KAMAL KISHORE GUPTA Vs. PREM LATA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS second appeal against the judgement and decree of the first appellate court (District Judge) was admitted on the following substantial questions of law, vide order dated 11.9.2000:-

(2.) 2006. Facts relevant for the disposal of the appeal may be summed up thus. Respondent Prem Lata, hereinafter called plaintiff, filed a suit on 3.12.1986, for possession of the suit premises consisting of two rooms, kitchen, bathroom, store and latrine, alleging that she was a tenant in the aforesaid premises under the present appellants who were impleaded as defendants No. 2 to 6 and that for some personal reasons, she had not been staying in Shimla where the premises are situated and directed her neighbour, proforma respondent No. 2 Rajesh Sood to look after the property in her absence and that when on 20.11.1986 she came to Shimla, the premises were found to be in possession of the defendants, i.e. appellants and proforma defendant No. 2. When the plaintiff questioned the defendants as to how they came to occupy the premises during the subsistence of her tenancy, appellants/ defendants No. 2 to 6 told that they had taken possession of the premises from defendant No.1 and thereafter the wife of defendant No. 1 locked the premises and disappeared. The plaintiff had come to Shimla on the aforesaid date to attend the hearing, on the next following day, of an eviction petition filed by the appellants against her and defendant No. 1 for her eviction from the premises on the ground that she had sublet the premises to defendant No.1 and that when she went to the court of Rent Controller on the next following day, the appellants- defendants did not appear and that petition was dismissed in default. With these allegations, she sued for the restoration of possession and also for mandatory injunction directing the defendants to handover her belongings, which she had kept in the premises.

(3.) THE trial court found all the material issues in favour of the plaintiff and passed a decree for possession of the premises in her favour and against all the defendants. Appeal filed by the appellants and proforma respondents in the court of District Judge, stands dismissed.