PARMINDER KUMAR GOYAL Vs. PAWAN KUMAR KATIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE tenant lost on the single count of proof by the landlord that there had been subletting of the premises without the concurrence of the landlord by the tenant. The revision petitioner assails the concurrent findings of the Rent Controller and the Appellate Authority.

(2.) THE admitted case is that there was single transaction of two portions of building. Admittedly the tenant was in exclusive possession of one portion and the dispute was with reference to another portion that was alleged to have been sublet the premises to the respondent Nos.2 and 3 before the Rent Controller. The explanation proffered by the first respondent-tenant was that there had been no sub-lease but they were partners along with him in the business and he had not lost his exclusive possession of the property in favour of the so-called sub-tenants. The tenant attempted to prove the nature of the so-called partnership by summoning and producing, through official witnesses, the sales-tax assessments and the applications filed before the authorities. Strict scrutiny of the documents have been undertaken by the Rent Controller which was affirmed by the Appellate Authority that there had been interpolations and alterations in the documents that excited the suspicion of the Courts. It was particularly considered by both Rent Controller and the Appellate Authority that in the application form filed and exhibited as RW- 7/5, the second respondent had described himself as sole proprietor and even in the personal bond marked as RW-7/3, the reference to the person executing the bond was only in the capacity as a sole proprietor. RW-7/2 is another document, which showed the surety bond to have been executed by the second respondent as sole proprietor. RW-7/8 was an affidavit submitted by the second respondent again as a sole proprietor of the business concern and not as a partner. To conceal all these facts in the latter portions of the document interlineations had been made incorporating the names of other respondents as partners. It was obviously an attempt to explain the possession of the second respondent in a different capacity by altering the official records. The counsel for the revision petitioner contended that all the entries, were wrongly made by inadvertence and the very same documents also contained reference of other partners' names. He also referred to the evidence of the official witnesses showing that there have been no interlineations or alterations in official records. Obviously the official witnesses cannot be expected to admit that their documents have been tampered with. The finding of the Courts below had been to the contrary that in the proverbial fashion that even the most careful thief leaves a trail. A person who had attempted to conceal the identity of the second respondent's exclusive possession as obtaining in a partnership along with the tenant, had dropped his own trail unwittingly in the earlier portions of the same documents describing himself as a sole proprietor. The findings of the Courts below so adroitly done by examining the documents with a lynxed-eye does not suffer from any susceptibility to attack by the revision petitioner.