Rekha Lands (Pvt.) Ltd. vs Smt. Sheela Wanti alias Sheela Devi

Mahesh Grover, J.—The instant petition is directed against the order of the Appellate Court dated 29.8.2008.

The Petitioner who is the tenant on the demised premises and faced eviction proceedings on a petition being initiated by the present landlady

who sought to retrieve the possession of the demised premises from the Petitioner on the following grounds:

i) non-payment of rent w.e.f 1.4.1992 for shop marked ''A'' and non payment of rent w.e.f. 1.1.1989 of shop marked ''B''.

ii)the material impairment on the value and utility of the demised premises.

iii)that the Petitioner has ceased to occupy the demised premises w.e.f 1.4.1992 and that the premises are required for personal use and

occupation of her married son Ramesh Kumar who is running his business in a rented property.

The Rent Controller dismissed the petition and in appeal the findings were reversed.

In the instant petition, the challenge has been made primarily on two grounds.

The foremost ground on which the challenge has been mounted is that the onus to prove the issue regarding cessation of the occupation of the

demised premises was upon the Respondent and she failed to discharge such an onus and consequently, the finding of the Appellate Authority to

that extent is erroneous.

The second ground of challenge is that the Respondent-landlady did not appear to testify regarding her personal need and the proceedings were

conducted through her power of attorney holder who is her son. It is thus contended that having failed to appear and testify before the Rent

Controller, the landlady has failed to effectively discharge the onus of proving her personal need and consequently, the finding on this issue is

unsustainable as well.

Learned Counsel for the Respondent on the other hand has contended that even if other factors are to be ignored, the personal necessity of the

Respondent-landlady stood adequately established as it was initially pleaded that the demised premises are required for use and occupation of her

married son who wanted to run his business from the said premises and the fact that he appeared to testify sufficiently meets the requirement of

standard, the proof which is so required in the proceedings before the Rent Controller. He thus contends that on the strength of the testimony of

the son of the landlady the personal need as pleaded stood established.

I have heard learned Counsel for the parties and have perused the impugned order.

In the proceedings under the Rent Act, the landlord can have recourse to one or other specified grounds given out in the statute and it is not

necessary that one has to be to the exclusion of the other. This apparently is the situation in the instant case where the Respondent-landlady sought

the eviction of the Petitioner on number of available grounds contemplated in the statute. For the purposes of answering a petition under the Rent

Act it is not essential that a landlord should succeed on all the grounds which have been taken up to seek the eviction of a tenant. Successfully

proving any of the grounds can entail the eviction of a tenant.

The Respondent-landlady has sought the eviction of the Petitioner from the demised premises on the ground of personal necessity as well. If

the Court is to evaluate the material on record and answer this issue in the first instance then it may not be necessary to travel to the other

contentions regarding cessation of the occupation of the demised premises by the Petitioner .

Undeniably the landlady did not appear before the Rent Controller to testify the need pleaded in the petition u/s 13 i.e the use and occupation

of the shop by her son who was desirous of setting up his business therein. Therefore, the son of the landlady was sufficiently equipped with the

knowledge of the facts and was competent to express his need before the Rent Controller which he did. The contention of the learned Counsel for

the Petitioner that since the landlady did not appear and hence this was sufficient to discredit her claim of personal use and occupation has to be

rejected. If a person who is so intricately linked and related to the landlady and is adequately enabled to give out and substantiate the pleading of

personal necessity then in such an eventuality merely because landlady did not appear cannot be a ground to be construed as a fatality to the

pleaded case of the landlady.

Besides it has come on record that the son of the Respondent landlady Ramesh Kumar is carrying on his business from a tenanted premises. It

would not be thus wise to construe that such an aspiration to occupy his own premises is intended greed of the landlady. Hon''ble Supreme Court

in case titled as Ragavendra Kumar Vs. Firm Prem Machinary and Co., observed as under:

x x x It is settled position of laws that the landlord is best judge of his requirement for residential or business purpose and he has got complete

freedom in the matter.

A three-Judges Bench of the Apex Court in Prativa Devi Vs. T.V. Krishnan, , 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.

xxx xxx xxx

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. 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 they could adjust themselves.

In Shiv Sarup Gupta Vs. Dr. Mahesh Chand Gupta, , 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 pretence 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 positive, the need is bona fide.

In Dattatraya Laxman Kamble Vs. Abdul Rasul Moulali Kotkunde and Another, , the Apex Court observed in CR No. 274 of 2009 (O&M)

6 paragraph 8 of the judgment as follows:

When a landlord says that he needs the building for his own occupation there is no doubt 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 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) RCR 42 (S.C.), their

Lordships of the Supreme Court noticed the above mentioned judgments and then expressed the similar view.

In Sait Nagjee Purushotham and Co. Ltd. Vs. Vimalabai Prabhulal and Others, , 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.

Having regard to the aforesaid facts, the instant revision CR No. 274 of 2009 (O&M) 7 petition is held to be without merit and is hereby

dismissed.