JUDGMENT
G.C. Garg, J.
1. This is landlady’s revision petition in whose favour, eviction order was passed by the learned Rent Controller but the same was set aside in appeal.
2. The landlady, Mohinder Kaur sought the ejectment of her tenant, Sudesh Kumari from the demised premises being House No. 8/64, situated in the area of Mohalla Sheikhanwala, Kapurthala consisting of two rooms, on the grounds of non-payment of arrears of rent, the demised premises were required for her personal necessity and that the building in question had become unsafe and unfit for human habitation. The landlady specifically averred in the ejectment petition that since her husband who was in service in the Revenue Department of Haryana, had retired on September 30, 1988, she wanted to settle at Kapurthala permanently along with him and that she or her husband had no other house in their names except the house in question. Respondent-tenant filed written statement. Relationship of landlord and tenant was admitted. It was, however, denied that the landlady required the premises for her own use and occupation.
3. The respondent having tendered the arrears of rent along with interest and costs on the first date of hearing, the first ground was not pressed. The second ground that the demised premises had become unsafe and unfit for human habitation also did not find favour with the learned Rent Controller, there being no cogent and reliable evidence on the said point. As regard the ground of personal necessity on which most stress had been laid by the landlady, learned Rent Controller came to the conclusion that the petitioner had been successful in proving that she required the premises for her own bona fide use and occupation and the respondent was liable to be evicted on that ground, and vide order dated January 22, 1990 directed the ejectment of the respondent from the premises in question. On appeal preferred by the tenant, learned appellate authority reversed the findings of the Rent Controller regarding personal necessity. Ejectment application was consequently dismissed by order dated April 29, 1991. Dissatisfied with the order of the appellate authority, the landlady has filed this revision petition.
4. The primary ground of ejectment that survives now for purpose of this petition is that the house in question is needed by the landlady for her pwn use and occupation. During the course of arguments, it was agreed that the learned appellate authority had reversed the finding of the Rent Controller on the ground of personal necessity only on two counts, (i) the landlady did not plead and prove all the ingredients of Section 13(3)(a)(i) of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act 1949 (for short ‘the Act’) and (ii) that the landlady had failed to prove that she required the premises for her bona fide use and occupation.
5. After hearing learned counsel for the parties and carefully going through the evidence on the record, I am of the opinion that this revision deserves to succeed. A perusal of the order of the learned appellate authority would clearly go to show that while coming to the above conclusion the court below had noticed that the landlady had mentioned the first and the second ingredients in the ejectment application but did not mention the third ingredient of Section 13(3)(a)(i) of the Act properly. It was further noticed that Ranjit Singh, husband and the general attorney of the petitioner while appearing as a witness did not state that the landlady had not vacated such building without sufficient cause after the commencement of the Act, in the urban area concerned. In the wake of the questions as noticed above, the averments as made in the ejectment application and relevant herein, may first be mentioned as under :
Para 4 (a) ... ... ... (b) That the petitioner requires the house in dispute mentioned in para No. 1 of the petition for her personal necessity, as the husband of the petitioner has retired from service on 30.9.1988 from Faridabad (Haryana State) from the Revenue Department and wants to settle at Kapurthala permanently. (c) That the respondent has no other house of her own OR any house of her husband in the local limits of Kapurthala. (d) That the respondent has not vacated any other house nor any other house is on rent with the respondent where the respondent or her family may be living OR has vacated."
