- (1.) Subject-matter of this litigation is a shop-room. It was rented to the petitioner on a monthly rent of Rs. 90/-. Ownership of the building had passed from the then landlord to Smt. Indrajit Kaur who, in 1982, started the litigation for eviction of the petitioner from the building. The landlord set up a few grounds for eviction as are envisaged in Bihar Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1982 (for short 'the Bihar Act'). During pendency of the suit for eviction, ownership of the building has again been transferred and the present respondent has come into the field. After he got himself impleaded as a plaintiff he jettisoned most of the grounds put forth in the suit for eviction and confined to the surviving ground that the period of tenancy has expired. From the trial Court up to the High Court the landlord succeeded on the said ground. This Special Leave Petition has been filed in challenge of the aforesaid decree of eviction as confirmed by the High Court.
(2.) Under Section 11(1)(e) of the Bihar Act a landlord has the right to evict his tenant from a building in execution of a decree passed on the ground that the period of tenancy has expired. Petitioner-tenant has adopted different strategies to non-suit the respondent and the main among them is this : To attract the ground under Section 11(1)(e) of the Bihar Act there should be conjunction of two conditions. First there should necessarily have been a valid lease for a specified period. Second, the aforesaid period should have expired. Petitioner contended that there was no valid lease by which any specified period of tenancy has been fixed.
(3.) The trial Court before which the aforesaid contention was raised during the time of argument spurned it down on the premise that the tenant-defendant had admitted in the written statement that the tenancy was admittedly for a fixed period of 5 years and hence he cannot be heard to argue differently. The first appellate Court before which the same contention was repeated has repelled it for the following reasons : "It is to be noted that the plaintiff-respondent in para 2 of the plaint has clearly stated that the defendant No. 1 is a tenant in the suit premises for a fixed period of five years and he executed a registered deed of Kabuliyat dated 4-10-1975, in favour of the ex-landlord Zafir Ahmad and others on a monthly rental of Rs. 90/-. The defendant No. 1 in his written statement in para 9 admitted that the statement made in para 2 of his plaint is correct, to this extent that there was a lease for a fixed period of five years dated 4-10-1975 and rent was payable at the rate of Rs. 90/- per month. He further admitted that the said lease was due to expire on 4-10-1980 but before the expiry of the lease the defendant No. 1 gave notice to the landlord who extended the lease for a further period of five years and extension was granted on 21-6-1980 with the mutual consent of the parties on the same rate of rent. xxx xxx xxx xxx So creation of fixed term tenancy is admitted by the defendant No. 1 and his plea for extension of the lease is palpably false. I do not find that any cogent evidence has been adduced on this point by the defendant No. 1. It is clear that the objection as to validity of the lease had been raised for the first time during the argument in the lower Court.";