M/S. DURGA TRADING COMPANY Vs. ASHWANI KUMAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE civil revision is at the instance of tenants, who had been ordered to be evicted under the provisions of East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act. The landlord had filed the petition for eviction on the ground that the building was unsafe and unfit for occupation. The condition of the building had been assessed by appointment of three local commissioners and reports of experts, all of which yielded to one finding that in some portions of the building, there had been no roof; the building was more than 100 years old and the property was required to be demolished and was not reparable. The condition of the building itself could not have been a major issue but the tenant sought to introduce an important additional line of defence at the lower Appellate Court when he filed the petition for reception of additional evidence under Order 41 Rule 27 bringing out an arbitral award in terms of which a decree had been passed, that settled the issue of eviction between the landlord and tenant. The arbitral award had been rendered under the Arbitration Act of 1940 and contained a provision for effecting reconstruction of the building in various stages, when the tenant was required to cooperate to the landlord and allow for such reconstruction without any obstruction. The liability apportioned to the tenant was that he must bear the expenses to the tune of Rs. 12,000/ -. Originally when the award was filed before the Court of 1st Instance, on the objection taken by the tenant, the claim of the landlord for carrying out the terms failed and only in an appeal by the landlord, a decree was passed in terms of the award giving legitimacy through the Court decree to the directions given by the Arbitrator. The arbitral award had not been referred to in the pleadings and therefore, when the tenant sought to file the award for contending that the landlord could not obtain ejectment but was only to reconstruct the building and allow the tenant to continue, the lower Appellate Court rejected the additional evidence sought to be introduced by the tenant as without basis and ordered eviction. In the civil revision filed before this Court, a Single Judge of this Court had observed that the document would require a fresh consideration and therefore, directed remand of the matter to the lower Appellate Court again for deciding the case afresh. This direction of this Court was taken in Supreme Court by the tenant again in Civil Appeal No. 1413 of 2005. The Supreme Court had directed that the case ought not to have been remanded and the High Court should itself consider the relevancy of the additional document brought before the Court and decide the revision petition in accordance with law. The point for consideration now, therefore, would be whether the additional evidence which was brought by the tenant referring to certain directions for carrying out the reconstruction should be applied in favour of the tenant and defeat the landlord's action for eviction.

(2.) THE relevancy of any document will have to be tested on two grounds. One, the points for adjudication in the suit and how the document relied on will have a bearing for resolving the dispute. Two, what is the nature of pleading by the parties that allow for reliance of the particular document by the person, who seeks for such reliance. I take it that when the Supreme Court was directing the consideration for relevancy of the document, it had taken note of one line of objection that was possible for the landlord to contend that there was no justification for not filing the document before the trial Court and introducing the same by means of an additional document at Appellate Court only. I will, therefore, not examine the delay aspect for this document to have been produced and stay confined only to the two parameters set out above.

(3.) THE award was passed by the Arbitrator on 11.10.1984. The arbitrator's award contains, inter alia, the following directions: -