Shaik Mohammed vs Mohd. Mahmood Ali

D.H. Nasir, J.—This Revision petition is directed against the judgment and decree dated 8-6-1995 passed in R. A.No.214 of 1993 on the file of the Additional Chief Judge, City Small Causes Court, Hyderabad.

By an order passed in R.C. No. 207 of 1988 on 29-4-1993, the learned III Additional Rent Controller Hyderabad (for short, the learned Rent Controller) permitted the tenant (Respondent in this C.R.P.) to deposit the rent due in respect of the suit premises bearing D.No. 11-4-402, Bazar Ghat, Hyderabad, u/s 9(1) of the A.P. Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1960 (for short ''the Rent Act''). For the sake of convenience, the petitioner in the present C.R.P. shall be referred to as the landlord and. the respondent shall be referred to as the tenant.

The tenant''s case is that the landlord did not furnish his address to enable him to pay the rent from month to month in spite of repeated requests. He claims to be the tenant of the suit premises for over twenty five years. The original owner of the suit premises was Mohd. Kaleemuddin, a resident of Amgad Chittampally, Rangareddy district. He was paid Rs. 45/- per month as the rent. The original owner never passed any receipts for the rents which were collected by him personally.

The tenant received two legal notices dated 28-1 -1988 from two different Advocates, one on behalf of Mohd. Kaleemuddin and another on behalf of Shaik Mohammed, intimating the tenant that the suit premises was sold to Shaik Mohammed on 20-11-1987 and requiring the tenant to pay the rent due in respect of suit premises to the purchaser with effect from 20-11-1987. The tenant by giving replies dated 8-2-1988 to the said legal notices addressed to the Advocates of the original owner and purchaser viz. Sri B. Dayakar Reddy and P. Venkat Reddy respectively, called upon each one of them to furnish the correct address of the purchaser Shaik Mohammed and also to furnish the particulars relating to the sale transactions said to have taken place on 20-11-1987. The said Advocates, however, did not furnish the particulars required by the tenant.

The learned Judge of the lower Appellate Court observed that Exs. R-1 and R-2 which were attornment notices did not contain the quantum of monthly rent payable by the tenant in respect of the suit premises. The correspondence between the parties discovered that while the tenant claimed that he was liable to pay rent at the rate of Rs. 40/- per month, the respondent purchaser (landlord) claimed that the tenant was liable to pay a sum of Rs. 200/- per month as rent. The tenant, therefore, remitted a sum of Rs. 120/- as rent by money order to the Advocate Sri P. Venkat Reddy, for a period of three months from 20-11-1987 to 20-2-1988. The Advocate, however, refused to accept the money order. The tenant, therefore, filed R.C. No. 207/88 u/s 9(1) of the Act seeking permission of the learned Rent Controller to deposit the arrears of rent in the Court. The learned Rent Controller framed an issue whether the tenant was justified in depositing the rent in the Court and answered the same in the affirmative and held that the tenant was justified in invoking the jurisdiction of Rent Controller for'' depositing the rent. The lower Appellate Court observed that a dispute was raised relating to the quantum of rent for the first time and no argument was advanced on behalf of the landlord to satisfy the Court whether there was any flaw in the order under appeal passed by the learned Rent Controller, and on going through the entire record, the lower Appellate Court recorded his satisfaction that the Rent Controller was justified in permitting the tenant to deposit the rent in the Court u/s 9 (1) of the Act and confirmed the order passed by the learned Rent Controller.

The lower Appellate Court also observed in the penultimate para of his impugned judgment that he was pained to note that in spite of best endeavour made by the tenant to obtain the address of the landlord, the original owner of the suit premises as well as the purchaser, who was the appellant before him, did not yield and prevailed upon the respective Counsels to abstain from giving the address of the respondent/ purchaser as a result of which the petitioner was compelled to invoke the jurisdiction of the learned Rent Controller u/s 9(1) of the Rent Act to allow him to deposit the arrears of rent and monthly rent in the Court and also recorded a finding that the purchaser deliberately suppressed his address with an oblique motive.

The rent control proceedings from which the present Revision Petition has arisen, is a fact oriented proceeding and in that view of the matter, since both the lower Courts have given a concurrent finding that the tenant was justified in invoking the provision of Section 9(1) of the Rent Act for depositing the rent in the Court, the same need not be interfered with by the High Court in the Revision Petition. A note is also required to be taken of the fact that before resorting to rent proceedings the tenant gave notices both to the original landlord and the purchaser through their respective Advocates to furnish the address of the landlord and to accept the rent. But it was on account of inaction on part of the landlord (the purchaser) to furnish the address to the tenant, that the tenant had to remit the arrears of rent by money order which was also not accepted. The tenant, therefore, had no alternative but to take recourse to the remedy available u/s 9(1) of the Rent Act. If the tenant had not taken up this proceeding, he would have been treated as a defaulter and would have exposed himself to eviction proceedings for his ouster from the premises in question.

An argument was advanced on behalf of the landlord before this Court that the tenant already had the address of the purchaser-landlord but the tenant falsely alleged that he did not have the address of the landlord with a mala fide intention of covering the default already committed by the tenant by abstaining from making payment of rents regularly every month. This argument, however, does not appeal to the conscience of the. Court. If it was true that the tenant was wilfully evading he would not have remitted the arrears of rent by money order and would not have taken the proceedings before the Rent Controller for depositing the arrears of rent and payment of monthly rent regularly. No clarification has also emerged from the record of the case with regard to the number of months for which the rent was in arrears prior to serving notice on the respective Advocates of the Vendor and the Purchaser and, therefore, the landlord did not acquire any right of causing the tenant to be evicted from the demised premises on the ground of arrears of rent.

During the course of argument, a submission was made that the landlord was evading to accept the rent with a mala fide intention of compelling the tenant to increase the rent. This question, however, does not seem to have been vehemently agitated before the lower Courts. It is quite evident that the landlord could legitimately ask for increase in rent if the requirements of Section 6 of the Rent Act were satisfied. However, nothing has come on record to show firstly whether the requirements of sub-section (1) of Section 6 of the Rent Act were satisfied and secondly whether there was any demand for increasing the rent. On the other hand, it is abundantly clear that the procedure prescribed u/s 9(1) of the Rent Act for securing Court orders for depositing rent in the Court was scrupulously followed by the tenant and, therefore, the proceedings taken by the tenant for depositing rent in the Court did not suffer from any infirmity which could deprive the tenant of resorting to the remedy available under the provisions of Rent Act and for depositing the arrears of rent as well as the current rent regularly in the Court.

I am, therefore, convinced that there is no merit in the Revision Petition and the same is hereby dismissed. No costs.