- (1.) The Rent Controller passed an order for the ejectment of the petitioner from the shop in dispute under section 13(2) of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 (hereinafter called the Act), on the ground that he bad ceased to occupy the shop for a continuous period of more than four months prior to the filing of the application for eviction without reasonable cause. That order has been upheld in a detailed and well-reasoned judgment of the Appellate Authority, Amritsar.
(2.) In this petition for revision of the appellate order Mr. R.P. Bali has submitted that the Appellate Authority has not considered or taken into account the evidence of R.W. 2 Kishan Singh and R.W. 3 Mota Singh. According to the admission of the tenant-petitioner himself, he originally used to run electrically operated machinery in the shop in dispute, but had shifted all his such machinery to a nearby shop about five years earlier. Though in his original written statement, the tenant had merely denied that he had not been in occupation of the shop in dispute and asserted that he had been using it daily, thereby implying that the use to which the shop was being put was the same as previously, he had to amend his written statement to change his plea after the landlord-respondent had been able to prove from documentary evidence that as against the electric consumption of about 200 units per month at the time when the machinery was being used in the shop, no electric current had been consumed for several years in this shop after the machinery had been shifted from there. In the amended written statement he took up the plea that the machinery was being operated by hand, and the articles thus made were being stored in the shop in dispute. This story has not been believed by either of the two Courts below. After going through the entire evidence, I am unable to differ from that finding of fact. The Appellate Authority has not specifically dealt with the statements of R.W. 2 and P.W.3, but has obviously disbelieved the same while observing that "in the light of the statement of Roshan Lal, I have no hesitation to say that the statements were only made in order to suit the interests of the appellant," and that 'they were rightly ignored by the learned Rent Controller." That refers to the statements of the R.Ws. R.W. 2 who had stated that he saw the shop remaining open himself, admitted that he used to remain at his own premises throughout the day. Similarly the statement of R.W. 3 is not at all convincing. There is, therefore, no reason to interfere with the order of the Appellate Authority. Some criticism was levelled against the statement of A.W. 1 who had deposed about the non-consumption of electric energy in the shop. That is irrelevant in view of the admission of the tenant himself in his sworn testimony before the Rent Controller that he had shifted his entire electric motor driven machinery from the shop in dispute to his new factory about five years earlier.
(3.) There is thus no force in this petition, which fails, and is dismissed with costs. Petition dismissed.;