CHIRANJIT RAI ALIPURIA Vs. MADHUBAN SINGH AND ORS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The respondents filed this petition for the ejectment of the petitioner on four grounds, namely, that the rent has not been paid since September, 1-1-1977; that the respondent has settled at Delhi for the last several years and has ceased to occupy the premises; that the demised premises have been sublet to respondent No. 2 and Madhuban Singh one of the landlords and his wife want to set up their medical practice at Gurgaon and need the house in dispute for their occupation. The only ground of ejectment which has prevailed up to the Appellate Authority is that of the personal need of the landlord.

(2.) The concurrent finding of the Rent Controller and the Appellate Authority that one of the landlords needs the demised premises for his own occupation has to be set aside on the short ground that the requirements of the provisions of section 13(3)(a)(i) of the Haryana Urban (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act 1973 have neither been pleaded nor proved. The provisions of the said sub-section provide that the landlord may apply to the Controller for an order directing the tenant to put him in possession in the case of residential building if he requires it for his own occupation, he had not got another residential building in the urban area concerned and has not vacated such building without sufficient cause after the commencement of the 1949 Act in the said urban area. A.W. 6 Hukam Singh father of landlord Madhuban Singh admitted in his statement that some portion of the house in dispute is in their possession. The averment made in the petition that the landlords were not in occupation of any residential building in the urban area concerned was, therefore, factually incorrect. Though as held by a Full Bench of this Court in M/s Sant Ram Das Raj Kalka v. Karam Chand Mangal Ram, 1963 AIR(P&H) 1, the landlord would not be debarred from claiming ejectment of the tenant from the premises even if he is in occupation of some building or portion of the demised premises yet he would only be able to do so if he alleges and proves that the accommodation in his possession in insufficient for his needs. In the present case admittedly some portion of the house in dispute is in possession of the landlords but they have neither pleaded nor proved that portion is insufficient for the needs of Madhuban Singh and his family who wants to shift to Gurgaon and occupy it. The plea of personal necessity of the landlord is, therefore, liable to be negatived on this ground alone.

(3.) Even, apart from the finding recorded above, no case has been made out on the record regarding the personal need of Madhuban Singh to occupy the house in dispute. Admittedly his wife who is a doctor is in the employment of the State at Bharatpur. Madhuban Singh and the other members of his family are residing at Bharatpur which is a bigger town than Gurgaon. No reason whatsoever has been put forward as to why Madhuban Singh wants to shift from the place where he is so well known and settle at Gurgaon where he would be totally a stranger, to set up his medical practice. The only statement made in this regard is that there are better facilities in Delhi for the education of his children. That would be no reason for shifting to Gurgaon because it is not so easy for a child either to seek admission in some good School in Delhi or to go every day from Gurgaon to Delhi. The case, therefore, does not travel beyond the wish of the landlord and no element of need whatsoever exists in the present case to prove that the landlord requires the demised premises for his own occupation. The Rent Controller as well as the Appellate Authority have recorded their finding just on the wish of the landlord and totally failed to take into consideration the recent decisions of the Court that there has to be some element of need before the plea of the landlord for personal necessity can be upheld. Their finding, therefore, suffers from a patent illegality and is liable to be reversed.