MANGAT RAMMANGAT RAM Vs. SANT LAL NAGPAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is landlord's petition whose ejectment application has been dismissed by both the authorities below.

(2.) THE landlord Mangat Ram filed the ejectment application dated 2.11.1986 seeking the ejectment of his tenant Sant Lal, inter alia, on the ground that the premises consist of a vacant site measuring 4 Kanal 17 Marlas, with ten rooms therein, situate in Mandi Malout. The same was rented out on a monthly rent of Rs. 400/- in which the tenant was running a private educational academy. Two of these rooms with an adjoining verandah fell down about four years ago prior to the filing of the ejectment application. When the tenant started reconstruction of these rooms, the landlord objected to the same and he filed a civil suit on 11.8.1976 against the tenant seeking permanent injunction. The said suit was decreed on 27.9.1976, in favour of the landlord because the tenant conceded to his demand that he would not make any construction. Immediately thereafter on 2.11.1976, the landlord filed the present ejectment application on the ground of the premises being unfit and unsafe for human habitation. The tenant controverted the said allegations of the landlord. The learned Rent Controller found that only an insignificant part of the demised premises has become unfit and unsafe and there was no cogent evidence on the record to show that the rest of the rooms have become dilapidated or unfit for the use of the student and, therefore, the landlord was not entitled to the eviction order. Consequently, the ejectment application was dismissed on 31.7.1979. In appeal, the Appellate Authority affirmed the said findings of the Rent Controller and thus maintained the order rejecting the ejectment application.

(3.) ON the other hand, the learned counsel for the tenant submitted that on the appreciation of the entire evidence it has been concurrently found that the demised premises has not become unfit and unsafe for human habitation and that being a finding of fact could not be interfered with in revisional jurisdiction. In any case, argued the learned counsel, that even if the two rooms and the verandah had fallen, still the tenant was not liable to ejectment because the remaining portion was intact. According to the learned counsel, there was no evidence that the entire building has become unfit and unsafe for human habitation. In support of his contention, he referred to Piara Lal v. Kewal Krishan Chopra, AIR 1988 SC 1432 (1988 Haryana Rent Reporter 501).