Telangana High Court
V. Kumar vs P. Ganesh Rao Died on 9 February, 2024
THE HONOURABLE SMT. JUSTICE M.G. PRIYADARSINI
CIVIL REVISION PETITION No.1780 of 2019
O R D E R:
This Civil Revision Petition is filed under Section 22 of the Andhra Pradesh Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1960, preferred by the Appellant-Tenant against the Judgment and Decree dated 07.06.2019 passed in R.C.A.No.25 of 2018 by the learned Chief Judge, City Small Causes Court, Hyderabad (for short 'the Appellate Court') wherein and whereby the Order and Decree dated 25.01.2018 passed by the learned Principal Rent Controller, FAC Additional Rent Controller, Secunderabad, (for short 'the Rent Controller') and the order for eviction of the tenant from the schedule house, was confirmed.
02. For the sake of convenience, hereinafter, the parties will be referred as per their array before the learned Rent Controller.
03. The facts of the case, in brief, are as follows:
The petitioner is the owner and respondent is the tenant, of the schedule house. The petitioner who is the owner of schedule house is two rooms portion of house 2 premises No.3/A, Anjamma Compound, Picket, Secunderabad. Respondent paid Rs.10,000/- towards refundable deposit. There is rental agreement dated 05.05.2015 between petitioner and respondent for a period of 11 months wherein it was agreed for monthly rent of Rs.3,000/- per month and for enhancement of rent @ 10 % per annum. Respondent paid rent for two months and thereafter committed default from July, 2015 to December, 2016 for a period of 18 months for an amount of Rs.54,000/-. Hence the owner sought for eviction of tenant.
04. Respondent filed counter contending that he paid rents regularly till April, 2016 at the rate of Rs.3,000/- per month and thereafter paid Rs.3,300/- per month till October, 2016 but the petitioner-owner asked him to vacate the premises, for which respondent refused. No notice was served on respondent by petitioner seeking him to vacate the premises. Respondent spent huge amounts of Rs.8,00,000/- towards house repairs and to avoid the said amount, the petitioner-owner is trying to 3 evict the respondent from schedule premises illegally and prayed to dismiss the petition.
05. To prove the case of petitioner-owner, no oral evidence was adduced and Ex.P1 was marked on confrontation through RW1. On behalf of respondent- tenant, tenant himself was examined as RW1 and he also got examined RW2 and got marked Ex.R1 and R2.
06. The learned Rent Controller, after conducting full-fledged trial, allowed the R.C. against which, the tenant preferred an Appeal before the learned Chief Judge, City Small Causes Court, Hyderabad in R.C.A.No.25 of 2018 which has been dismissed by confirming the findings of the learned Rent Controller and ordered for eviction of the tenant. Aggrieved by the same, this Civil Revision Petition is filed by the tenant.
07. It is contended by learned counsel for the revision petitioner-tenant that the burden is on the landlord to prove that the tenant failed to pay rents and that the landlord is not in a habit of issuing any receipt for payment of monthly rent and that tenant adduced oral and documentary evidence to prove that he is regular in 4 payment of rents to the landlord but the same were not considered by both the Courts below and that the Order of the learned Rent Controller as well as the Judgment of the learned Appellate Court suffers from illegalities and irregularities and prayed this Court to allow this Civil Revision Petition by setting aside the concurrent findings.
08. Per contra, the learned counsel for respondent- landlord contended that the learned Rent Controller on considering the arguments of the both sides and after considering the oral and documentary evidence available on record, rightly allowed the R.C., and the learned Chief Judge, City Small Causes Court, Hyderabad also being first Appellate Court analyzed all the aspects and dismissed the appeal by confirming the findings of the learned Rent Controller and ordered for eviction of the tenant. Therefore, the learned counsel for respondent-landlord contends that as the findings of the lower appellate authority are on appreciation of the evidence in proper perspective, the same needs no interference by this Court and prayed for dismissal of the revision. 5
09. Now the point for consideration is:
Whether the concurrent findings given by learned Principal Rent Controller, FAC Additional Rent Controller, Secunderabad, as well as learned Chief Judge, City Small Causes Court, Hyderabad, are liable to be set aside?
