The landlord's failure to appear in the witness box to testify regarding his bona fide requirement of the premises led to an adverse inference against him.

( 1 ) THIS civil revision is directed against the orderdated 12/02/1988, of the Additional Rent Controller, by which he hadallowed the eviction petition brought on the ground of bonafide requirementcovered by Clause (e) of proviso to Sub-section (1) of Section 14 of thedelhi Rent Control Act.

( 2 ) THE case set up by the respondent-landlord, in brief, was thatthe premises in question were let out to the petitioner for residentialpurposes and the respondent is the owner-landlord thereof and earlier thelandlord and his family were living in Delhi but they had shifted to Chandigarh and the landlord, who was in service, retired on 31/07/1984 andbefore that date he had given notice to the tenant of his intention to settle indelhi in his own house. After retirement the landlord had shifted tojabalpur where his sons are having their own business. The five brothersand one sister of the landlord are settled in Delhi. So, the case of the landlord was that he wanted to settle in Delhi in his own house. The petitionwas contested by the tenant pleading that the premises had been let out forresidential-cum-commercial purposes and that the landlord bona fide doesnot require the demised premises at all and has filed this petition with malafide motive to evict the tenant for some ulterior purposes.

( 3 ) THE Additional Rent Controller has given findings after recordingevidence that the premises were let out for residential purposes only and thelandlord is the owner of the said property and the landlord bona fide requires the demised premises as he wants to settle in his own house in Delhi.

( 4 ) THE learned Counsel for the petitioner has raised a very shortpoint in this case. He has urged that it was the landlord who could disclosehis state of mind as to whether he would prefer to continue to live injabalpur where his sons are settled or he would like to live in his own housein Delhi. But the landlord for the reasons unknown has not appearedin the witness-box at all to disclose this particular state of mind to thecourt and thus an adverse inference could have been drawn by the learnedadditional Rent Controller that if the landlord had appeared in the witnessbox, in all probability he might not have given a sworn testimony that heintended to settle in Delhi away from his sons who are very well settled injabalpur.

( 5 ) THE learned Counsel for the respondent, on the other hand, hasargued that the landlord and his wife had been coming to the Court of theadditional Rent Controller for giving their statement but on all occasionsbut for one reason or the other the evidence was not recorded. But later onthe landlord had constituted his wife s brother as his Attorney who appearedin the witness box and gave the testimony on his behalf. Normally the stateof mind of the landlord that he particularly wishes to shift from one placeto another can be disclosed only by the landlord himself appearing in thewitness box or by his close relation like son or wife. In the present case itis surprising that only wife s brother was examined as attorney of the landlord to disclose the state of mind of the landlord.

( 6 ) "in Nanalal Goverdhandas and Co. and Others v. Smt. Samratbaililachand Shah, A IR 981 Bombay I, the Bombay High Court had heldthat the bona fide requirement is in the first place a state of mind though itmay be something more. It must, therefore, be deposed to by the personwho is requiring the premises and if the landlord does not step into thewitness-box to bring before the Court legal evidence for proving his requirement, then it cannot be said that he reasonably and bona fide requires thepremises. The landlord can delegate the authority to conduct a case but hecannot delegate the duty to depose. " In the said case the landlady s son. who was duly constituted attorney, had appeared in the witness box in placeof the landlady. Still the Court drew adverse inference against the landladyon account of her inability to testify in Court regar