ARYA MITTER Vs. HARBANS LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE ground on which the tenant was evicted was that the first respondent had sub let the premises to the second respondent without the written consent of the landlord. The two sons of late Hans Raj who are the revision-petitioners before this Court were conjointly described in the rent petition as 1st respondent.

(2.) THE landlord's petition for eviction was founded on a plea that the property had been rented out to one Harbans Lal and after his death in the year 1984 two of his sons Arya Mitter and Kuldip Chand were carrying on the business for some time and inducted the second respondent Surinder Kumar Duggal as the sub tenant. The second respondent remained ex parte and the parties went to trial on the plea by the 1st respondent that there had been no transfer of tenancy in favour of the second respondent and that the alleged sub tenancy was not true. Even in the absence of specific averment regarding the character of possession of the second respondent the parties had joined issues on an attempt by the first respondent to show that the second respondent was a partner in business even during the life time of Hans Raj and there had been no form of sub tenancy as contended by the landlord. In support of the contention, the first respondent filed the bank passbook showing the commencement of an account in the name of partnership run in the name of Abrol Autoways and also the partnership deeds alleged to have been executed between Hans Raj and Surinder Kumar Duggal in the year 1980 and still later after the death of Hans Raj by a fresh document of partnership made on 12.11.1984.

(3.) THE attempt of the learned Senior counsel Mr. M.L. Sarin appearing on behalf of the tenants is that they had never conceded that they had lost possession of the property to the second respondent but the Appellate Authority had wrongly taken up the case for consideration on the premise that the second respondent's exclusive possession was admitted and even without the landlord establishing by any form of proof that there was a sub tenancy or that they had handed over the possession to the second respondent, began examining the truth of the partnership business as pleaded by the tenant. The Appellate Authority, according to him, had wrongly placed the whole burden on the tenant to establish that there was no form of sub tenancy and had gone on to say that the partnership deeds were sham and they were not given effect to.