PARAS RAM Vs. SALIG RAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE tenant has preferred this revision petition against the order of the Appellate Authority, Patiala, upholding the order of Rent Controller ejecting the tenant from the shop in dispute on the ground of it being unfit and unsafe for human habitation.

(2.) IN brief, the facts of the case are that the shop in dispute is situate in Loha Bazar, Mandi Gobindgarh, which was rented out to the tenant at the rate of Rs. 260/- per month by Bhagwan Dass and Salig Ram. The aforesaid Salig Ram and the legal heirs of Bhagwan Dass filed an ejectment application before the Rent Controller on November 29, 1978 seeking ejectment of the tenant from the shop in dispute on the basis of non-payment of rent and it having become unfit and unsafe for human habitation. This application was resisted by the tenant by tendering the arrears of rent besides contending that the shop in dispute requires some repairs and that the dismissal of the earlier application of the landlords on similar grounds in the year 1969 would operate as res-judicata. The tenant also subsequently filed an application under Section 12 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 against the landlords for effecting repairs of the shop.

(3.) LEARNED counsel for the tenant in this revision petition had simply contended that the landlords should not be allowed to take advantage of their own wrong in not repairing the roof of the disputed shop after the dismissal of the application vide order Ex. R.2. by the Rent Controller in the year 1969, holding that the shop was not unfit and unsafe for human habitation. Learned counsel for the landlords, on the other hand, supported the finding of the lower court.