KISHORI LAL Vs. RADHA RANI GUPTA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) RESPONDENT Radha Rani Gupta claiming herself to be the landlord filed an ejectment petition under Section13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act seeking eviction of the petitioner Kishori Lal from the demised premises on the ground of non-payment of rent. The petitioner Kishori Lal filed an application under Section 10 of the Code of Civil Procedure for staying the eviction proceedings on the ground that a civil suit between the same parties regarding the property in dispute is pending and, therefore, the present proceedings should be stayed. The Rent Controller by his order under challenge before this Court dismissed the application primarily on the ground that there is difference between a person being a landlord and a person being an owner of the demised premises. Kishori Lal petitioner has come up in revision before this Court.

(2.) BEFORE me some of the facts have not been disputed by the counsel for the parties. It is an admitted fact that Kishori Lal is the owner of the demised premises and a suit for specific performance of agreement of sale filed by respondent Radha Rani Gupta against Kishori Lal petitioner is pending in the civil court wherein the basic question involved is whether the petitioner agreed to sell the demised premises in favour of the respondent. It is further not disputed that the ejectment application against the petitioner has been filed in which Radha Rani Gupta has claimed herself to be the landlord. It has further remained undisputed before me that the civil suit was filed after the institution of the present application for ejectment.

(3.) AFTER hearing the learned counsel for the parties, I am of the view that the order under challenge does not suffer from any legal infirmity. Distinction between 'owner' and 'landlord is quite obvious. A landlord as has been defined in the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act 1949 means any person who is entitled to receive rent in respect of any building or rented land. Even a tenant who sublets any building or rented land is a landlord qua the sub-tenant if he is authorised to derive the title under a landlord. A tenant has been defined in the Act to mean a person by whom rent is payable for a building and rented land. The word 'owner' in law is a person in whom title of the property vests. If a land-owner executes the rent note in favour of prospective vendee, he would become his tenant and such prospective vendee would be the landlord qoa that owner who has executed the rent note. In the rent application this is the precise case of the respondent Radha Rani Gupta, She has averred that after the execution of the agreement of sale, the premises were rented out to the petitioner Kishori Lal. Pendency of the civil suit for specific performance would not make any difference and would have no direct bearing upon the rent proceedings inasmuch as the suit for specific performance can fail on several grounds but nonetheless the application for eviction can succeed on the short ground that the tenant has failed to pay the rent. If the execution of the rent note and the non-payment of rent is proved, the landlord of the type in the present case would be entitled to seek eviction order even if title is not vested in him in the suit for specific performance.