RAM LAL Vs. CHANDRO DEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision petition is directed against the judgment dated 6.9.1986 passed by the learned Appellate Authority under the Haryana Urban (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1973 (for short 'the Act') accepting the appeal of the landlord respondent and ordering ejectment of the tenant-petitioner from house No. 253/9 MCK Mohalla Sogian, Kaithal. The respondent filed an application under Section 13 of the Act for ejectment of the petitioner from the house in dispute on the ground that the petitioner has neither paid nor tendered rent due from him; that the respondent requires the premises bonafide for the personal necessity; and that the petitioner has committed such acts as have impaired materially the value and utility of the said house. The arrears of rent were paid within the time stipulated by the relevant provisions of the Act and, therefore, this ground was rendered infructuous. The learned Rent Controller negatived the other two grounds and held that the respondent does not need the premises bonafide for her personal necessity and that the petitioner has not impaired the value and utility of the house. Thus, the ejectment application was dismissed by him vide his judgment dated 22.5.1982.

(2.) ON the appeal preferred by the respondent, the learned Appellate Authority maintained the finding of the learned Rent Controller to the effect that she has not been able to establish her ground for bonafide personal necessity of the house in dispute. It, however, reversed the finding on the question of material impairment of the value and the utility of the house. It held that the petitioner is proved to have constructed a room and a kitchen in the house in dispute and, thus, reduced the area of the courtyard. This amounts to material impairment of value and utility of the house. On this solitary ground, order of ejectment was passed vide judgment under revision. The petitioner, thus, being aggrieved, filed the present revision petition.

(3.) THE respondent in her ejectment application has alleged that the petitioner without her written consent has recently raised one pucca room and one kitchen in the house in question. She has also produced site plan Ex.A-1 showing the new and the old construction in the house. She has also produced Bal Kishan AW-1, who prepared this plan, but his statement by itself is not sufficient to establish either that the room and the kitchen have been built by the petitioner or that these have been built at a date subsequent to the execution of the rent note Ex.C.1. In fact, there is no evidence on the record to support the version of the respondent that this construction has been raised recently as alleged by her in application. In his reply, the petitioner categorically stated that the shape of the construction in the house is the same as it was when it was taken on rent by him. Thus, there was a heavy onus on the respondent to prove by positive evidence that the construction had been raised by the petitioner without the written consent of the landlord. This evidence is completely lacking in the case.