HANS RAJ Vs. BALRAJ SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision petition is directed against the order of the Appellate Authority under the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, (hereinafter called the Act) dated October 11, 1976, whereby the appeal of Hans Raj, the tenant, (hereinafter called the petitioner) against the order of eviction by the Rent Controller was dismissed.

(2.) DR . Balraj Singh, landlord, filed a petition under Section 13 of the Act for eviction of the petitioners from the rented land (hereinafter called the land, in dispute), on a number of grounds, which was on lease with him at a monthly rent of Rs. 28.12. The petitioner was sought to be ejected on the grounds of sub -letting, unauthorised construction and personal necessity. All the allegations in the eviction application were controverted by the petitioner in his written statement. In view of the pleadings of the parties, as many as nine issues were framed out of which only issue No. 3 is relevant for the purpose of the present revision petition on which the order of eviction was passed by the Rent Controller holding that the land, in dispute, was bonafide required by the landlord for his personal necessity. Appeal by the petitioner also proved abortive and the order of eviction was upheld. This order has been challenged in the present revision petition.

(3.) THE intention and purpose of the legislature is clearly discernible from the scheme of the Act. The reasonable and legitimate interest of both the landlord and the tenant have been safeguarded. On the one hand, tenant has been given protection from the arbitrary and undesirable and unsocial acts of the landlord to evict him in order to enhance rent unduly or to change the tenant from time to time at his whim and caprice. On the other hand, the legitimate rights of the landlord have also been protected inasmuch as it has been made imperative on the tenant to pay rent to the landlord regularly and to pay all arrears of rent along with interest and costs at the latest on the date of first hearing of the eviction application. The tenant has also been made liable to be evicted if he does not use the rented premises, himself but sublets the same without the written consent of the landlord, or misuses the same for the purpose other than for which the premises were rented out. The right of the landlord to evict the tenant has also been safeguarded if the premises are found to be unsafe or unfit for human habitation. The legislature has even gone to the extent of conferring a right on the landlord to get the premises vacated whether the same are residential or rented land, if the same are required personally by him for residence, or business purposes. However, the legislature which conceding this latter right to the landlord was conscious that the same may not be used as a camouflage and a garb to get the premises vacated for extraneous reasons and in circumstances even when the requirement and necessity of the landlord may not be bonafide. In order to safeguard the tenant against the misuse of this right, the same was hedged in by two specific conditions embodied in the form of sub -clauses (b) and (c) under clauses (3)(a)(i) and 3(a)(ii) of section 13, which are in identical terms. Their perusal shows that the landlord in order to succeed to evict his tenant on the ground of his personal necessity has to prove as conditions precedent that he was not occupying any other residential building or rented land, as the case may be, in the area concerned, and further that he had not vacated such a building or rented land without sufficient cause after the commencement of the Act. The purpose of laying down these two condition is quite clear. The landlord has been given the right to get the premises vacated for his own use or occupation only if he was not in occupation of any other residential building or rented land, as the case may be and secondly, if he was in occupation of any such premises, he had not vacated the same after the commencement of the Act, without sufficient cause. Both the conditions are equally important and are intended to eliminate the possibility on the part of the landlord to seek eviction under a camouflage. The landlord is not allowed to get vacated the premises which were earlier rented out to a tenant if he was already in possession of some other premises. There could be cases where the landlord in order to achieve his purpose, before filing the eviction application, may vacate the premises in his possession, though there may not be any cause or pressure for doing the same. The last condition which is embodied in sub -clauses (c) in both the clauses is intended to safeguard the interests of the tenant.