JUDGMENT
S.D. Anand, J.
1. Respondent – Rajesh Sood, a practising Advocate of about 11 years standing (as the material obtaining on the file), purchased House No. 3158, Sector 23-D, Chandigarh (a three-storeyed residential accommodation) from its owners, namely Smt. Shubh Kanta Sharma, Rajiv Kumar Sharma and Anil Kumar Sharma. The impugned purchase (by means of sale-deed dated 3.9.2003) was for a consideration of Rs. 15 lacs. The purchase was made jointly by the respondent and his brother Sandeep Sood,, who is presently living overseas. The petitioners are in occupation of ground floor of the premises aforementioned as tenants. A family settlement, as between the petitioner and his brother Sandeep Sood, followed on 18.10.2003. In pursuance thereof, the ground floor portion fell to the share of the respondent. He filed an eviction application on various pleas including bonafide personal necessity. The plea was declined by the learned Trial Court, vide judgment dated 2.12.2005. In a finding of reversal, the learned Appellate Authority allowed the appeal filed by the respondents-landlord upholding his plea of bonafide personal requirement and directed the tenant-petitioners to hand over the vacant possession of the premises under reference to the landlord-respondent within three months w.e.f. the date of judgment.
2. The tenants are in revision.
3. Mr. ML Sarin, learned Senior Advocate, appearing on behalf of the tenant-petitioners raised the following contentions in order to obtain the invalidation of the finding recorded by the learned Appellate Authority. (It is common ground otherwise that the present revision has to be disposed of only in the context of the plea of bonafide personal requirement and there is presently no challenge to the other grounds raised by the landlord- respondents for ejectment):
1. The family partition deed dated 18.10.2003 is a sham transaction and had been brought into being just in order to create a ground for eviction.
2. The plea of personal requirement is not bonafide, inasmuch as the respondent continues to share Chamber in the District Courts with his father (who is also a practicing Advocate) and the Vaqalatnamas also continue to bear the names of father and son and a common name plate, bearing the names of both of them, also appears outside the residential house of respondent- father. It is also the plea, in the context, that if there was any element of bonafides in the requirement of landlord-respondent, he would have immediately shifted his residence to the unoccupied first floor of the premises (which has otherwise fallen to the share of his brother Sandeep Sood) who is concededly not living in India presently.
4. In support of the averment that a tenant would have locus standi to prove the sham character of a partition deed of the indicated category, the learned Counsel for the petitioners relied upon Vasdev Nath v. Jagdish Parshad Gupta and Ors. 1993 (1) RLR 23.
5. Though, there cannot be any dispute with the proposition of law as expounded by this Court in Vasdev Nath’s case (supra), it may be noticed that the case relied upon by the learned Counsel for the petitioners was based upon its peculiar facts and circumstances. In that case, the premises had been let out sometime in the year 1970. The landlord had been receiving rent through cheques, as well as in cash, till the filing of the ejectment application on 14.3.1985. The memorandum of partial partition in that case had been drawn on a non-judicial stamp paper purchased on 29.3.1978 i.e. the date on which that memorandum was averred to have been executed. That document bore the signatures of the parties on each page, but no date of execution/signatures had been given under their signatures. The person, who typed out that document, had not been examined. That document did not see the light of the day at least till the year 1981 “before Income Tax Officer, where reference has been made to the alleged family settlement partial partition deed or when the same was filed in the present proceedings on 14.3.1985.” The Municipal record did not record the change of ownership on the basis of that document. It was on the basis of the above facts that this Court recorded a finding that the facts leave no manner of doubt that the document aforementioned had been set up with a view to obtain eviction on the plea of personal necessity or perhaps to claim the benefit of income tax. That judicial pronouncement cannot, thus, buttress the plea advocated on behalf of the petitioners.
6. In the present case, the facts are entirely different. As already noticed, there is no proof that the family partition is a make-belief affair or a facade or a sham transaction. There is evidence on the file that the impugned family partition stands notified to the Municipal Corporation and the Estate Office, Chandigarh. There is nothing suspicious about the documentation thereof.
7. It was held by the Apex Court in Sk. Sattar Mohd. Choudhari v. Gundappa Amabadas Bukate that if the co-owners or co-lessors agree among themselves and split by partition property by metes and bounds and come to have definite, positive and identifiable shares in that property, they become separate individual owners of each portion and can deal with that portion as also the tenant thereof as individual owner/lessor. It was further held that the tenant cannot object to such partition, though he can always show that the partition was not bonafide.
8. In Karta Ram Rameshwar Dass v. Ram Bilas and Ors. , it was held by the Apex Court that after a partition is effected or a decree for partition is passed, it would be open to the co-sharers to evict a tenant from that portion of tenanted premises which had fallen to their respective shares by filing separate proceedings for eviction under rent control laws on the grounds enumerated thereunder. The Apex Court, otherwise, also held that it would be open to the tenant to show that the partition was not bonafide and that it had been made with an oblique motive to overcome the rigors of rent control laws which protected the eviction of the tenant except on the grounds set out in the relevant statute.
