- (1.) The petitioner, whose eviction has been ordered by the appellate authority under the Haryana Urban (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1973 (for short, the Act) in terms of section 13 (3-A), impugns the said order primarily on the ground that this provision is not applicable to the facts of the case and the judgment of this Court in Himant Ram v. Smt. Jamna Bai, 1982 2 RCR(Rent) 92 pronounced subsequent to the passing of the impugned order, does not lay down the correct law. It is primarily on account of this later contention of the petitioner that the matter has come before us.
(2.) It is the admitted position that the petitioner was a tenant in the demised shop under late Shri Jagan Nath, father of the respondent landlord. Jagan Nath died on January 11, 1977. Subsequent to that the shop in question fell to the share of the respondent by way of a family settlement amongst the heirs of deceased Jagan Nath and a decree to that effect was passed by the civil Court on April 26, 1979. Thereafter, the respondent sought the ejectment of the petitioner on various grounds but it is only in the light of the above noted provision that the claim of the respondent has been accepted by the appellate authority though initially the same, as already indicated, had been dismissed by the Rent Controller vide his order dated November 5, 1981 on the ground that the respondent's case was not covered by the said provision. A conclusive finding has, however, been recorded by both the subordinate authorities that on the date of death of Jagan Nath, that is, January 11, 1977, the respondent landlord was a minor and he needed the premises in question for his personal use, i.e. to carry on the business of book-binding and stationery. Learned counsel for the petitioner is not in a position to point out any infirmity in this finding.
(3.) His contention, however, is that in the light of the above provision, only a minor son of a landlord who was a member of the Armed Forces of the Union of India, can on latter's death get the demised premises vacated within three years of his attaining majority. According to the learned counsel the minor son of a deceased landlord who was not a member of the Armed Forces, cannot get the eviction of a tenant under the above noted provision. We see no merit in this stand of the learned counsel in the light of the plain language of sub-section (3-A) which reads as follows :- "(3-A). In the case of non-residential building, a landlord who stands retired or discharged from the armed forces of the Union of India or who was a minor son at the time of death of the landlord, and requires it for his personal use, may within a period of three years from the date of retirement or discharge or attaining the age of eighteen years, as the case may be, apply to the Controller for an Order directing the tenant to put the landlord in possession : Provided that where the landlord has obtained possession of a non-residential building under this sub-section, he shall not be entitled to apply again for the possession of any other non-residential building of the same class." The way the learned counsel seeks to read this provision appear to us to be a distortion of the same. He wants either to omit some words of this sub-section or to add to it. No doubt he is right in submitting that the statement of object and reasons of a statute in the instant case the appellate authority has primarily interpreted the above noted provision in the light of statement of objects of Haryana Act No. 16 of 1978 vide which Act this sub-section was introduced can be looked into only to find the reasons which induced the Legislature to enact a statute and for interpreting a particular provision of the statute, the same have normally to be ignored, yet we find that the clear phraseology of the sub-section as reproduced above entails no ambiguity and it applies to two classes of persons or landlords, that is : (i) A landlord who stands retired or discharged from the Armed Forces of the Union of India; and (ii) a person who was a minor son at the time of the death of his father, the deceased landlord. The learned counsel does not dispute that the latter part of this sub-section refers to three distinct and different starting points of the period of limitation during which the landlord can seek the eviction of his tenant and those starting points are :- i) The date of retirement of the landlord from the armed forces; ii) The date of discharge of the landlord from the armed forces; and iii) the date of attaining the age of 18 years by the minor son of the deceased landlord. (i) and (ii), i.e. the date of the retirement of discharge obviously refer to the same person or the landlord who was a member of the armed forces. The third starting point of limitation cannot possibly relate to the same person or the landlord, i.e., the one who was a member of the armed forces and apparently has reference to a different or another category of persons or landlords. It is within three years from any of these starting points of limitation that the landlord can seek the eviction of his tenant if he otherwise fulfils the other requirements of this sub-section. If the earlier part of the sub-section refers to one and the same person or the landlord as the learned counsel for the petitioner suggests, then how can the said person or landlord possibly avail of the three years' limitation starting from different points of time as indicated above. If the landlords happen to be minor, then there is no question of his having been discharged or retired from the armed forces and if he happens to be a member of the armed forces, then there is no question of his being a minor at the time of his retirement or discharge. Thus these starting points of limitation obviously have reference to two different persons who are specified in the earlier part of this sub-section and they are :- i) A landlord who stands retired or discharged from the armed forces; and ii) who was a minor son of the deceased landlord at the time of the latter's death. The words "as the case may be" occurring after the prescription of period of limitation also clearly indicate that the periods of limitation prescribed earlier have reference to different situations or cases of different persons. Besides this, while answering the question as to whether benefit of section 13(3-A) of the Act is only available to an ex-serviceman who was the landlord of the non-residential building prior to the date of his retirement, we have already taken the view in Civil Revision No. 3223 of 1981 (Sohan Singh v. Dhan Raj Sharma) decided on August 5, 1983, that this sub-section applies to a twin class, i.e., the landlord who had been a member of the armed forces and the minor son of a landlord. This is the precise view which has been taken by the learned Single Judge in Himat Ram's case .;