Revision petitions filed by a landlord seeking eviction of tenants based on personal necessity were dismissed. The High Court upheld findings by lower courts that the landlord held vacant shops, negating the necessity claim for business expansion.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH
Civil Revision No.1927 of 1999 (O&M) Date of decision:15.01.2013
Rattan Devi ...Petitioner
versus
Pargat Singh ....Respondent
II. Civil Revision No.2023 of 1999 (O&M)
Rattan Devi ...Petitioner
versus
Vijay Kumar ....Respondent
CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN
Present: Mr. Gitish Bhardwaj, Advocate, for Mr. Arun Walia, Advocate, for the petitioner.
Mr. K.S. Dadwal, Advocate, and Ms. Neha Jain, Advocate, for the respondent.
K.Kannan, J. (Oral)
Civil Revision No.1927 of 1999 (O&M) - 2 -
necessary for starting business for his son. In the course of evidence, it was elicited from the petitioner that there were 4 shops, out of which 2 were vacant. The Rent Controller as well as the appellate Court found that when the landlord had himself in his occupation vacant buildings, he was not entitled to obtain eviction. There are also other grounds stated in the orders passed by the authorities below that the landlord was requiring the premises for setting up a shop for an engineer. The Rent Controller found among other reasons that the son was not unmarried and, therefore, the relevant provisions would not apply. He also observed that if at all, the personal necessity could be only for setting up an office for a lawyer. Both these line of reasoning are definitely incorrect, but all the same, the bonafides of the landlord were not shown to be established in view of the admission of the petitioner that there were two shops which were still vacant.
Civil Revision No.1927 of 1999 (O&M) - 3 -
garage which is adjacent to the kothi. I cannot see from this evidence that the reference to two vacant shops was his reference to two shops to which he was himself in possession and that another was a garage. If a property was in his own occupation, there is no need for him to state that it was vacant. Again, if yet another shop was used as a garage, that also ought not to come for a reason for him to assume that the shop was vacant. In either event, the landlord could never have stated that two shops were vacant if it were really not so. As the counsel for the tenants points out, when two Courts have held the petitioner to hold two vacant shops in his possession, there is not even a ground urged in the revision that the authorities have committed a mis-appreciation of evidence and wrongly understood the reference to two vacant shops as two other shops other than the shop which the landlord was already in possession for running his business and garage where he was parking his car. The two courts below have examined the issue of bona fides on a simple issue of fact of the existence of two other shops which were vacant and that the evidence cannot be discarded to find the issue of bona fides in favour of the landlord.
Civil Revision No.1927 of 1999 (O&M) - 4 -
hearing sought the counsel for the respondent to take appropriate instructions about the contentions urged by the landlord so as to see that there is no further litigation between them. The counsel for the respondent, however, states that he was unable to secure appropriate instructions. I cannot therefore find a cause of action for eviction which is not a ground urged in the petition. It could be used by the landlord in his own future action, if he so chooses to do.
(K.KANNAN) JUDGE
15.01.2013 sanjeev
2 issues framed by the court
Whether the landlord could evict tenants to start his son's business given two shops were vacant.
Whether the lower courts correctly rejected the bona fides of the landlord's claim for eviction.
Rattan Devi
Pargat Singh
Vijay Kumar
K. Kannan
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
