MAHANT JAGAT RAM Vs. GURDIAL SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision petition under section 15 of the East Punjab Rent Restriction Act, 1949 is directed against the order dated November, 1973, passed by the learned Appellate Authority under the Act. The petitioner claims to be the owner of the premises in dispute and the same has been leased out in favour of the respondent vide rent note Exhibit A. 4 dated July 18, 1962 The petitioner claimed ejectment of the respondent on the ground that he had not paid the rent of the premises for the last so many years. In the written statement the respondent took up the plea that the petitioner was not owner of the premises in dispute which in fact belonged to the State Government. In other wards, the respondent denied the title of the petitioner. In a situation like this neither the Rent Controller nor the Appellate Authority has any jurisdiction to decide the application, for the Rent Controller under the Act is not empowered to decide questions of title. Perhaps it would have been more proper for the petitioner in these circumstances to have filed a suit for possession of the property against the respondent in a civil court. There is no real basis for apprehension entertained by the learned counsel for the petitioner that a civil court would not entertain such a suit in the presence of; the rent note Exhibit A.4. A party who denies the title of the landlord in proceedings under the Act cannot urge in civil suit filed against it that the matter was triable by the Rent Controller instead of the civil court. The petitions for ejectment filed by the petitioner against the respondent is consequently dismissed as incompetent and the parties are left to bear their own costs.