- (1.) Kartar Singh and others filed an application under section 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, hereinafter referred to as the Act, for the ejectment of the petitioner-tenant on the grounds that he had ceased to occupy the demised premises without any reasonable cause for more than four months and that he was in arrears of rent from 1-4-1967 till the date of the filing of the application. The petitioner-tenant contested the application. On the pleadings of the parties, the following issues were framed by the learned Rent Controller :- "1. Whether the respondent is liable to eviction to the grounds mentioned in para No. 2(ii) of the petition 2. Whether the notice of termination of tenancy served on the respondent is valid 3. Relief." The learned Rent Controller decided all the issues in favour of the landlord-respondent and passed order of ejectment against the petitioner. Dissatisfied from the order of the ejectment, the petitioner preferred an appeal, but the same was rejected by the learned District Judge, acting as an appellate authority under the Act, on 13-3-1973. Still aggrieved, the present revision petition has been filed by the tenant in this Court.
(2.) It is vehemently contended by Mr. N. C. Jain, learned counsel for the petitioner, that the finding of the appellate authority that the tenant has ceased to occupy the demised premises for a continuous period of over four months is based on no evidence. In other words, the precise submission of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that on the basis of the meager evidence led by the landlord-respondents it could not plausibly be held that the tenant had ceased to occupy the demised premises for a continuous period of over four months. On the other hand, it is submitted by the learned counsel for the landlord-respondents that the finding of the learned appellate authority in this respect is a pure finding of fact based on the consideration of the oral and documentary evidence and that such a finding does not deserve to be set aside in revision.
(3.) After giving my thoughtful consideration to the entire matter, I am of the view that there is considerable force in the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner. The precise ground on which the ejectment order was sought, reads as under :- "(ii) That the respondent has ceased to occupy the said premises without any reasonable cause for the last more than four months. The premises are lying locked and un-used for more than past four months. This act of the premises being un-used has also materially impaired the value and utility of the premises." From the bare perusal of the aforesaid allegation, it is clear that the landlord-respondents have just reproduced the wordings of the statute and have not mentioned any specific period during which the tenant did not occupy the demised premises. In order to substantiate the aforesaid ground, the landlord-respondents examined Ram Saran Dass A.W.1 who is a Clerk in the Municipal Committee, Electricity Department, Amritsar. He deposed that the electric connection of the premises occupied by the petitioner was disconnected on 29th December, 1967 for non-payment of bills and that it was re-connected on 23rd May, 1968. This witness further stated that from June 1968 to March 1969 non-consumption was shown in the meter-reading. This statement of the witness received greater weight and was believed by the learned appellate authority in coming to the conclusion that the petitioner did not occupy the demised premises for more than four months prior to the filing of the petition. In the ordinary course, there can be no gainsaying that a finding arrived at by the learned appellate authority on the consideration of the entire oral evidence does not deserve to be set aside. But in order to find out if such a finding could be arrived at on the basis of the evidence. I my self have gone through the entire evidence and, in my opinion; the statement of AW1 when read as a whole could not lead to this conclusion that the petitioner did not occupy the premises in dispute without any reasonable cause for more than four months. As earlier observed, in the ground no period has been specified by the landlords during which the petitioner allowed the premises to remain unoccupied without reasonable cause. This by itself shows that the petitioner did not know as to what definite case he had to put in the pleadings and he was groping in the dark.;