AMIR CHAND Vs. G.R. DHIR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE tenant who was ordered to be evicted in a petition filed under Section 13-A of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Act') in his alleged capacity as a "specified landlord" is the revision petitioner before this Court. On behalf of the tenant three contentions are raised i) The landlord who was reported to be retired as a Dy. Manager from United India Insurance Company and he could not be stated to have held an appointment in a public service or post in connection with the affairs of the Haryana or of a State within the definition of specified landlord and consequently the petition under Section 13-A was not maintainable. ii) There was no form of tenancy between the parties and the petitioner who was not entitled to receive rent on his failure to establish such jural relationship ought not to be granted an order of eviction. iii) The property which was the subject of dispute was situate at Hospital Road, Phillaur and it was not an urban area to which the provisions of Act was applicable, the burden of which was on the landlord to establish the applicability of the Act and it has not been established.

(2.) AS regards the first contention that an employee of a United Insurance Company could not be said to be a person holding an appointment in public service or post. Learned counsel refers to the definition of a specified landlord under Section 2(hh) of the Act which is as follows :-

(3.) AS regards the contention that the landlord had not been shown to have rented out the building to the tenant and he was not been shown that he was entitled to receive the rent, learned counsel pointed out that there was admittedly no deed of lease between the parties. The reliance of the landlord on documents AW6/B, AW6/C and AW6/D were shown to be not true by the tenant, who by examining an Expert is brought out that the alleged undertakings by tenants to pay rent to the landlord did not contain the signatures of the tenant and they were forged. The rejection of the Rent Controller of the evidence of the hand writing expert on the ground that the science of hand writing was not perfect and that an Expert who had been brought by the tenant to support his case could not be expected to give any evidence against the tenant. According to the learned counsel the Rent Controller had made a point of inference that the tenant ought to be a tenant only under the person who had filed the petition instead of giving a definite finding that there were no records that established the case of tenancy between the petitioner and the respondent.