TEJINDER SINGH Vs. RAJPAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE tenant, who applied for grant of leave to defend in a petition under Section 13-B of East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 was rejected in his plea and he is the aggrieved party before this Court in revision.

(2.) LEARNED Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner submits four lines of defences as available to him to merit consideration for the grant of leave. His contention is that in the face of express denial of the status of the petitioner as a non-resident Indian, nothing was forthcoming from the landlord's side except his assertion that he is a Non-resident Indian. He points out that the Rent Controller has not adverted to the issue at all and even in the absence of production of a passport declaring his status as such Non-resident Indian, the Rent Controller could not have rejected the leave to defend.

(3.) THE plea of bona fides obtained a larger dimension in that the landlord had entered into compromise with the tenant only in November, 2007 where he had permitted the tenant to put the property to such use as he wished on a rent determined between the parties and the objection filed just five months after the filing of the petition betrays the lack of bona fides that the landlord required the property for his own benefit. The bona fides of the requirement was also attacked on the ground that the landlord was shown to be owner of five shops and some land situate to the same town, as evidenced by Jamabandi for the year 2005-06 and even that was not properly appreciated by the Rent Controller to accord to the tenant the leave to defend.