GOBIND RAM Vs. KRISHAN LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The tenant is the revision petitioner. He has been ordered to be evicted by the Rent Controller and the appellate authority. The grounds of eviction were non-payment of rent and change of user. The property in dispute is a small Khoka erected on municipal site which later became vested with the Improvement Trust. The landlord's contention was that the rent payable was Rs. 325/- per month and he had stopped paying the same from April, 1990. The petition was filed in the year 1991. The tenant contended that there existed no relationship of the landlord and tenant between the parties and that the Rent Controller had no jurisdiction to entertain the petition. His contention was that the shop in dispute which was a small Khoka, had been removed by the petitioner himself and thereafter the respondent occupied the site and raised the construction thereon for his own shop. He obtained electric, telephone and water connections in his own name and the Improvement Trust, Pathankot had given the site underneath the shop in dispute to the respondent on teh-bazari basis on payment of fee of Rs. 160/- per month. The contention, therefore, was that whatever was rent payable upto the date of filing of the petition, namely, Rs. 4,875/- had been already paid and the petition for eviction was not maintainable.

(2.) Both the Courts below considered the issue of whether the tenant could plead that the relationship between the landlord and the tenant did not exist, particularly in view of the fact that the tenant had earlier filed a petition for fixation of fair rent admitting the respondent herein to be the landlord of the premises. It also held that the tenant was not entitled to deny the jural relationship and was estopped from contending that he had himself put up the shop and that the Improvement Trust had recognized his possession.

(3.) The learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of the tenant refers to the notice issued by the Town Improvement Trust to the landlord Krishan Lal under Section 195 of the Punjab Municipal Act of 1911 directing the removal and contending that his occupation was unauthorized under A4. A5 was a subsequent notice issued dated 04.08.1989 by the town Improvement Trust under Section 81 of the Punjab Town Improvement Act of 1922 read with Section 195 of the Punjab Municipal Act of 1911. The purport of the respective notices are as follows:-