Chaitanya Kochar vs Joginder Kaur

G.S. Sandhawalia, J.

C.M. No. 7401-CII of 2012

Application filed u/s 151 CPC seeking exemption from filing the true attested copies of Annexures P-16 to P-19 is allowed, in view of the averments made in the application, which are duly supported by an affidavit.

C.R. No. 1742 of 2012

The present revision petition is filed by the tenant under Article 227 of the Constitution of India whereby, he is challenging as many as 8 orders passed by the Rent Controller commencing from 08.06.2011 to 16.01.2012. The present petition has thus been filed challenging various orders dated 08.06.2011, 22.07.2011 whereby the cross examination of the witness PW-7 was not allowed, 27.09.2011 whereby the review application was dismissed, 04.10.2011, 05.10.2011, 11.01.2012 whereby the trial Court has declined the request to summon the required witnesses, order dated 16.01.2012 whereby the evidence was closed by order and order dated 13.02.2012 declining the request for recall of PW-2. The tenant, who is the respondent, is contesting the petition u/s 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 (for short ''The Act'') on the ground of arrears of rent and personal necessity. The ejectment application was filed on 01.10.2009 and issues were framed on 04.03.2011 in which, one of the issue is "whether the petitioner has not come to the Court with clean hands?" Initially, the petitioner, who is appearing in person before this Court, was also represented by a counsel before the trial Court but it seems that subsequently he has been appearing in person. On 15.03.2011, the landlord examined two witnesses and their cross examination was deferred on the request of the counsel for the tenant and the case was adjourned and the said witnesses were cross examined on 18.05.2011. On 02.06.2011, PWs Rattan Lal, Ved Kumar and Vishal Kapoor were present and examined, PWs Ramesh Verma and Joginder Singh were present and examined-in-chief and PWs Anil Kumar and Dr. R.S. Klair were present but could not be examined. The said witnesses alongwith Ramesh Verma and Joginder Singh were bound down to be examined on 08.06.2011 and on the said date, an application was filed praying that the landlord''s witnesses should produce original record pertaining to Ex. P-10, P-11, P-6/A and P-6/B. The application was filed in person by the tenant and was on the ground that for proper cross examination, the said documents were necessary. Accordingly, on 08.06.2011, the trial Court decided the said application and noticed that the respondent had been asking irrelevant questions out of pleadings and applications were being filed to delay the proceedings. It was noticed that the case was pertaining to personal necessity of the landlord and there were directions by this Court to hear such cases on priority basis. The trial Court also noticed that Joginder Singh-witness had been asked to bring the relevant record and accordingly, the application was dismissed with `500 as costs and the documents which were being asked for cross examination of Joginder Singh were held not to be required for cross examination. It is pertinent to mention that the said order dated 08.06.2011 was passed by Sh. Madan Lal, Civil Judge (Jr. Divn.)/Rent Controller, Jalandhar.

Thereafter, the tenant filed an application dated 22.07.2011 for review of the order since the case was placed before another Rent Controller, Mrs. Hareet Kaur Kaleka. Alongwith the said application, another application was filed to put on record the illegalities and irregularities of the landlady and to seek redressal thereof. In the application dated 22.07.2011, the tenant sought review on the ground that his earlier application for producing the original record pertaining to Exs. P-10, P-11, P-6/A and P-6/B had been wrongly declined and costs had been harshly imposed. The said application was dismissed by the Rent controller on 27.09.2011 on the ground that if the tenant had any objection regarding to the exhibition of the documents, he could file appeal or revision against the same but the order could not be reviewed and similarly costs of `500 could not be revoked. Regarding the second application for illegalities and irregularities, the Rent Controller came to the conclusion that it was settled proposition of law that by merely exhibiting the documents, the same did not dispense with the proof of the same and if any document was wrongly exhibited or has not been proved properly, it would be dealt with accordingly. Thereafter, the cross examination of PW-2 Rajinder Singh Kaler was conducted on 04.10.2011 and he was recalled on 05.10.2011 and his further cross examination was considered NIL after the Court observed that the tenant had been asked a number of times not to ask irrelevant questions and not to waste the time of the Court. On 11.01.2012, another application was filed by the tenant whereby officials of D.A.V. Institute of Engineering and Technology, Jalandhar alongwith the resume of Prof. Manoj Kumar were sought to be summoned and similarly, record from the C.T. Institute of Technology, village Shahpur, Jalandhar alongwith the copy of the AICTE norms and Punjab Technical University norms and also the advertisement published regarding the vacancies of Professors/Assistant Professors in the ECE Discipline during 2010-11 and the list of applications received. The said application was dismissed on 11.01.2012 on the ground that the landlord was wanting to shift to Jalandhar as his wife was under treatment at Military Hospital, Jalandhar and his two sons were coming back from abroad and he wanted to join the Lovely Professional University, Jalandhar and there was no relevance of the qualifications or resumes of Prof. Manoj Kumar, who was not a party to the litigation.

