BACHAN KAUR AND OTHERS Vs. MANJIT SINGH SON OF PAKHAR SINGH, PROPRIETOR AMBALA TRANSPORT CORPORATION (SAFARI CARRIERS INDIA) OPPOSITE MANJU CINEMA, MILER GANJ, G.T. ROAD, LUDHIANA, AND ANOTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The landlord's petition for eviction had been ordered in his favour before the Rent Controller but the decision was reversed by the appellate authority. The landlord is the revision petitioner before this Court.

(2.) The petition for eviction was founded on non-payment of rent and that he was guilty of sub-letting of the premises without written consent of the landlord. The learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners advances his arguments only as regards the plea of sub-tenancy which, according to him, had been properly dealt with by the Rent Controller, but reversed without adequate reasons by the appellate authority. The plea of subletting was on his contention that the tenant, who was running a transport business at the demised premises, had attempted to create a sub-tenancy in favour of the 2nd respondent and he had also received an inauguration ceremony invitation for opening of the new business of the 2nd respondent at the premises. The opening ceremony was said to have taken place on 28.01.1985 and the petitioner's case was that the printed invitation card that had been circulated to the public including him, had specifically named the landlord and the subtenant as persons with whose best compliments the invitation has been sent and the RSVP noting found in the card was Surjan Singh Thekedar, a locally influential person whose evidence was sought to be let by the tenant initially by citing him as a witness but later given up. The landlord would contend that non-examination of the said person was very material and the appellate authority must have drawn an adverse inference.

(3.) The landlord also relied on two other circumstances to contend that there had been a sub-letting in favour of the 2nd respondent: one of which was entry in the tax assessment register showing both the names of the respondents Manjit Singh and Gurbachan Singh as tenants of the premises. The landlord would also refer to the fact that there had been a signboard of the 2nd respondent hanging outside the premises which showed that the 2nd respondent was carrying on his own business and the 1st respondent had actually voluntarily surrendered the premises to him.