P O I N T:
10. Heard the learned counsel for both the parties and perused the material available on record.
11. According to the landlord, there is rental agreement dated 05.05.2015 executed between landlord and tenant and the monthly rent was fixed at the rate of Rs.3,000/- per month and that enhancement of rent was agreed at the rate of 10 % per annum and that tenant paid rent for two months and thereafter committed default from July, 2015 to December, 2016 for a period of 18 months totaling to an amount of Rs.54,000/- and sought for eviction of the tenant.
12. According to the tenant, he paid rents regularly but the landlord asked him to vacate the premises and no notice was served on tenant by petitioner seeking him to vacate the premises. Tenant spent huge amounts of 6 Rs.8,00,000/- towards house repairs and to avoid the said amount, the landlord is trying to evict the tenant from schedule premises illegally.
13. As seen from the record, the jural relationship of landlord and tenant between both the parties in respect of the schedule premises is concerned, execution of Rental Agreement dated 05.05.2015 by the parties and terms thereof; the schedule premises comprises of four rooms and out of which two rooms were in occupation of the tenant and rest of two rooms portion was let out to other tenant by the landlord; and the tenant deposited interest free refundable security deposit of Rs.10,000/- with the landlord at the time of inception, all the above aspects are undisputed facts.
14. The landlord did not adduce any oral evidence and got marked Ex.P1-Rental Agreement during the evidence of RW1. RW1-Tenant deposed that he is in occupation of schedule premises under Ex.P1 for monthly rent @ Rs.3,000/- and that he has been regular in payment of rents to the landlord. It is also deposed that he spent huge amounts for repairs of schedule premises, on 7 the oral consent of landlord. He filed Exs.R1 and R2-bank payslips under which Rs.5,500/- each were deposited into the bank account of the landlord. During the course of cross-examination, RW1 admitted that he used to visit the house of landlord to handover the rent and that the landlord let out the other two rooms to the neighbouring tenants for Rs.2,750/-.
15. It is the case of the landlord that RW1 deposited the rents under Exs.R1 and R2 each for Rs.5,500/- during the demonetization as the tenant collected the rents from neighbor tenants and the same was deposited under Exs.R1 and R2. It is an admitted fact that the monthly rent of schedule premises is Rs.3,000/- per month, which comes to Rs.12,000/- for four months. But as seen from Exs.R1 and R2 an amount of Rs.11,000/- was only deposited. The rent of neighbouring tenants is Rs.2,750/- per month, if the same is calculated for four months it comes to Rs.11,000/-. Therefore, the contention of the tenant that he deposited rent for schedule premises under Exs.R1 and R2 is not believable. Moreover, it is admitted by RW1 that he did not file any bank statement to show 8 that there was sufficient balance in his account for depositing the said amount under Exs.R1 and R2.
16. It is the further case of tenant that he spent an amount of Rs.8,00,000/- towards repairs of schedule premises with the oral consent of landlord and that the landlord is trying to evade the said amount by evicting the tenant from the schedule premises. To substantiate the said plea, the tenant did not file any bills or receipts and there is no mention of nature of repairs and on what dates he had undertaken such repairs in the counter. RW2 was examined by tenant, who deposed that he knew both the parties and he affirmed the terms of Ex.P1-Rental Agreement. During the cross-examination, RW2 stated that the tenant changed the tiled roof into cement sheet room by spending Rs.3,00,000/- to Rs.4,00,000/-. This plea is introduced by RW2 in his evidence and there is no mention of such plea in the counter or in the evidence of RW1. Admittedly, the tenancy is under written agreement. If really, tenant spent such huge amount of Rs.8,00,000/- he ought to have filed any documentary evidence to that effect.
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17. It is apparent on the face of the record that the landlord filed an Interlocutory Application vide I.A.No.62 of 2017 under Section 11 (1) of the Act before the learned Rent Controller and the same was allowed on merits vide Order dated 19.09.2017 directing the tenant to deposit the arrears of monthly rent from July, 2015 to April, 2017 at the rate of Rs.3,000/- per month and the said Order was not challenged by the tenant and the same has become final. Tenant has complied with the above said order of the learned Rent Controller.
