PARDEEP BEHAL Vs. KANWALJIT KAUR AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This order shall dispose of three revision petitions bearing CR-2742-1997, CR-2743-1997 & CR-2744-1997 all titled as 'Pardeep Behal Vs. Kanwaljit Kaur and others'.

(2.) The petitioner is the tenant against whom the landlord has filed three separate eviction petitions on the ground of arrears of rent. In the first petition, the arrears of rent was claimed w. e. f. 01.07.1990; in the second petition, w. e. f. 01.02.1991 and in the third petition, from 01.09.1992. The tenant had alleged that he was inducted as a tenant in the year 1988 at the monthly rent of Rs. 5,000/-, whereas the landlords had claimed that the rent was @Rs. 9,000/- per month. In order to escape from his eviction, the tenant had tendered/deposited the rent @Rs. 9,000/- per month in all the three petitions and had also filed counterclaims, but the learned Rent Controller, vide its order dated 18.02.1995, dismissed the eviction petitions as well as the counter-claims, which led to the filing of three rent appeals by the tenant and cross-appeals by the landlords. The learned Appellate Authority, vide its order dated 25.01.1997, dismissed all the cross-appeals filed by the landlords and two appeals filed by the tenant but allowed the Rent Appeal No. 60 of 1995 to the extent of recovery of excess rent @Rs. 4,000/- per month pertaining to the month of July and August, 1990, with proportionate costs and interest @ 6% per annum.

(3.) Learned counsel for the petitioner, while assailing the orders of the Courts below in respect of the assessment of the rent @Rs. 9,000/- per month, has submitted that till August, 1990, the rent was @Rs. 5,000/- per month, which is alleged to have been increased @Rs. 9,000/- per month by virtue of document Ex. P1 dated 01.09.1990. He has submitted that the document Ex. P1 cannot be taken into consideration because it is only signed by the tenants/Pardeep Behal and Ajay Partap Singh and not by the landlord or the witnesses. He has submitted that the rent deed/lease deed has to be essentially signed by both the parties and attested by the witnesses and if it is only signed by one of the parties, namely, the lessee, then it is a rent note. He further submitted that if the unilateral document/rent note is to be looked into as a lease deed, then it requires registration. In this regard, he has relied upon a Division Bench judgment of the Madhya Pradesh High Court in the case of Smt. Dhana Bai v. Smt. Kewara Bai and others, 1972 RCR(Rent) 236 and a Single Bench judgment of this Court in the case of Ram Kumar Khanna of Ludhiana v. Rajiv Garg, 1989 1 RCR(Rent) 645.