the case of the parties before the Rent Controller is likely to be prejudiced as the learned Rent Controller would not be able to give a firm finding independently on the entire evidence available on the record. In this situation, we find considerable force in the contention of Mr. Gopi Chand, learned counsel for the petitioner, that the findings given on merits by the learned Financial Commissioner deserve to be set aside.