HEM RAJ Vs. BASTA SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this revision petition filed under S.15(5) of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act (Act No. III of 1949) (hereinafter called 'the Act'), the petitioner landlord has called in question the order dt. 11-3-1976 recorded by the District Judge, Shimla, exercising the power of Appellate Authority under the Act vide which the learned District Judge affirmed the order of the Rent Controller dt. 18-7-1973 dismissing the petition filed by the petitioner seeking ejectment of the respondents from the premises known as shop No. 57/1. The Mall, Shimla, under the tenancy of respondent 1.

(2.) Shri Basta Singh, respondent 1, is admittedly the tenant of the shop in question under the petitioner. The petitioner brought an action for ejectment of the respondents in respect of the said shop on the solitary ground that respondent 1 has sublet or otherwise transferred his rights under the lease in respect of the demised shop in favour of respondent 2.

(3.) The counter plea of the respondents was that respondent 1 had entered into a partnership with Shri Surjan Singh, the father of respondent 2, and it was the business of this partnership which was being run in the shop in dispute eversince the coming into existence of the partnership which is alleged to have been entered into in March 1959. They admitted that respondent 2 alone was attending to the business being run in the disputed premises but pleaded that he was doing so only in his capacity of a representative of his father. In other words the respondents while admitting that respondent 2 was in the control of the business being carried on in the shop in dispute claimed that this business was the. partnership of respondent 1 and Shri Surjan Singh, father of respondent 2 and the running of such a business by respondent 2 did not involve any subletting. The respondents had taken some other objections also against the maintainability of the petition but the same do not survive at this stage and need not be referred to.