SAT PAL Vs. KESAR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ON 3rd August, 1965, Kesar Singh filed an application under Section 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act 1969 against Sat Pal, for his ejectment from the shop in dispute, which is situated in Ludhiana, City His allegations were that Sat Pal was occupying that shop as a tenant under him on a rent of Rs. 34/ - payable monthly and that the tenant was in arrears of rent since 1st of April, 1965. This application was contested by the tenant on the ground that no arrears of rent were due from him and, therefore, he was not liable to ejectment. According to him, Rs. 34/ - which represented the rent for the month of April, 1965 had been paid to the landlord in cash on 11th of May, 1966 against his receipt. Rs. 68 -, as rent for the months of May and June, 1965 were deposited in Court on 16th of July, 1965 and of which notice was duly served upon the landlord. Rs. 68/, rent for July and August, 1965, were deposited on 27th of August, 1965. Thus no rent was due from him at all on the day when the application for his eviction was made by the landlord. 3rd of September. 1965 was the first date of hearing of the application for ejectment. Admittedly on that rate no tender of any rent was made by the tenant. During the trial of the application, no evidence was adduced by any of the patties. On 16th of November, 1965, which was the date fixed by the Rent Controller for evidence, the counsel for the tenant produced receipts Exhibits R 1 to R 4 and closed his case. Exhibit R -l was a deposit receipt from the treasury showing that Rs. 68/ as rent for the period 1st May, 1965 to 30th June, 1965 were deposited on 16th of July, 1965. R -2 was another receipt from the treasury for Rs. 68/, as the rent for 1st of July 1965 to 31st of August 1965, which was deposited on 27th of August, 1965. Exhibit R -3 was also a receipt of the treasury for the rent of July, 1965 and interest payable to the landlord and that amount was deposited on 3rd of September, 1965 Exhibit R -4 was the receipt dated 11th of May, 1965 issued by the landlord to the tenant for the month of April, 1965. On the same date that is 16th of November, 1965, the counsel for the landlord also made a statement to the effect that he did not intend to produce any evidence. He, however, stated that the deposits made by the tenant were invalid. Thereafter, arguments were heard by the Rent Controller and on 13th January, 1966 he dismissed the application for ejectment. He found that the tenant had produced challan forms Exhibits R -1 to R -3 and the voucher Exhibit R 4 which showed that the rent from 1st April, 1965 to 30th of September, 19fc5 had been paid to the landlord. According to him, it was a settled rule of law that deposit of arrears of rent in the Court of the Senior Subordinate Judge under Section 31 of the Punjab Relief of Indebtedness Act was a valid payment by the tenant to the landlord. Consequently, the deposit of the rent by the tenant witnessed by the challan forms Exhibits R -l to R -3 would according to him be treated as a valid payment of the rent to the landlord, with the result that there were no outstanding arrears of rent due from the tenant to the landlord on the date when the ejectment application was filed. Against this decision, the landlord filed an appeal before the appellate authority, Ludhiana. There it was urged by him that according to Section 13(2)(i) of the Rent Restriction Act, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, rent was to be paid by the last date of the month next following that for which the same was payable. Thus the rent for the month of May, 1965 was payable by 30th of June, 1965, but the same was deposited in Court on 16th of July, 1965, vide Exhibit R 1. It was, therefore, contended that the landlord was not bound to accept that rent on the first date of hearing, as he was also entitled to interest on the arrears of rent upto 16th of July, l965 and since the interest and the costs of the application were not tendered on the first date of hearing, the tenant was liable to eviction. According to the appellate authority, admittedly interest on arrears of rent for the month of May, 1965 for the period 1st July, 1965 to 16th July 1965 was not tendered on the first date of hearing and therefore, the deposit of rent under the treasury challans Exhibits R 1, to R -3 did not represent the entire amount due and the tenant was, therefore, liable to eviction It was further found that even if it be as summed that the interest on the arrears of rent was tendered on the first date of hearing, no effort was made to get the costs of the application assessed and to pay the same on that date. The appeal was, consequently, accepted and the order of the Rent Controller set aside with the result that the eviction of the tenant from the premises in dispute was ordered. Against this decision, the present revision petition under Section 16(5) of the Rent Restriction Act has been filed by the tenant

(2.) THE sole question for decision in this case is as to whether any rent was clue from the tenant on 3rd of August, 1965 when the application for his eviction was made by the landlord. It has been held by a Bench of this Court in Isher Dass Tara Chand v. Harcharan Dass, I.L.R. (1961) 1 P&H. 315, that the expression "arrears of rent" occurring in the proviso to clause (i) of sub section (2) of section 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949, means the rent which is due from the tenant and remaining unpaid on the date of the application and not on the date of the first hearing and it is this amount of rent due that he is required to pay under the said proviso to save himself from the forfeiture of his tenancy. The case of the landlord was that the tenant was in arrears of rent from 1st of April, 1965. The rent for the month of April, 1965, had to be paid by the 31st of May, 1965. The same was however, paid to the landlord on 11th of May, 1965, vide Exhibit R 4. The rent for the month of May, 1965, had to be paid by the 30th of June, 1965, while that for the month of June by the 31st July, 1965. The amount of Rs. 68/ -, rent for the months of May and June, 1965, was however, deposited in the treasury on 16th of July, 1965. The rent for the month of July, 1965, had to be paid by the 31st August, 1965, but the application for eviction was made much earlier, that is, on 3rd of August, 1965, and consequently, it could not be said that the rent for that month was due on that date. That being so, it could not be held that the tenant was in arrears of rent from 1st of April, 1965, onwards as alleged by the landlord. In other words, no rent was due by the tenant on 3rd of August, 19b5. The relevant part of section 13(2)(i) of the Rent Restriction Act says -

(3.) IN view of what I have said above, this petition is accepted, the order of the appellate authority is set aside and the application filed by the landlord for the eviction of the tenant is rejected. In the circumstances of this case, however, I leave the parties to bear their own costs throughout.