BRIJ LAL Vs. ARJAN SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The only question involved in this revision under Section 15 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 is as to whether the concurrent finding of the two courts below on the personal requirement of the landlord can be sustained on the facts proved on the record.

(2.) The landlord pleaded that he required the rented land for his own occupation and for his business and trade. The nature of the business or the trade which the landlord wanted to start was not specified in the application. In the witness box all that he stated was that he was not carrying on any business at that time and wanted to set up a firewood stall on the land in dispute. This statement of the landlord was accepted by the learned Rent Controller and the ejectment of the petitioner ordered. The finding of the Rent Controller was upheld by the learned Appellate Authority on the following reasoning :-

(3.) The other reason advanced by the learned by the learned Appellate Authority to accept the statement of the landlord that no effective cross-examination was attempted on the petitioner to show that his assertion of personal use and occupation was only a clock to evict the tenant is also not borne out from the record and, therefore, unsustainable. The landlord in the cross-examination was asked if he had acquired a licence for running firewood stall and whether he knew wherefrom the firewood is purchased for sale in the city of Amritsar. These questions obviously were directed to test the averment of the landlord if he really intended to start the firewood stall. The answers given by the landlord further go to show that he had never applied his mind or tried to collect the necessary information for setting up of a firewood stall. It cannot therefore, be said that either the statement of the landlord respecting his averment of the setting up of firewood stall went unchallenged or that no effective cross-examination was directed to show that the landlord had no bonafide intention to start the said business. That apart, when the landlord had failed to make out a case in his statement of bonafide requirement of the demised premises for his own use and occupation, the tenant was under no obligation to cross-examine him in this regard. Such a course on the part of the tenant would be extremely hazardous and more often than not provide another opportunity to the landlord to fill up the locuna in his statement left over in the Examination-in-Chief. There is no rule of law which requires a party to take such a course and dig his own grave. The rule of appreciation of evidence developed by various judicial decisions, that the statement of party on a fact in issue if unchallenged in cross-examination should normally be accepted by the Court, is applicable only where the statement is such that is can be reasonably acted upon and made the basis of a finding by the Court. But where the statement falls short of such probative value, it would not acquire any sancuty because no cross-examination is directed to challenge its correctness. There is thus no material on the record to sustain the concurrent finding of the Rent Controller and the Appellate Authority that the landlord requires the demised premises for his own use and occupation and the finding recorded by them is consequently set aside.