9. Though, it is in evidence that the respondent and his Advocate father continue to share a Chamber, the Vaqalatnama contained the names of both of them and the name plate outside the residence of the father also bears the names of both of them, these facts cannot be said to be inconsistent with the plea of bonafide personal requirement raised by the landlord-respondent. He has a wife and minor children. He is an Advocate in his own right. It is in evidence that he has fairly large number of briefs. He is entitled to grow, as a professional and also in his capacity as head of his immediate family unit. It is not the plea on behalf of the petitioners that the respondent could have stayed on in the house of his father as of right. The respondent may not have examined any member of his parental family in support of the averment that his wife is not having coordial relations with his mother. There is nothing unnatural in the refrain on the part of member of a respectable family in testifying on oath about the discord in the family. In any case, there is nothing equally unnatural in the desire of the respondent to grow as an individual and as a professional.
10. The petitioners cannot assail the bonafides of the respondent just because the respondent had not immediately shifted to the first floor of the premises which had fallen to the share of his brother Sandeep Sood who is presently residing overseas. Once the partition deed has not been found to be sham, it is open to the respondent to await the vacation of the premises under reference in order to move over. His brother Sandeep Sood, though overseas presently, may have his own plans to deal with the premises in whatever manner he deems appropriate. The petitioners cannot be heard to argue malafides on the part of the respondent just because he did not immediately shift to the vacant first floor premises aforementioned.
11. Each individual has its own notions of convenience and comfort. A professional person, in particular, would like to make the premises presentable in order to be able to impress those engaging him. A person who spends a lot on the purchase of residential premises would like to renovate only the portion which had fallen to his share. By the very nature of things, the renovation process can fairly be expected to be a costly proposition. It would, thus, be illogical to expect that the respondent would have first renovated the first floor portion and, then, undertaken the same exercise in the ground floor portion, on vacation by the petitioners.
12. There is also no force in the plea on behalf of the petitioners that the want of bonafides is to be inferred just because the respondent filed an ejectment plea soon after purchasing the premises from his predecessor- in-interest.
13. By the very nature of things, no piece of evidence is to be appreciated in isolation from the other facts and circumstances of the case. In the present case, there is no averment that there is any near or even distant relationship between the respondent and his predecessors-in-interest. There is also no acceptable evidence that there is any element of collusion between the respondent and the vendors. The house was purchased for no mean consideration. The entire payment was made by draft. Even otherwise, if the respondent does not shift to the premises under reference and rents it out, the rent legislation contains adequate provisions to nail him.
14. The plea raised on behalf of the petitioners that the respondent could very well have stayed on in the house of his father which is quite close by and also because the accommodation at his disposal over there was adequate, is completely bereft of merit. Apart from the fact that the respondent could not have stayed on in the house of his father in his own right, there is plethora of law on the point that it is not competent for the tenant to decide for the landlord in the context of what constitutes his requirement. Reliance, in the context, may be placed upon Yudhister v. Ashok Kumar 1987(1) RCR 225, Kameshwar Singh Srivastava v. IV Additional District Judge, Lucknow and Ors. 1987(1) RCR 231, Ragavendra Kumar v. Firm Prem Machinery & Co. and Meenal Eknath Kshirsagar (Mrs.) v. Traders & Agencies and Anr. .
15. The position that can safely be culled out from the above discussion is as under:
1. In view of the law laid down by the Apex Court in judicial pronouncements, noticed in para No. 14 of this judgment, it is the landlord who is competent to decide upon his requirement and a tenant cannot be allowed to resist eviction in a manner which amounts to dictating the ‘requirement’ to the landlord.
2. Even if the respondent continues to share the chamber with the respondent-Advocate and their Vaqalatnamas continue to bear their joint name and the name plate outside the residential house of the latter (respondent’s father) continues to jointly display their names, it cannot mean to suggest that he does not have personal bonafide requirement for the premises purchased by him at a fairly high cost because it (purchase) shall enable him to grow as a professional and also as an individual head of his immediate family unit. This fact is to be appreciated in view of the proven position on the file that the family partition (as between the respondent and his brother) stands noticed in the records of the Municipal Corporation and the Estate Office, Chandigarh.
3. There is no evidence to prove that the partition deed, as effected between the respondent and his presently overseas-based brother, is a sham transaction. The respondent is fully justified in refraining from shifting to the first floor premises which fell to the share of his brother Sandeep Sood and there is equally nothing unnatural in his insistence upon the vacation of the ground floor premises by the tenant-appellants to enable the former to reside therein as per his requirement and choice.
16. In the light of the foregoing discussion, I have no hesitation in holding that the present revision filed by the petitioner is completely bereft of merit. It shall stand dismissed. The petitioners are given two months’ time for vacating the premises under reference.