Himachal Pradesh High Court: The instant petition involved a question that whether the eviction of tenant could be ordered for settling married son of the landlord under Section 14(3)(a)(i) of H.P. Urban Rent Control Act, 1987, even the same was not covered by Section 14(3)(d) of the Act. The same question was contemplated by Tarlok Singh Chauhan, J.
Factual matrix of the case was that the landlord filed a rent petition under Section 14 of the Act of 1987, before the Rent Controller. He sought eviction of the tenant on the ground that his son intended to settle his business in the same premises and that since he and his wife were old, they wanted to live with their son at Solan. The landlord also claimed arrears of rent and sought eviction on the ground of material addition and alteration being carried out by the tenant in the premises in question.
The tenant contested the petition tooth and nail and denied the grounds taken in the petition seeking his eviction from the premises in question. Subsequently, an order was passed in favor of the landlord and the tenant-petitioner was directed to be evicted on the grounds of non-payment of arrears of rent and that the son of the landlord needed the premise for the running business. The tenant was aggrieved by the order and he went into an appeal, the appellate authority dismissed his appeal and hence, the tenant had no other option but to file the instant petition.
Pratap Singh Gover, counsel for the landlord, relied on cases where the similar reiteration of law was found in the Judgments, Nand Lal Sharma v. Bimla Sharma, HLJ 2007 (HP) 1112; Jasvinder Singh v. Kedar Nath, HLJ (2012) (HP) 1452; Jagat Ram Chauhan v. Avinash Partap, HLJ 2014 (HP) 420 etc. further the counsel presented the witnesses, one of them was the son of the landlord, who testified that the said premise was needed by them, as his parents were old and he wanted to start his own business, but for the time being he was residing in Delhi.
On the contrary, tenant appeared as a witness and deposed that son of the landlord was residing abroad in Mexico and was doing business there and he had no intention to shift or settle at the said premise. He stated that the landlord intended to sell the tenanted premises and the proposed buyer had been forcing the landlord to get the tenanted premises vacated and in order to give vacant possession to the buyer, the landlord had concocted false plea of bona fide requirement.
The Court after the submissions of the parties observed that, there was no reason to doubt the bona fide requirement of the landlord as admitted, he was a senior citizen aged about 83 years and thus required someone to look after him and his property. The testimony of the son of the landlord was also not doubted. It was further observed that the tenant had no proof of what he alleged that the landlord wanted to sell the premise. Hence, the Court found no merit in the petition and dismissed the same.[Mandeep Singh v. Gian Chand, 2019 SCC OnLine HP 1029, decided on 18-07-2019]
