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First Rent Appeal No. 644 of 1984, decided on 28th March, 1987.

---Ss. 15(2)(vii) & 21(1)--Ejectment on ground of personal bona fide requirement--Plea of landlords that premises presently in their occupation were not at all suitable for their banking business and they had been sustaining losses on account of such non-suitability, remained un-rebutted on part of tenants--Personal bona fide requirement of landlords in respect of rented premises having been established, tenant, held, was rightly ordered to be ejected from premises in dispute by Rent Controller.

A.S. Wasvani for Appellant.

K.A. Wahab for Respondent.

Date of hearing: 4th March, 1987.

This Appeal is directed against the order passed by the learned Thirteenth Civil Judge and Rent Controller, Karachi, dated 24-4-1984, directing the appellant to put the respondent in possession of the premises in dispute within thirty days of the passing of the order.

The facts of the case are that the respondents are the owners and landlords of premises situated in Juna Market, Karachi where the appellants are their tenants at a monthly rent of Rs. 120. The respondents filed an application before the learned Controller, inter alia, pleading that the premises were required by them in good faith for their personal use. The appellant filed written statement denying such plea. However, after evidence the learned Rent Controller came to the conclusion that the premises were required in good faith by the respondents for their personal use and he ordered the appellants to vacate the premises.

I have heard Mr. A.S. Vaswani, the learned counsel for the appellants and Mr. K.A. Wahab, learned counsel for the respondents.

The case of the respondents, according to the affidavit filed by their witness Iqbal Hussain was, that the premises where their Juna Market Branch was situated were not suitable for their business as the same were situated inside a narrow lane where movement and parking of vehicles was very difficult and the same was causing great inconvenience and hardship to the visiting clients of the respondents and for such reasons the branch was running in loss. The case of the appellants, on the other hand, was that the respondents only wanted to enhance the rent to which the appellants had not agreed and consequently the respondents had fabricated this false case. it was further pleaded by the appellants that the purpose behind the proceedings before the learned Controller was only to harras the appellants who had been doing their business in the premises for the last many years.

Before this Court the only argument of Mr. S.A. Vaswani was that since no reliable evidence was produced by the respondents to show that they had been sustaining losses on account of non-suitability of the premises in question, the learned Controller committed a great error by ordering ejectment of the respondents from the premises in question. However, the argument appears to be without substance. The case of the respondents was not wholly based on the ground that their Juna Market branch was running in loss for want of suitable premises, but according to the respondent's the branch being situated inside a narrow lane was causing inconvenience and hardship to their clients. This aspect of the case was not rebutted by the appellants either in the affidavit of their own witness or by the cross-examination of the respondents' witness, Iqbal Hussain. When confronted with this situation, Mr. Vaswani could hardly offer any explanation. Consequently I find that the case of the respondents stood established before the learned Controller and the appellants 'were rightly ordered to be ejected from the premises in question.

For the aforesaid reasons I find no force in this appeal and the same is dismissed with no order as to costs.

H.B.T./H-20/K Appeal dismissed.

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