TARA CHAND SHARMA Vs. BAIJ NATH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BUILDING No. 7 of the Cart Road in Shimla has three floors. The ground floor has a shop and the first floor is in occupation of petitioner Tara Chand Sharma. It consists of two rooms, a bath room, a kitchen and a glazed verandah, a latrine and a store. Tara Chand is a tenant for several decades. The third floor has almost similar accommodation as in the second floor. There was a tenant in it but the accommodation fell vacant in the year 1973. It was given to one Jagdish Prasad who is related to the owner-landlords S/Shri Baij Nath and Jagan Nath. He is working in their shop. Satrohan Lal, who is the third respondent, is a co-owner of case premises.

(2.) THE two brothers Baij Nath and Jagan Nath have large families. Apart from themselves the family of each one of them consists of his wife and six children. All these children are grown up. In all, 16 members of the families of Baij Nath and Jagan Nath were residing earlier in a large room in Lakkar Bazar. They had to vacate the premises in the year 1976 as the area was sinking.

(3.) ON May 18, 1976 a petition under Section 14 of the Himachal Pradesh Urban Rent Control Act, 1971 ("the Act", for brief) was filed by Baij Nath and Jagan Nath along with Satrohan Lal seeking eviction of Tara Chand Sharma from the accommodation in his possession on first floor of the building on the Cart Road. That petition was amended in the year 1981.