PURAN CHAND Vs. KAILASH CHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) AN application for ejectment filed under Haryana Urban (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1973 on several grounds was resisted by the tenant on the ground that he was not a tenant of premises but he himself was the owner. The Courts below rejected the plea of denial of title by the tenant by reference to the fact that the tenant's father Loku Ram and another person Nirmal Dass had obtained the property on lease w.e.f. 13.01.1954 through a rent note executed between the parties on 10.03.1954. The landlord's contention that after the death of one of the tenants Loku Ram, the tenancy rights were inherited by his son and he could not have lawfully denied the title of the landlord.

(2.) LEARNED Counsel appearing for the petitioner argued denying the genuineness of the rent note. He later conceded that the findings recorded already need not be considered and that he was confining his arguments only to the legal position of the effect of the property being declared as an evacuee property and sold in open auction by the Government and a sale certificate having been issued to him by the Tehsildar (Sales). His contention was that he was not claiming under his father but in his own right by the property being delivered possession of to him under a warrant of possession.

(3.) THERE is perhaps a question whether the Government could treat the property as evacuee property and put it for sale and execute a sale certificate especially when the Assistant Custodian Judicial, Karnal by his order dated 24.08.1950 was purported to have declared the present landlords as the owners of the property in dispute. The issue of ejectment could not be taken up without establishing the subsisting relationship of landlord and tenant between the petitioners and the respondents. Such a finding was not made by the Authorities below, except to assume in spite of specific denials by the tenant that he ever claimed under his father Loku Ram, who however, was admittedly a tenant. The tenant was setting up title in himself through the Government Sale Certificate and the warrant of possession. If the relationship of landlord and tenant itself had not been established and the issue of ejectment could not have been undertaken without examining the specific contention made by the tenant that he was himself the owner of the property, the appropriate action as of the Rent Controller and the Appellate Authority ought to have been only to refer the parties for adjudication before a competent Civil Court. It has been held in Nand Kishore v. Ved Parkash, 1999 (1) RCR 243 in a decision rendered under Haryana Urban (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1973 that if a tenant established a sale deed in his favour and set up independent title, the dispute regarding title could not be a subject of decision by the Rent Controller and only a Civil Court could decide the same.