SIRI RAM Vs. AIR COM. MAHABIR CHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE respondent retired as Air Commodore from the Indian Air force on 15th September, 1971 and filed a petition for ejectment of Siri Ram tenant on 24th May, 1976, before the Rent Controller, Patiala, from the house in dispute on the ground of personal necessity besides other grounds. The Rent Controller disallowed the petition but on landlord's appeal, the Appellate Authority ordered the ejectment on the ground of personal necessity. The tenant has come to this Court in revision.

(2.) AFTER hearing the counsel for the parties, I found that no case for interference has been made out. Although the judgment of the Appellate Authority is more brief than necessary, it has believed the statement of the landlord that he wants to settle at Patiala. The landlord has pleaded all the three ingredients about personal necessity in his petition for ejectment and in the written statement the tenant's stand was that the landlord was in occupation of another big house near the house in dispute which he disposed of after his retirement and that he wanted to enhance the rent of the house or to have it vacated for selling it. When the landlord appeared as A.W.11, in his examination -in -chief, he clearly stated about the three ingredients of personal necessity and also stated that the other house was owned by his mother which came to his two brothers under the will by the mother and those two brothers sold that house vide sale deed Exhibit A.W.7/1. In cross examination, no suggestion was put that the other house belonged to him. It was also put to the landlord that he wanted to sell the house and for that purpose he wanted to evict the tenant. However, the suggestion that the rent of the premises was sought to be enhanced was denied by him. Nothing more has come in the statement of tenant himself which can support the plea raised by him in his written statement to show that the necessity of the landlord was not bona fide.

(3.) SHRI G.C. Garg, then urged that the mere wish of the landlord was not sufficient to entitle him to obtain an order of ejectment and he had to show element of need and, according to him, the element of need is missing in the case. In support of this argument the relies on Sh. Rattan Jain chand v. Sh. Charag Singh, 19 8(1) R.C.R. 265, Smt. Parkash Kaur v. Smt Narinder Kaur, 1979(1) R.C.R. 238, Smt. Durga Devi v. Ram Lok, 1980(1) R.C.R. 557, R.K. Jain v. Khazan Singh, 1980(82) P.L.R 142, Inder Sain v. Gian Chand, 1981(1) R.C.R. 25, Jai Kumar v. Padam Chand and others, 1981(1) R.C.R. 64. There is no quarrel with the above proposition. The Appellate Authority has found that the respondent needs the house for his personal necessity. Although the word 'need' has not been used by the Appellate Authority but the conclusion is clearly directed to the fact that be needs the house for his personal necessity. The learned counsel for the tenant has taken me through the statement of the landlord and also of the tenant and a reading of the two statements clearly shows that the landlord has been able to make out a case of need to live in the house in dispute which is the only house which he can occupy in Patiala.