Kuldeep Singh v. Smt.Paramjit Dhillon

Mr.Rupinder Kaur Thind, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr.Munish Behl, Advocate for the respondent. MAHESH GROVER, J. The petitioner who is a tenant, is aggrieved by the findings of the Appellate Authority recorded in its order dated 18.11.2008. The respondent herein is the landlord of the demised premises who sought eviction of the petitioner from the same on the ground of non-payment of rent and personal necessity. The rent having been paid, the issue was rendered redundant and was not pressed before the Appellate Authority. The only surviving ground which remained was the ground Civil Revision No.2112 of 2009 -2- of personal necessity. The personal necessity so set up by the respondent was that she was running a boutique in a portion of the building and was desirous of shifting her business to the demised premises. It was further pleaded by her that the boutique wherein she was running the business, was located at the back side of the four shops having a dimension of 10 feet x 10 feet and that her husband is a retired person who also intends to help her run the boutique and it is essential in all these eventualities that the premises are vacated. The Rent Controller having declined the prayer, an appeal was preferred against the said order dated 30.8.2007 wherein the Appellate Authority accepted the prayer of respondent which is the cause of grievance of the petitioner in the instant revision petition. Learned counsel for the petitioner has contended that personal necessity as expressed by the respondent landlady in her petition was not sufficiently proved before the Court below and hence the order of the Appellate Authority suffers from a grave infirmity. Learned counsel for the respondent, on the other hand, contended that the personal necessity of the respondent was rightly appreciated by the Appellate Authority and hence there is no infirmity in the findings returned by it. I have considered the matter in its entirety and am unable to persuade myself to the contentions raised by the petitioner. There is specific unrebutted evidence on record to show that the respondent landlady is running a boutique in the rear portion of the shop which is the demised premisses. She has further stated that her husband is a retired person and is desirous of helping her in business. She also wishes to employ more persons as a result of which the premises where the business is being run, is not conducive to her interests and that continuation of the tenancy in favour of the petitioner is an impediment in her plans to expand the business and in this view of the matter when the facts overwhelmingly point to the necessity of the respondent to have the premises vacated, the Appellate Authority's Civil Revision No.2112 of 2009 -3- findings cannot be faulted with. The courts cannot substitute their own opinion in place of the landlord to say that personal necessity as expressed by the landlord and visibly demonstrated by the evidence, is not sufficient and also would resort to flights of imagination to see whether such a need is sufficient or not. Suffice it so say, that the bona fide need of a landlord has to be interpreted liberally, and not with a trace of suspicion towards the landlord. It is for this purpose that Section 13 (4) of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 contemplates that in the eventuality of landlord not utilising the premises for which it has been got vacated on the ground of personal necessity, the tenant is competent to retrieve possession from the landlord. A three-Judge Bench of the Apex Court in Prativa Devi(Smt.) v. T.V.Krishnan (1996) 5 S.C.C.353, dealt with a case arising out of personal necessity of a landlady qua a rented premises and held as under :- “The landlord is the best judge of his residential requirement. He has a complete freedom in the matter. It is no concern of the courts to dictate to the landlord how, and in what manner, he should live or to prescribe for him a residential standard of their own. There is no law which deprives the landlord of the beneficial enjoyment of his property.” In Sarla Ahula v. United India Insurance Co. Ltd., 1998(2) R.C.R. (Rent) 533 (S.C.), it has been held by the Supreme Court that the Rent Controller should not proceed on the assumption that the requirement of the landlord is not bona fide. According to the view taken in the said judgment, once the landlord shows a prima facie case, a presumption of bona fide requirement can be raised in his favour and it is not for the tenant to dictate terms to the landlords as to how Civil Revision No.2112 of 2009 -4- they could adjust themselves. In Shiv Sarup Gupta v. Mahesh Chand Gupta (1999) 6 S.C.C. 222= 1999(2) R.C.R. (Rent) 141 (S.C.), the Apex Court, in a detailed judgment, while dealing with the personal need of a landlord, analysed the concept of bona fide requirement and said that the requirement in the sense of felt need which is an outcome of a sincere, honest desire, in contradistinction with a mere pretense or pretext to evict the tenant refers to a state of mind prevailing with the landlord and then it was observed that “the only way of peeping into the mind of the landlord is an exercise undertaken by the judge of facts by placing himself in the armchair of the landlord and the posing a question to himself – whether in the given facts, substantiated by the landlord, the need to occupy the premises can be said to be natural, real, sincere, honest ? and if the answer be in the positive, the need is bona fide. In Dattatraya Laxman Kamble v. Abdul Rasul Moulali Kotkunde and another J.T. 1999(3) S.C.283, the Apex Court observed in paragraph-8 of the judgment as follows :- “8. When a landlord says that he needs the building for his own occupation there is no doubt that he has to prove it. But there is no warrant for presuming that his need is not bona fide. The statute enjoins that the Court should be satisfied of his requirement. So the Court would look into the broad aspects and if the Court feels any doubt about the bona fides of the requirement it is for the landlord to clear such doubts. Even in a case where the tenant does not contest or dispute the claim of the landlord the court has to look into the claim independently albeit landlord's burden gets lessened by such non-dispute. In appropriate cases it is open to the court to Civil Revision No.2112 of 2009 -5- presume that the landlord's requirement is bona fide and put the contesting tenant to the burden to show how the requirement is not bona fide.” In Atma S.Berar v. Mukhtiar Singh 2003(1) Rent Control Reporter 42 (S.C.), their Lordships of the Supreme Court noticed the above mentioned judgments and then expressed the similar view. In Sait Nagjee Purushottam & Co. Ltd. v. Vimlabai Prabhulal and others (2005) 8 S.C.C. 252, it was observed that it is always the prerogative of the landlord to decide for what purpose he requires premises in question and that it is not tenant who can dictate terms to landlord and advise him what he should do and what he should not. For the aforesaid reasons, the revision petition is held to be without any merit and is dismissed. Before pronouncing the order, the Court had granted time to the counsel for the petitioner to enable her to seek instructions from her client as to whether he was willing to hand over vacant possession of the demised premises to the respondent. If some reasonable time is granted to him to vacate the premises, which offer was declined by the petitioner. The Civil Revision is therefore, dismissed with no further observations. October 25, 2010 GD ( MAHESH GROVER ) JUDGE WHETHER TO BE REFERRED TO REPORTER? YES/NO