RAM CHAND Vs. GOPAL DASS GURSARAN DASS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In an application for ejectment of the petitioner filed by the landlord-respondent following four issues were framed on December 3, 1971 :

(2.) In his order, dated August 2, 1973, Mr. A.S. Sodhi, Rent Controller, Moga, has given a faithful account of the submissions made by the counsel for the tenant about his having been inadvertently led into the wrong procedure on account of the assurance given by the earlier Rent Controller to permit him to lead evidence on issue No. 2 after the case of the landlord was closed. The prayer in the application was disposed of by the learned Rent Controller in the following words :

(3.) The admitted facts of the case are so eloquent that it needs no discussion to hold that the procedure followed by the Rent Controller in this case in the matter of recording evidence of the parties is contrary to law. The tenant petitioner could not have been called upon to commence his evidence fill the landlord petitioner had closed his evidence in the affirmative. Even if by some arrangement the tenant was directed or allowed to produce his witnesses who happened to be present before the Rent Controller on July 20, 1972, the statement of the tenant himself on issues of which the burden was on the landlord should not at all have been recorded on that day unless the tenant wanted to do so. From the facts stated in the application and the arguments made before the Rent Controller (which base been incorporated in the order of the Rent Controller, which have not been denied on facts by the other side), it is apparent that the tenant-petitioner was misled into this unusual procedure and it was on account of the said misunderstanding that his counsel made a statement closing his evidence after the recording of the statements of two witnesses. It is unfortunate that a new Rent Controller having come to preside over the Court, seriousness of the matter was not appreciated and the application of the tenant-petitioner was rejected probably with a view to expedite the disposal of the case. As it usually happens in such cases, the zeal to dispose of the case early has resulted in its having gone into the cold storage tor about two years as a result of the filing of this revision petition. The tenant-petitioner is not completely without blame, inasmuch as he agreed or succumbed to the offer to produce his evidence before recording the statements of the witnesses of the landlord, in any case his counsel should not have made and signed the statement closing his evidence, but should have incorporated the assurance given by the Rent Controller in his statement or otherwise, as he was legally entitled to reserve his right to produce evidence in rebuttal of the statements of the landlord's witnesses. From which ever angle the order is looked at, there is no doubt that the Rent Controller has acted with material irregularity and illegality in the exercise of his jurisdiction in refusing the tenant-petitioner any opportunity at all to rebut the evidence of the landlord on the main issue involved in the case.