The main legal point established in the judgment is that the 5-year period for eviction under Section 14(6) of the Delhi Rent Control Act commences from the date of the agreement to sell and power of attorney, not from the execution of the sale deed.

( 1 ) ONE Pushpawati acquired the lessee-rights of plot No. 50, Sukhdev Vihar, Near Okhla Bus deport, New Delhi-110025. A small house was constructed on the said plot. The same was let out to the petitioner. The property was sold to the respondent on power of attorney sale basis on 12th August, 1993 for a consideration of Rs. 7,75,000/ -. Customary set of documents were executed. Thereafter a formal conveyance deed was executed on 10th March,1995 in favour of the respondent. On 31st May, 1999, an eviction petition was filed by the respondent against the petitioner. The petitioner sought leave to contest. Leave to contest was rejected on 3rd November, 1999 and order for eviction was passed. The petitioner assailed the order in CR 449/2000, which was allowed and leave to contest was granted to the petitioner. The matter was remanded to the Controller. By order dated 18th February, 2003, the learned ARC ordered eviction. Six months time was granted to the petitioner for vacating the premises

( 2 ) THE petitioner assails the order of learned arc dated 18th February, 2003 on the ground that learned ARC failed to appreciate the provisions of sub-Section (6) of Section 14 of the Delhi Rent Control, Act. His sole plea is that sale by way of power of attorney in 1993 could not amount to handing over symbolic possession of the property. His further contention is that he did not attorn to the landlady. Rent was paid till 1996 to the erstwhile owner. He came to know about selling of the premises in question only 1995.

( 3 ) THE main thrust of the petitioner is that 5 year period is to be calculated from the date when the conveyance deed was executed in favour of the respondent and not from the date when power of attorney sale was made. The property was thus acquired in 1995 and eviction petition was filed before the expiry of he 5 years period as envisaged in Section 14 (6) of the Delhi Rent Control Act. The petition was thus premature.

( 4 ) IN support of his contentions, the petitioner relied on Section 54 of the Transfer of Property Act 1982 which provides that every sale of an immovable property of a value exceeding Rs. 100 must be made by a registered instrument and. In the present case agreement to sell was not registered.

( 5 ) HEARD counsel for the parties. Perused documents on record. It cannot be in dispute that the property was sold to the respondent in 1993 by way of power of attorney. The government recognised the power of attorney transactions as a sale in 1995 and introduced freehold conversion scheme to enable the power of attorney purchaser to have a direct conveyance in their favour. Such conveyance operates to convey two things- (a) reversionary rights which were with the Government and (b) the vestige of rights, if any, which may have been in the previous owner. There are two separate concept of ownership in England namely legal owner and equitable owner. Legal owner is a person with whom the title vests in an immovable property by virtue of title deeds. Equitable owner is an owner inequity on account of various reasons including of having paid money but not having a specific registered title deed in his name. in india there is only one concept and is that of legal owner. There was no concept of equitable owner apart from a legal owner. The sale of immovable property is dealt with under section 54 of the Transfer of property Act. Section 53a of Transfer of Property Act was introduced in 1929 by way of an amending act. Once necessary ingredients of Section 53a are complied with and possession of the property is delivered to the proposed transferee then neither the actual owner nor his successor in interest had any right to enforce against the proposed transferee any right in respect of the immovable property except those specified by the agreement to sell itself. Added to the protection given to an incomplete owner under Section 53a, who is not having registered sale deed but only has an agreement tot s