Sat Pal vs Kesar Singh

P.C. Pandit, J.—On 3rd August, 1965, Kesar Singh filed an application u/s 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act 1969 against Sat Pal, for his ejectment from the shop in dispute, which is situated in Ludhiana, City His allegations were that Sat Pal was occupying that shop as a tenant under him on a rent of Rs. 34/- payable monthly and that the tenant was in arrears of rent since 1st of April, 1965. This application was contested by the tenant on the ground that no arrears of rent were due from him and, therefore, he was not liable to ejectment. According to him, Rs. 34/- which represented the rent for the month of April, 1965 had been paid to the landlord in cash on 11th of May, 1966 against his receipt. Rs. 68-, as rent for the months of May and June, 1965 were deposited in Court on 16th of July, 1965 and of which notice was duly served upon the landlord. Rs. 68/, rent for July and August, 1965, were deposited on 27th of August, 1965. Thus no rent was due from him at all on the day when the application for his eviction was made by the landlord. 3rd of September. 1965 was the first date of hearing of the application for ejectment. Admittedly on that rate no tender of any rent was made by the tenant. During the trial of the application, no evidence was adduced by any of the patties. On 16th of November, 1965, which was the date fixed by the Rent Controller for evidence, the counsel for the tenant produced receipts Exhibits R 1 to R 4 and closed his case. Exhibit R-l was a deposit receipt from the treasury showing that Rs. 68/ as rent for the period 1st May, 1965 to 30th June, 1965 were deposited on 16th of July, 1965. R-2 was another receipt from the treasury for Rs. 68/, as the rent for 1st of July 1965 to 31st of August 1965, which was deposited on 27th of August, 1965. Exhibit R-3 was also a receipt of the treasury for the rent of July, 1965 and interest payable to the landlord and that amount was deposited on 3rd of September, 1965 Exhibit R-4 was the receipt dated 11th of May, 1965 issued by the landlord to the tenant for the month of April, 1965. On the same date that is 16th of November, 1965, the counsel for the landlord also made a statement to the effect that he did not intend to produce any evidence. He, however, stated that the deposits made by the tenant were invalid. Thereafter, arguments were heard by the Rent Controller and on 13th January, 1966 he dismissed the application for ejectment. He found that the tenant had produced challan forms Exhibits R-1 to R-3 and the voucher Exhibit R 4 which showed that the rent from 1st April, 1965 to 30th of September, 19fc5 had been paid to the landlord. According to him, it was a settled rule of law that deposit of arrears of rent in the Court of the Senior Subordinate Judge u/s 31 of the Punjab Relief of Indebted ness Act was a valid payment by the tenant to the landlord. Consequently, the deposit of the rent by the tenant witnessed by the challan forms Exhibits R-l to R-3 would according to him be treated as a valid payment of the rent to the landlord, with the result that there were no outstanding arreas of rent due from the tenant to the landlord on the date when the ejectment application was filed. Against this decision, the landlord filed an appeal before the appellate authority, Ludhiana. There it was urged by him that according to Section 13(2)(i) of the Rent Restriction Act, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, rent was to be paid by the last date of the month next following that for which the same was payable. Thus the rent for the month of May, 1965 was payable by 30th of June, 1965, but the same was deposited in Court on 16th of July, 1965, vide Exhibit R 1. It was, therefore, contended that the landlord was not bound to accept that rent on the first date of hearing, as he was also entitled to interest on the arrears of rent upto 16th of July, l965 and since the interest and the costs of the application were not tendered on the first date of hearing, the tenant was liable to eviction. According to the appellate authority, admittedly interest on arrears of rent for the month of May, 1965 for the period 1st July, 1965 to 16th July 1965 was not tendered on the first date of hearing and therefore, the deposit of rent under the treasury challans Exhibits R 1, to R-3 did not represent the entire amount due and the tenant was, therefore, liable to eviction It was further found that even if it be as summed that the interest on the arrears of rent was tendered on the first date of hearing, no effort was made to get the costs of the application assessed and to pay the same on that date. The appeal was, consequently, accepted and the order of the Rent Controller set aside with the result that the eviction of the tenant from the premises in dispute was ordered. Against this decision, the present revision petition u/s 16(5) of the Rent Restriction Act has been filed by the tenant

