H.U. DEUTLER Vs. MOHINI BALWANT SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS second appeal under Section 39 of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958, is directed against the judgment of the Rent Control Tribunal, dated 19th May, 1964, affirming the decision of the Rent Controller, Delhi, date the 3rd December, 1963, and allowing the application of the Respondent -landlady for the recovery of possession of the ground floor of 59, Golf Links, New Delhi.

(2.) THE facts of the case are simple and admit of being stated in a moderate compass. On 20th January, 1954, the ground floor of the house in question belonging to the Respondent was let to the Appellant for a period of four years. In pursuance of clause 14 of the lease deed the Respondent, through her counsel wrote to the Appellant on 23rd September, 1957, (Exhibit R. 4), that she did not want to renew the lease. There was no mention in this letter that the house was required by the landlady for her personal use. I have mentioned this fact because the learned Counsel for the Appellant considerably emphasised this omission on the part of the landlady as being destructive of the case set up by her for eviction of the Appellant. On 4th January, 1958, the Appellant wrote to the Head Office of his employer company, (Exhibit R. 8), that the landlady had reminded him several times about enhancement of the rent. Letter, dated 18th January, 1958, (Exhibit R. 9), is the employer -company's reply. On 4th March, 1960, the Director of Estates called upon the Respondent's husband to vacate the rooms in his occupation in the Constitution House because his wife owned a house in Delhi and that disentitled him from staying in the Constitution House. The Respondent's husband wrote back to the Director of Estates that till the loan taken for the construction of the house had been repaid, he was not in a position to occupy the house. There is another letter by the Respondent's husband to the Director of Estates, dated the 12th September, 1960, in which he explains that he is not in a position to move in because the house is in the occupation of the tenants.

(3.) MR . H.L. Anand, the learned Counsel, for Appellant submits that the two Court below have not correctly appreciated the scope of Section 14(1)(e) inasmuch as they have held the need of the landlady to be bona fide mainly on the ground that the house in Defence Colony was occupied by the Respondent temporarily. According to the learned Counsel the fact that the house was occupied temporarily had no relevance for determining whether the need of the landlady was bona fide or not. He submits that the house had been rented by the landlady for a period of eleven months. The Rent Control legislation provided an immunity to the Respondent against eviction from that house, with the result that the need of the Respondent could not be bona fide. It was nobody's case that the house in Defence Colony did not provide the Respondent with a reasonably suitable residential accommodation so that the second condition laid down by Section 14(1)(e) for eviction of a tenant, namely that the landlord has no other reasonably suitable accommodation was not satisfied. Mr. Anand submits that the landlady's own case was that she could not shift to her house till the loan was paid off and she sought eviction not because she needed the house for herself but because her efforts to increase the rent had failed. Mr. Anand, places reliance on the correspondence between the Respondent's husband and the Director of Estates in support of his submission. He further points out that the lady tried to conceal the fact of having rented the house in Defence Colony for eleven months, which came to light only through the evidence of Major Ratti R.W. 7, the owner of the house in Defence Colony and Jaswant Singh, R.W. 8, the broker with whose assistance the tenancy of Major Ratti's house was procured.