MOHAN SINGH Vs. VIJAY KUMAR SHARMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The revision petition is against the concurrent orders of ejectment passed by the Courts below. The landlord has filed the petition for eviction on the grounds of nonpayment of rent and for personal necessity. The contest in defence was that there have been no landlord tenant relationship and the property was taken on rent by the tenant from one Nirmal Kochhar after entering into an agreement with her and offering to pay Rs. 1,50,000/- in advance and Rs. 2000/- per month. The tenant also contended that the personal necessity pleaded by the landlord was not genuine.

(2.) At the trial the landlord who was a bank employee stated that the tenancy was oral and the transaction was struck when the tenant met him at the bank premises and offered to take the property on rent at Rs. 2000/- per month. The tenant placed the evidence of one Nirmal Kochhar as RW-1 and sought to prove a copy of the rent agreement Ex.R-1 which the tenant purported to have entered into with Nirmal Kochhar. While dealing with this document, the Courts below observed that Nirmal Kochhar herself had admitted that the landlord was indeed the owner but she gave the property on rent by the fact that she was a neighbour of the property which was demised and the landowner had handed over the keys to her. She could not stand the cross examination with any cogent support for the case of the respondent. She admitted that she never received any rent and the rent was being paid only to the landlord directly. She also said that all other properties of the landlord had been rented out by the landlord himself and he had been collecting rent from the tenants. The evidence of Nirmal Kochhar through whom the tenant set up his own case of tenancy wilted and the Court below held that oral tenancy had been established.

(3.) The learned counsel appearing on behalf of the tenants argues with vehemence that the evidence of the landlord himself was too sketchy and the Court must have rejected the evidence as untenable. The bank employee was not able to recall the time and place when the rental arrangement commenced. He also had no document of prove the tenancy which was inconceivable that the landlord would have allowed for handing over the property to an utter stranger who met by chance at a bank. She would therefore contend that the burden of proof being on the landlord to establish the jural relationship, the Rent Controller and the Appellate Authority must have rejected the case of the landlord on the failure of landlord to establish his status as such.