SATISH CHAND Vs. RAGHU NANDAN PARSHAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The tenant is in revision against order of the learned Appellate Authority by which eviction petition filed by the landlord under Section 13 of the Haryana Urban (Control of Rent & Eviction) Act, 1973for short ''the Act''. has been allowed on the ground of material impairment of the value and utility of the demised premises.

(2.) In short, the case set up by the landlord is that he had let out two shops shown in the site plan with letters 'ABCD' & 'BEFD', situated in Bada Mohalla, near Balmiki Park, Palwal, bearing Municipal Property Nos. 494/13 and 494/14 at the monthly rent of Rs. 509.50/- & Rs. 635.50/- respectively for the purpose of running the business of fertilizer, but the tenant has neither paid the rent w.e.f. 01.10.2003 till the date of the filing of the eviction petition without any sufficient reason and had also removed the wall at point B to D in October, 2003 without permission of the landlord and effected material change in the demised premises by converting two shops into one resulting into impairment to its value and utility. In the written statement, the tenant admitted himself to be in possession of two shops bearing Nos. 494/13 & 494/14, but it was denied that there was any wall between the two shops at the time of inception of tenancy. He denied to have removed the wall from point B to D much-less in October, 2003. On 14.10.2004, the learned Rent Controller framed the issues and in order to substantiate their case, both the parties led their oral as well as documentary evidence in which the landlord examined Ajit Lamba, D.R.K. Palwal (PW1), D.D. Parashar, Advocate (PW2), Raghunandan (PW3) and tendered the documents Ex.P1 to Ex.P6, whereas the tenant examined Jodha Ram, Fieldman of office of the Deputy Director, Agriculture (RW1), Mahesh Chand Gupta, Inspector/SDO, Agriculture office, Hodal (RW2), Rambir (RW3), Prithvi Raj (RW4), Vinod Kumar (RW5) and himself appeared as (RW6).

(3.) The learned Rent Controller did not agree with the landlord and primarily relied upon the statements of the witnesses of the tenant on the ground that they are independent witnesses who have alleged that they have not seen intervening wall at point B to D in the demised premises and, thus, observed that it was not in existence since the inception of the tenancy. It was also observed that the landlord has failed to bring any evidence to prove that the alleged wall was demolished by the tenant in the month of October, 2003. It was further observed that the tenant had taken the demised premises on rent in the year 1988 and if the wall was removed at that time, the eviction petition could not be filed after a period of 15 years on the principle of acquiescence on the part of the landlord. The learned Appellate Authority, however, reversed the order of the learned Rent Controller on the ground that the landlord had filed the application for fixation of fair rent under Section 4 of the Act on 02.08.1997 in which he had alleged that he had let out two shops to the tenant which was admitted in the written statement by the tenant and the said written statement was exhibited by the landlord as Ex.P1 on the basis of which it was held that existence of two shops as admitted by the tenant would not arise until and unless they are separated by an intervening wall. The learned Appellate Authority also observed that admission is the best piece of evidence by which the tenant is bound and the bald oral evidence led by the tenant of the persons who have alleged that there was no intervening wall cannot be relied upon because the petition for fixation of fair rent was decided on 27.09.2000 in which fair rent of both the shops were separately assessed. In view thereof, the learned Appellate Authority ordered eviction of the tenant.