Judgment

RANGANATHAN, J. - The appellant is an advocate. He is the owner of premises No. H-2/6 Model Town, Delhi. He let out a part of this premises comprising a set of rooms above the garage (which may be briefly referred to as servants quarters) and a hall on the ground floor of the building to the respondent. The letting was oral and on a monthly rent of Rs. 600/- (exclusive of electricity and water charges) from July 1976.

2. In January 1980, the landlord filed an eviction petition under proviso (e) to S. 14(l) of the Delhi Rent Control Act. He claimed of that he needed the premises bona fide for the personal residential requirements of himself and the members of his family. His case was that he was having his office at Chandni Chowk on a first floor but, as he had been advised by the doctor not to climb upstairs, he desired to move the office and library to the ground floor hall of the premises in question. He also claimed that the servants quarters were required for the use of his servants and their families.

3. The petition was resisted by the respondent on a number of grounds. We are, however, concerned here only with two of the grounds put forward by the tenant. His first submission was that though the premises had initially been taken only for the residential use of himself, subsequently two separate tenancies had been created in respect of premises in dispute. He claimed that he was the tenant only of the servants quarters and that the hall on the ground floor had been let out to Bal Kunj (a society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860) of which he was the secretary. It was pointed out that from November 1986 onwards, the petitioner was being paid two sums, a sum of Rs. 250/- by the respondent and another sum of Rs. 350/- per month by the respondent on behalf of Bal Kunj. It was, therefore, contended that the petition as filed was not maintainable. The second plea taken by the respondent was that the intended use of the ground floor hall as the office of the petitioner lawyer constituted a non-residential use and was, therefore, outside the purview of proviso (e) to S1. 14(1).

4. The Rent Controller rejected the contentions of the tenant. He held that there had been a single tenancy. The premises had been let out by the landlord only to the respondent, Prabhu Chaudhury, on a rent of Rs. 600 per month. On the second aspect, the claim of the landlord that he required the entire premises for use by himself and his servants and that the ground floor was needed for setting up his office and library was held by the Rent Controller to fall within the scope of the relevant statutory provision. The Rent Controller, therefore, directed eviction as prayed for by the petitioner.

5. The above order had been passed under the provisions of S. 25B of the Delhi Rent Control Act. The landlord having succeeded in his eviction petition, the tenant filed a revision petition before the Delhi High Court under sub-sec. (8) of that section. The learned Judge who heard the petition reversed the findings of the Rent Controller. He held that the landlord would be entitled to be put in possession only of the servants quarters and that the petitioner could not claim the use of the hall on the ground floor. In the result, therefore, the learned Judge modified the order passed by the Rent Controller. He restricted the eviction order granted by the Rent Controller to the servants quarters. We may mention here that, in compliance with the order of the learned Judge, the respondent has since vacated and delivered vacant possession of the servants quarters to the landlord. The controversy before us is restricted to the hall on the ground floor.

6. The first question that arises for our consideration is whether the High Court was right in holding that there were two separate tenancies, one in respect of the servants quarters and the other in respect of the hall on the ground floor. The position is this. There was oral evidence let in by the