18. In S.Sundaram Pillai and others v.
V.R.Pattabiraman and others 1, the Honourable Supreme Court held that:
"54. Having, therefore, fully discussed the main scope and ambit of a proviso and an Explanation, we shall now proceed to elucidate the various provisions of the Act and other Acts. We have already discussed that although almost every State has its own Rent Act, neither the Explanation nor the statutory clause concerning the term 'wilful default' is mentioned therein. These Acts seem to proceed only on the simple word 'default' and perhaps to buttress their intention they have laid down certain guidelines to indicate the grounds of ejectment wherever a default takes place. Looking generally at 1 (1985) 1 Supreme Court Cases 591 10 such Acts, they seem to have first provided statutorily a particular date or time when the tenant on being inducted under the contract of tenancy, is to pay the rent. Such a provision may or may not be against the contract of the tenancy and if it is to that extent, it overrides the contract. This, therefore, gives sufficient notice to any tenant inducted in any premises that he must pay the rent according to the yard-stick set out by the Act, failing which he runs the risk of being evicted for default. Some Acts, however, have provided a particular number of defaults to enable the Rent Controller or Court to find out whether such a default would entitle the landlord to get an order of eviction. There are some other Acts which have made rather ingenious and, if we may say so, apt provisions for expediting the process of eviction in case of default by providing that whenever a suit for eviction is filed against a tenant on the ground of default, the tenant in order to show his bona fides must first deposit the entire rent, arrears and cost in the court of the Rent Controller where the action is filed on the very first date of hearing, failing which the court or the authority concerned would be fully justified in striking down the defence and passing an order of eviction then and there. The dominant object of such a procedure is to put the tenants on their guard. It is true that such provisions are rather harsh but if a tenant goes on defaulting then there can be no other remedy but to make him pay the rent punctually unless some drastic step is taken. These Acts, therefore, strike a just balance between the rights of a landlord and those of a tenant. For deciding these cases, it is not necessary for us to go either into the ethics or philosophy of such a provision because we are concerned with statutes having different kinds of provisions."11
19. In the above authority, the Honourable Supreme Court of India made it clear that the Act seem to have first provided statutorily a particular date or time when the tenant on being inducted under the contract of tenancy, is to pay the rent. Therefore, it gives sufficient notice to any tenant inducted in any premises that he must pay the rent according to the yard-stick set out by the Act, failing which tenant runs the risk of being evicted for default. In the case on hand also it is crystal clear that there is default in payment of rents and only after direction given by Rent Controller, some rent has been deposited.
20. In Jean Mare Daniel Bisch v. Larcher Antonie Marie Jules Desire and Larcher Marie Antonette Hortanse 2 wherein it was held by Madras High Court that:
"It is a settled proposition of law that unless the concurrent finding is perverse, this Court cannot interfere with the same in the revision. Similarly, it cannot be construed as perverse finding, when the concurrent finding of the Courts below is according to law, based on evidence available on record. As the finding is based on evidence, as per law, this Court 2 (2011) 03 MAD CK 0047 12 cannot interfere with the same, by way of revisional jurisdiction and therefore, I am of the view that the revision is liable to be dismissed."
21. In view of the above discussion and having regard to the settled principles of law laid down, this Court is not inclined to interfere with the concurrent findings recorded by the learned Rent Controller as well as learned Appellate Authority as there are no illegalities or irregularities or perverse findings. Hence this Civil Revision Petition is liable to be dismissed as devoid of merits.
22. In the result, the Civil Revision Petition is dismissed. However, in order to save the tenant from abrupt eviction, this Court grants him time upto 09.04.2024 for vacating the premises, subject to his filing an undertaking on affidavit before the learned Rent Controller within four weeks from today, incorporating the following terms and strictly complying therewith:
(i) That on or before 09.04.2024, the tenant shall deliver vacant and peaceful possession to the landlord and shall not induct anyone else in 13 possession or create any third-party interest in the tenancy premises;
(ii) That the statement of the deposits made by the tenant with all the relevant particulars, so as to satisfy the Rent Controller and the landlord that all the arrears have been cleared upto date, shall be filed within four weeks from today; and
(iii) The amount equivalent to the rent calculated upto 09.04.2024 shall be deposited in advance within a period of four weeks from today.
Failing compliance with any of the above terms, the decree for eviction shall be available for eviction of the revision petitioner-tenant forthwith. There shall be no order as to costs.
As a sequel, pending miscellaneous applications, if any, shall stand closed.
______________________________ JUSTICE M.G. PRIYADARSINI Dated: 09-FEB-2024 KHRM