Civil Revision No.56 of 2009 (O&M) -1-
IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT
CHANDIGARH
Civil Revision No.56 of 2009 (O&M)
Date of decision: 13.01.2009
Ramesh Chand .............. Petitioner
Vs.
Janta Pustkalya .............Respondent
Present: Mr.Adarsh Jain, Advocate
for the petitioner.
CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN
1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the
judgment ? Yes
2. To be referred to the Reporters or not ? Yes
3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest ? Yes
-.-
K.KANNAN, J
1. The landlord which was a society applied for eviction of the
premises on the ground of requirement of the tenanted property for further
accommodation of the library needs. The Rent Controller and the Appellate
Authority upheld the claim of the landlord and the tenant is in revision
petition before this Court.
2. The first contention of the tenant was that the resolution that
authorized the filing of the petition was only to file a petition for ejectment
on the ground of recovery of rent and the need spelt out in the petition was
not brought out in the resolution. This objection, in my view, cannot be
sustained. It is wholly an internal matter on how the trustees viewed the
issue for authorising a particular person to represent the Trust. So long as
there was a valid resolution empowering one of the members in the Trust to
institute an action for eviction, it is wholly necessary that the resolution must
also spell out the grounds of eviction correctly.
3. The other contention of the tenant is that the landlord had not
brought out clearly that he had other portions of the property available and
Civil Revision No.56 of 2009 (O&M) -2-
that such other portions were not sufficient for the requirement. In the
absence of pleadings, the landlord was not entitled to lead evidence in that
regard and the consideration of the same by Rent Controller and the
Appellate Authority permitting the landlord to give evidence was vitiated.
He relies on the decision of this Court in Joginder Singh Sawhney Vs.
Harbans Lal 2003 (2) PLR 242 that the landlord if he failed to plead the
basic ingredients of Section 13(3)(a)(i) of the Act making averments in the
application that he was not occupying another residential building in the
concerned urban area and has not vacated such residential building, the
petition deserved dismissal. The requirement of pleading must be
understood in the context of what the statute spells out. The statute requires
that the landlord cannot obtain eviction for his own requirement, if he had
any other property available. So long as there is evidence and there is
pleading of one or the other parties in that regard and parties had joined
issues on that aspect, in my view, a petition cannot fail by the only fact that
the landlord had not spelt out in his petition that there were other properties
available. In this case, there is no definite evidence that the other portions
of building which the landlord had in his occupation was sufficient. The
Appellate Authority has particularly referred to the evidence of AW-2
Mahabir Parsad and AW1 Hardawari Lal to say that the existing building
was not sufficient to accommodate the readers visiting the library and they
required the premises for expanding the reading room. The Appellate
Authority has also adopted a reasoning consistent with law that the tenant
himself was pleading that there was a scope for expansion of the space for
the reading room in some other fashion than expanding it by increasing the
property that had been demised in favour of the tenant. The Appellate
Authority had referred to a decision in M/s British Motor Car Company
Pvt. Ltd. Vs. Sewak Sabha Charitable Trust 2003(2) RCR 606 where this
Civil Revision No.56 of 2009 (O&M) -3-
Court laid down that where an ejectment petition had been filed by the Trust
in its own name and not by the trustees, then there was no illegality and also
several other decisions of this Court and the Hon’ble Supreme Court which
spelt out the fundamental proposition and that if the landlord had explained
the reasons for the suitability of the premises for his bona fide requirement
then the tenant was liable to be ejected. There is nothing amiss in the
reasoning of the Rent Controller and the Appellate Authority which calls for
an interference in revision petition before me. The revision petition is
accordingly dismissed.
(K. KANNAN)
JUDGE
January 13, 2009
Pankaj*