ASHOK KUMAR Vs. LACHHMAN DASS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present petitioner-landlord (for short, the petitioner landlord) made an application on 8.4.1975 under Section 13 of the Haryana Urban (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1973, (for short, the Act) for the eviction from the shop in question (located at Naraingarh, District Ambala) of the present respondent-tenant (for short the tenant) on the ground amongst others of non-payment of rent and of the shop having become unsafe and unfit for human habitation. The arrears of rent having been paid on the due date and no other ground having been pressed before the Rent Controller (S.D.O. Civil), the latter ordered the tenant's eviction holding that it had been proved that the shop in question had become unfit for human habitation. On appeal, however, the Appellate Authority (Deputy Commissioner) Ambala set aside the order of the Rent Controller vide his order dated 15.1.1976. The present revision petition is against this order of the Appellate Authority.

(2.) It is clear to me that the Appellate Authority has in this case not proceeded according to law in setting aside the order of the Rent Controller. The latter had found that the shop had become unsafe and unfit for human habitation. The Appellate Authority was of course perfectly competent to hold that the Rent Controller's conclusion was wrong and erroneous and to set it aside on the ground that the shop was not unsafe or unfit for human habitation. But I find from the Appellate Authority's order that he has not gone into the question at all whether the shop in question was or was not unfit for human habitation. After nothing the fact that one side-wall of the shop had collapsed he has merely pointed out that the shop in question was only being used for selling vegetables which are not an expensive commodity and has held that it was quite possible therefore for the shop to be reconstructed without evicting the tenant. He has accordingly set aside the eviction order passed against the tenant by the Rent Controller on this short ground.

(3.) The order passed by the Appellate Authority would have been perfectly proper if the law required that even in case of a building which had been found unfit and unsafe for human habitation the tenant should not be evicted unless it was not feasible to reconstruct it without evicting the tenant. But the law lays down no such pre-requisite for the eviction of a tenant when the building he occupies is unsafe or unfit for human habitation. He is in such a case to be evicted without going into the question whether or not it is possible of re-construct the building without evicting him. Therefore, in passing this impugned order the Appellate Authority has read into Section 13(3)(c) of the Act an extraneous clause which does not exist. As such he has proceeded outside the law and his order therefore, must be set aside on the short ground that the basis on which he has set aside the Rent Controller's order has no support in law.