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Civil Petition for Special Leave to Appeal No. K-100 of 1980, decided on 12th January, 1981.

(On appeal from the judgment and order of the Sind High Court dated 17-2-1980 in Second Appeal No. 199 of 1974).

-- S. 13 (2) (i)-Ejectment--Default in payment of rent-Petitioner's defence of mental ailment not prove--Plea of hardship due to petitioner having been living in demised premises for many years and being without accommodation, held, no ground for interfering with order of ejectment for default in payment of rent.

Petitioner in person.

Nemo for Respondents.

Date of hearing : 12th January, 1981.

.-The petitioner appeared in person and only pleaded hardship, therefore, we have examined the impugned judgment ourselves.

It would appear that in an eviction application filed against him by the respondent the petitioner had failed to comply, on several occasions, with the order for the deposit of tentative rent passed by the Rent Controller. Therefore, his defence was struck of by the Rent Controller and his appeal in the District Court was dismissed by an Additional District Judge on 8-8-1974. Therefore, he had filed a second appeal in the Sind High Court which was dismissed after a delay of six long years on 17-2-1980. The impugned judgment lists the many defaults by the petitioner and apart from a technical plea which was rightly rejected by the High Court, the only real defence of the petitioner was that his failure to comply with the order for the deposit of tentative rent was not willful, because he was a schizophrenic, but in rejecting this plea, the learned Judge has referred to the several defaults on the part of the petitioner and pointed out that they had all occurred well before the date on which he claimed to have suffered from his mental illness.

In these circumstances, no exception can be taken to the view of the learned Judge, the more as, these is absolutely no evidence before us to show that the petitioner suffered from a mental ailment. And, even on our enquiries, all that the petitioner stated was that he had been living in the demised premises for many years and was without accommodation, but this, plea of hardship would be no ground for interfering with the impugned order:

We are satisfied that the petition is without merit, we, therefore, dismiss it, but we give the petitioner four months time to vacate the demised premises provided he continues to pay the monthly rent.

Petition dismissed.

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