The Rent Controller, vide order dated 16.01.2012, recorded the statement of the tenant and noticed that the case had been made time bound and only 3 opportunities were to be given as per order dated 05.10.2011 and on the fourth opportunity, no other respondent''s witness was present. Accordingly, the evidence of the respondent was closed by Court order since on 16.12.2011, he had sought only one further adjournment. Accordingly, the case was adjourned to 24.01.2012 for cross examination of RW-3. That an application was filed on 13.02.2012 to recall PW-2 Rajinder Singh Kaler for cross examination on the ground that the written statement in another case titled M/s. The Core Group vs. Hoshiar Singh could not be put to the witness and it was on the file as a marked document and needed to be exhibited.

Admittedly, the limitation to file the revision petition against the orders passed in the year 2011 had expired and no revision had been filed against the said orders. The said orders have become final and now a petition has been filed on 16.03.2012 challenging all the orders, which cannot be permissible as a separate cause of action had arisen to the petitioner to file appropriate revision petitions when the orders were passed. The order dated 11.01.2012, whereby the application to summon the officials of DAV Institute of Engineering and Technology, Jalandhar and to take the resume of Prof. Manoj Kumar had been dismissed, has rightly been passed as it has got no relevance with the controversy in issue. The Rent Controller has taken this aspect into consideration since the premises in question is only for the personal use and occupation of the landlord. Similarly, vide order dated 16.01.2012, the Rent Controller has closed the evidence by order after taking into account that the tenant had made a statement on 16.12.2011 that he would take only one more adjournment and the case had already been made time bound by this Court vide order dated 15.09.2011.

The application for recalling PW-2 Rajinder Singh Kaler for cross examination has been dismissed by the Rent Controller on the ground that he was recalled for cross examination on 15.05.2011, 04.10.2011 and 05.10.2011 and cross examined at length on three opportunities and accordingly, the said application was also dismissed. The said cross examinations of PW-2 is on record and extends to 10 pages by the tenant himself. A perusal of the same shows that various irrelevant questions have been asked and the tenant had been warned several times by the Court. It is important to note that this conduct of the tenant was noticed by the earlier Rent Controller, also. The present petition also, which has been filed before this Court, runs in 114 pages and the petitioner-tenant was asked as to whether he was legally trained, to which, he replied that he had a little knowledge and on the factum as to who had prepared his petition, it was volunteered that it had been prepared with the help of some Advocate, though none has been engaged. The cumulative impact of the conduct of the petitioner goes on to show that he is wanting to drag on the litigation as he is aware that the case is at the fag end of the trial. It has already come on record that the landlord had sought directions from this Court and this Court had been pleased to issue directions in C.R. No. 5611 of 2011 decided on 15.09.2011 since the matter was hanging fire before the Rent Controller. The orders passed in January and February by the Rent Controller do not suffer from any illegality or infirmity which can warrant interference in the revisional jurisdiction of this Court. Regarding the orders passed earlier extending from 08.06.2011, the revision petition is barred by limitation, as noticed earlier and the petitioner cannot challenge all the said orders in one cumulative petition under the garb of filing a revision petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India once he had an alternative and efficacious remedy to file a petition u/s 15(5) of the Rent Act. It is not a case whereby the powers under Article 227 of the Constitution of India can be invoked and the present petition seems to be misconceived and accordingly the same is dismissed keeping in view the above facts and circumstances of the case.