Find a Lawyer

First Rent Appeal No. 345 of 1985, decided on 22nd January, 1987.

‑‑ Ss. 15(2) (ii), 18 & 21(1)‑‑Change of ownership of premises‑ Defaulter‑‑Proof‑‑Change of ownership of premises from previous landlord to present one‑‑Tenant not served with legal notice under S.18‑‑Effect‑ Such tenant, held, could not be charged with penal consequences of default in payment of rent.

‑‑‑S. 15(2) (vii)‑‑Personal bona fide requirement for grandson‑‑Proof‑ Grandson of landlord for whom premises in dispute was alleged to be required, admittedly was young student for whom premises could not be claimed‑‑Question whether grandson should be covered in expression "any of his children" occurring in S.15(2) (vii), held, would be of little importance in circumstances of case.

‑‑‑Ss. 15 & 21‑‑Findings of Rent Controller on which he had dismissed ejectment application of landlord being purely based on appreciation of facts on record, held, could not be interfered with in appeal.

Khawaja Sharful Islam for Appellant.

Sardar Muhammad Ishaque for Respondent.

Date of hearing: 22nd January, 1987.

The appellant in this appeal is the landlady of the premises occupied by the respondent/ tenant. This tenant is occupying these premises for a long time. According to the appellant, this property originally belonged to the Settlement Authorities, who transferred it to one Mst. Rehmat‑un‑Nisa. Sometime in 1966 the present landlady purchased this property from Rehmat‑un‑Nisa, and the sale‑deed was executed in favour of the present appellant on 27‑4‑1976.

2. The appellant filed an application for ejectment of the respondent/ tenant on two grounds, namely (1) non‑payment of rent from January 1979 to July 1979 and (2) personal need. This ejectment application was filed, according to the learned counsel for the appellant on 24‑7‑1979. The respondent was served and he appeared in Court and filed a written statement. In his written‑statement he pleaded that he had been regularly paying rents to the previous landlady and had paid upto date rents. He denied that the premises were required in good faith by the landlady. According to him, the use of the grandson was not a good ground for ejectment within the meaning of section 15 (2) and (7). On these pleadings the learned Rent Controller framed the following issues:

(1) Whether this application is not maintainable

(2) Whether the opponent is defaulter in payment 'of rent

(3) Whether the applicant and her grandson require the premises in question in good faith for their personal bona fide use

(4) What should the order be

3. The learned Rent Controller has answered issues Nos. 1 and 2 against the landlady by holding that there is no default, as the notice under section 18 of the Ordinance was not served on the opponent. As such he could not charged with the penal consequences of default. There is a long discussion on this question, whether notice was served or not and the learned Rent Controller, after examining the version of the landlady and the tenant has reached the conclusion that the service of the notice is not proved. The learned Controller in his order seems to have taken into consideration the failure of the tenant to pay rent even after the filing of the rent application, but there seems to be very sketchy evidence on this point and I would confine myself to the question of default raised in the rent application which is for a period of six months upto July 1979. In order to surmount the difficulty of not giving this notice under section 18 of the Ordinance, the appellant made an effort before the learned Controller to show that in the circumstances of the case notice under section 18 of the Ordinance became unnecessary, because the respondent was regularly paying rents to the appellant from 1966 right upto December 1978. As such even if his assertion that a notice was duly served, is not believed, the conduct of the respondent would show that he has accepted the appellant as his landlady and has attorned to her as early as 1966.

4. The learned Rent Controller has examined this plea as well, but has come to the conclusion that this allegation also remains unproved and in view of the denial of the opponent/ respondent that he never paid rents to the appellant, it cannot be conclusively said that he had notice for the transfer of the property from the previous landlady to the present landlady and has accepted her as such. Due to lack of any evidence in support of the allegation of default the respondent was absolved of the liability and issues Nos. 1 and 2 were decided against the landlady/ appellant.

5. The other ground of ejectment was personal need for the use of the grandson. The contention raised by the tenant was that the premises were not required by the landlady and the application has been filed merely to throw him out.

6. The question whether a grandson should be covered in the expression of section 15 "any of his children" remains debatable. But in the present case it is not necessary to say much about it, because the findings of the learned Rent Controller are that this grandson is a student of 12th class in pre‑Engineering Group and as such it cannot be said that the premises could be claimed for his use. So far the father of the boy is concerned, he is employed in the Government service and is serving in the Meteorological Department. On the basis of these facts the question whether the grandson is covered in the expression "any of his children" in section 15 becomes of academic interest.

The learned Rent Controller on these findings, has dismissed the application for ejectment against the respondent /tenant and I see no reason to interfere with his findings which are purely based on appreciation of facts. This appeal is dismissed with no order as to costs.

H. B. T. /B‑5/K Appeal dismissed.

Find a Lawyer Near You

Dealing with a matter like this? Connect with a verified advocate in your city — free on SJP Lawyers Directory.