SHAM LAL Vs. KASHMIRI LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition is directed against the order of the Rent Controller dated October 13, 1988, whereby the application filed on behalf of tenant-petitioner seeking permission to contest the ejectment application filed under Section 13-A of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Act') was dismissed.

(2.) KASHMIRI Lal landlord-respondent filed eviction petition under Section 13-A of the Act seeking ejectment of his tenant Sham Lal from the premises in dispute on the ground that he is a specified landlord having retired as peon from the department of Agriculture, Punjab on 29th February, 1988, and he requires the premises in question for his personal use and occupation and as he does not own or possess any other residential house in the urban area of Chandigarh. He also filed an affidavit in support of his averments made in the petition under Section 13-A of the Act along with certificate of retirement. The tenant-petitioner moved an application for leave to defend. Therein he denied the relationship of landlord and tenant between the parties though it was not denied that the landlord has retired from service. He also did not challenge that the landlord personally required the premises in question for his personal use and occupation. The plea taken by the tenant was that there was nothing on the record to show as to when the sewerage connection was given to the house in question and whether a period of five years has elapsed since the grant of sewerage connection of the premises in dispute. According to the tenant, the buildings whose sewerage connections are given within four years were exempt from the purview of the Act under Section 3 thereof.

(3.) LEARNED counsel for the petitioner submitted that since the building was exempted under Section 3 of the Act from the operation thereof the application filed under Section 13-A was not maintainable.