- (1.) The tenant, who was ordered to be evicted on the ground of alleged subletting without written consent of the landlord by the authorities below, is the revision petitioner before this Court.
(2.) The tenant contended that the original letting had been in favour of his father Nand Lal and the alleged tenant and arrayed as 4 th respondent Daya Ram was actually an employee of his father. Since the presence of Daya Ram in the premise had been an admitted fact, the relevant issue for consideration would only be whether Daya Ram was merely an employee of the tenant and that exclusive possession of the property had not been handed over to him to constitute a sub-tenancy.
(3.) The contention of the tenant was that he was being paid only a salary of Rs. 800/- per month to Daya Ram. There was however a modified version in the course of evidence by the tenant that in the business which was being run, the tenant was taking 2/3 rd of the profits and 1/3 rd was being given to Daya Ram. The tenant, however, admitted that there were no accounts maintained in the shop. The nature of activity in the demised premise itself is necessary to examine whether absence of records was material. The premise was a Hair-Cutting Saloon. The appellate Court found that there was neither a partnership deed nor receipts for payment of salary. The landlord gave evidence that the tenant was running some other Fancy Emporium dealing with consumer items in some other premises and that he had abandoned the tenanted premises in favour of his subtenant. The tenant tried to explain that the shop run elsewhere belonged to his widowed sister and he was merely helping her in the business by spending a few hours but he was generally working only in the barber shop. He also produced some photographs showing himself with Daya Ram in the shop. The lower Court rejected the contention of the tenant and also found that the photographs that showed the presence of both the tenant and the sub-tenant in the same premises could not be relied on to disprove subtenancy. It also observed that the tenant was contending that he was only paying Rs. 800/- per month to his employee but in the course of evidence, it transpired that portion of the profit itself was being shared with him. This, according to appellate authority, proved the case of the tenant was false. The Court found that Daya Ram as RW3 has admitted that Subhash Chand was running a shop of General Merchant along with his sister but he was also contending that he was only getting Rs. 700/- to Rs. 800/- per month from the tenant Subhash Chand as salary. It also observed that adverse inference ought to be drawn against the tenant for non-production of account books, sales tax or income tax registers relating to the fancy store business to show the nature of involvement of the tenant in the said business.;