In the written statement, the tenant disputed the claim of the landlady that she needed the premises for her own use and occupation. In reply to para 4(c) of the ejectment petition, it was stated that the same was not admitted to be correct and as regards para 4(d), it was averred that para 4(d) of the petition as stated was incorrect, hence denied specifically. From the averments in the ejectment application as noticed above, it is evident that as far as the question of pleadings is concerned, the same have been broadly mentioned though not exactly in the same words as detailed in the section. Averments made in para 4 of the ejectment application leave no doubt that all the grounds of personal necessity as envisaged in section 13(3)(a)(i) of the Act were pleaded. If the averments as made, satisfy the requirement of the provisions of law, it will not make much difference if the same are not pleaded exactly in the same words. Now there remains a question, whether the landlady has been able to prove the three ingredients of section 13(3) (a) (i) of the Act or not. Learned counsel for the petitioner in support of the above question, drew my attention to the statement of Ranjit Singh, general attorney or the petitioner who appeared as AW-1. The witness deposed in Court that he retired as Kanungo on September 30, 1988 and that he and his wife (landlady) had no house in Kapurthala except the house in dispute. He further deposed that he along with his wife and children was living at Faridabad on rent; there was no house in Faridabad owned by him or his wife and that he, his wife and children needed the house in dispute for their personal residence. Though the witness did not state that the landlady had not vacated any building without sufficient cause after the commencement of the Act in the urban area of Kapurthala yet he was not subjected to cross-examination on this aspect at all in order to show that she had at any time vacated any building within the urban area of Kapurthala without sufficient cause. Admittedly, the house in dispute presently in occupation of the tenant is owned by the landlady. Her husband was in service in the State of Haryana. Thus, she could not be expected to live at Kapurthala in the normal course of circumstances. It is not the cass of the tenant that the landlady had vacated the residential premises without sufficient cause after the commencement of the Act. The ejectment application was filed after the retirement of the husband of the petitioner who after retirement was entitled to live in his own house. The inference as drawn by the learned appellate authority that the application for ejectment was not bona fide because the landlady and her husband owned a house at Faridabad and that a part of the house in dispute was sold to one Mohinder Singh, in my view not sufficient to return a finding that the landlady had failed to prove bona fide necessity of the premises for her own use and occupation. Even if it be taken that the landlady and her husband own a house at Faridabad and the statement of her husband to that extent is not correct, this cannot lead to a conclusion that the application is mala fide or the need for the house in question is not bona fide. The requirement of the law is that the landlord should prove on record that he is not occupying any other residential building in the urban area where the house in dispute is situated and that he has not vacated such a building without sufficient cause after the commencement of the Act in the said urban area. It is true that a part of the house in question was sold to one Mohinder Singh by the landlady but that portion was sold in the year 1972 which is evident from the statement of the tenant herself while appearing in Court as RW-1. Initially one room was let out to the respondent and second room was constructed thereafter which was also given to the tenant and it is from these two rooms, the ejectment has been sought by the landlady after the retirement of her husband with an intention to live therein permanently. The fact that the landlady had made efforts on the two earlier occasions as well to seek ejectment of the respondent from the demised premises again cannot lead to the conclusion that the need of the i landlady is not bona fide. The earlier ejectment petitions were moved during the period when her husband was in service and it was obviously for this reason that the Courts had come to the conclusion that the need of the landlady for the house in dispute was not bona fide. In Kishan Chand Verma v. Shri Hari Om Gautam, (1986-2) 90 P.L.R. 474, it has been he’d that if a person, after his retirement from service, wants to shift to his parental house then simply because he was living at some other place was itself no ground to doubt his bona fide requirement and that there was nothing wrong or improper if the landlord decided to shift to his native place for living there. In the present case the husband of the petitioner has categorically stated in his examination-in-chief that he along with his wife and children wanted to shift to the house in dispute at Kapurthala permanently. Even if the husband of the petitioner has been doing some business in Delhi, this by itself will not be a ground to doubt the intention of the landlady and her husband to shift to the house in question, which undisputedly, is their native place.
6. In view of the observations made above, the submission of the (earned counsel for the respondent that premises in question were not required by the landlady and she filed ejectment petition to pressurize the respondent to enhance the rent cannot be accepted as the facts and circumstances as brought out and proved on record clearly lead to the conclusion that the demised premises are required by the landlady for her own use and occupation where they are ardently willing to shift, after getting it vacated from the tenant. Even otherwise, the tenant has a remedy under sub section (4) of Section 13 of the Act to take back the possession of the premises if the landlady failed to occupy the same for a continuous period of 12 months from the date of obtaining possession thereof.
7. For the reasons stated above, I am clearly of the view that the finding recorded by the learned appellate authority cannot by sustained and the same are hereby reversed and those of the Rent Controller affirmed. Consequently, the revision is allowed and the order under revision is set aside. The order of Rent Controller is restored. The respondent tenant, however is given three month’s time to vacate the premises in question. There will be no order as to costs.