SHRI SURJIT SINGH Vs. SMT. SATINDER KAUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The respondent filed an application under Section 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 (hereinafter called the Act) for ejectment of the petitioner-tenant on a number of grounds but the only ground which subsists for the purposes of this petition is that of personal necessity. According to the averments made in the application, she was living in one room of house No. 1698, Sector 34-D, Chandigarh, which she had taken on rent with effect from May 1, 1972; that her family consisted of her three sons who were of school and college going age and that the accommodation in her possession was insufficient for her needs.

(2.) The application was opposed by the tenant and the defence put up by him was that previous to the renting of the one room of House No. 1698, Sector 34-D, the respondent was residing in House No. 452, Sector 20-A which was sufficient for her needs. As she had vacated that house without sufficient cause she was not entitled to maintain the present application. It was further pleaded that the present accommodation in her possession was also sufficient for her needs and the application had been mala fide for ulterior purposes. The Rent Controller, after recording evidence of the parties, upheld the plea of personal necessity of the respondent and ordered ejectment of the tenant vide order dated February 22, 1977. The order of the Rent Controller was confirmed, on appeal, by the Appellate Authority vide judgment dated September 30, 1977, which led to the filing of the present revision petition by the tenant.

(3.) To assail the impugned judgment, the first ground urged was that the respondent having vacated House No. 452, Sector 20-A after the commencement of the Act was not entitled to maintain this application without showing that there was sufficient cause for doing so. I am, however, unable to accept this contention. House No. 452, Sector 20-A was on lease with the husband of the respondent. No doubt, while she was in occupation of that house, she moved an application previously for the ejectment of the petitioner from the house in dispute and the same was dismissed at the appellate stage on the ground that as she was already in occupation of the house which was sufficient for her needs, the ejectment application was not maintainable. It is also not disputed that so long as she was in possession of that house she could not file the present application for the ejectment of the tenant but all the same it cannot be said that she had no sufficient cause for vacating that house which was on rent not with her but with her husband.