The sole question for decision in this case is as to whether any rent was clue from the tenant on 3rd of August, 1965 when the application for his eviction was made by the landlord. It has been held by a Bench of this Court in Isher Dass Tara Chand v. Harcharan Dass ILR (1961) 1 P&H. 315, that the expression "arrears of rent" occurring in the proviso to clause (i) of sub section (2) of section 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949, means the rent which is due from the tenant and remaining unpaid on the date of the application and not on the date of the first hearing and it is this amount of rent due that he is required to pay under the said proviso to save himself from the forfeiture of his tenancy. The case of the landlord was that the tenant was in arrears of rent from 1st of April, 1965. The rent for the month of April, 1965, had to be paid by the 31st of May, 1965. The same was however, paid to the landlord on 11th of May, 1965, vide Exhibit R 4. The rent for the month of May, 1965, had to be paid by the 30th of June, 1965, while that for the month of June by the 31st July, 1965. The amount of Rs. 68/-, rent for the months of May and June, 1965, was. however, deposited in the treasury on 16th of July, 1965. The rent for the month of July, 1965, had to be paid by the 3lst August, 1965, but the application for eviction was made much earlier, that is, on 3rd of August, 1965, and consequently, it could not be said that the rent for that month was due on that date. That being so, it could not be held that the tenant was in arrears of rent from 1st of April, 1965, onwards as alleged by the landlord. In other words, no rent was due by the tenant on 3rd of August, 19b5. The relevant part of section 13(2)(i) of the Rent Restriction Act says-

Section 13

(1) ... ... ... ... ...

(2) A landlord who seeks to evict his tenant shall apply to the Controller for a direction in that behalf. If the Controller, after giving the tenant a reasonable opportunity of showing cause against the applicant, is satisfied-

(i) that the tenant has not paid or tendered the rent due by him in respect of the building or rented land within fifteen days after the expiry of the time fixed in the agreement of tenancy with his landlord or in the absence of any such agreement, by the last day of the month next following that, for which the rent is payable :

Provided that if the tenant on the first hearing of the application for ejectment after due service pays or tenders the arrears of rent and interest at six per cent per annum on such arrears together with the cost of application assessed by the Controller, the tenant shall be deemed to have duly paid or tendered the rent within the time aforesaid,

(ii) "From the facts narrated above, it cannot be said that the tenant had not paid or tendered the rent due by him on 3rd of August, 1965, when the application for eviction was filed against him. In other words, he was not in arrears of rent on that day and consequently, the question of payment of interest at six per cent per annum on any arrears of rent end the cost of the ejectment application to be assessed by the Controller as envisaged in the above mentioned proviso did not arise in the instant case. According to the appellate authority, since the rent for the month of May, 1965 had not been deposited by the 30th of June, 1965, as the same had been so deposited on the 16th of July, 1965, the tenant was liable to pay interest on Rs 34/-, that is, rent for the month of May, 1965, for the period 1st of July, 1965 to 18th of July, 1965. That interest, according to the learned Judge, had not been paid. In the present case, it is not necessary to determine as to whether any such interest was due or not, because I find that before the first date of hearing, that is, 3rd of September, 1965, the tenant had deposited another Rs 8/ on account of rent for the months of July and August, 1965 on 27th of August, 1965 and a sum of Rs. 35/ on 3rd of September. 1965. Thus, the tenant had deposited Rs. 108/- by the 3rd of September, 1965. The alleged interest as well as the cost of application could be deducted out of the said sum. Even if the rent for July, 1965, which had to be paid by the 3lst August, 1965, was also deducted out of Rs. 103/-, the balance could be taken as more than covering the small amount of interest and the cost of application, which according to the appellate authority, were payable by the tenant. (See in this connection a Bench decision of this Court in Khushi Ram v. Shanti Ram (1964) 66 P.L.R. 755.) Under these circumstances, the tenant was not liable to ejectment on the ground of nonpayment of rent.

It was argued by the Learned Counsel for the landlord that the receipts Exhibits R 1 to R-4 had not been duly proved by the tenant. It was also submitted that there was no proof on the record that the rents due had been deposited in the treasury u/s 31 of the Punjab Relief of Indebtedness Act, which alone could be considered as a valid deposit. No such questions were ever raised either before the Rent Controller or before the appellate authority. No objection on this score was mentioned in the grounds of appeal before the appellate authority, especially when the Rent Controller had held that the deposits had been made in the Court of the Senior Subordinate Judge u/s 31 of the Relief of Indebtedness Act and such deposits which were witnessed by the challan forms Exhibits R-1 to R-3 were valid payments of the rent to the landlord. So far as the receipt Exhibit R 4 was concerned, it was not the case of the landlord before the Rent Controller that it was not executed by him and he had not received the said payment. The Rent Controller assumed the receipt to be correct and that finding was not challenged either in the grounds of appeal before the appellate authority or in arguments before him the only objection raised before the appellate authority was that on the first date of hearing of the eviction application, that is, 3rd of September, 1965, there were arrears of rent due from the tenant and the same along with the interest thereon and the cost of the application were not tendered on that date and the tenant was, therefore, liable to ejectment on that ground. No other objection was taken by the landlord before it. As I have already held above, that objection of the landlord had no force, since no rent was due to him on the date of the application and even if some interest was due to him on account of the late deposit of the rent of May, 1665, the same along with the cost of application could be detected cut of the excess amount that Lad been deposited by the tenant.

In view of what I have said above, this petition is accepted, the order of the appellate authority is set aside and the application filed by the landlord for the eviction of the tenant is rejected. In the circumstances of this case, however, I leave the parties to bear their own costs throughout.