The Rent Controller has the discretion to pass an order under Section 15 (1) of the Delhi Rent Control Act on a prima facie view of the evidence, but is not required to do so.

( 1 ) THE respondent before me admits to be a tenant in the premises. He, however, claims that agreed rate of rent is Rs 50. 00 p. m. though petitioner alleges that it is Rs. 500. 00 p. m. They are crossing swords on yet another issue. The petitioner says that respondent has been in arrears of rent w. e. f February, 1985 while the respondent has taken the stand that he has paid rent upto Feb. 1988 and thereafter had been depositing the same u/s. 27 of the Delhi Rent Control Act (the Act ). What, however, is not disputed is that the petitioner served a notice of demand and thereafter filed a petition for eviction of the respondent u/s. 14 (l) (a) of the Act.

( 2 ) THE ARC accepted the stand taken by petitioner and passed an order u/s. 15 (1) of the Act @ of Rs. 500. 00 p. m. with effect from Feb. 1988. The respondent preferred an appeal. The R. C. Tribunal varied the order and directed payment of rent @ of Rs. 50. 00 p. m. It was thereafter, the turn of the petitioner to find the order unpalatable. Hence this CM (M) petition.

( 3 ) THE learned counsel for the petitioner submits that as he had filed before the court as many as 10 counter-foils of rent receipts duly signed by the respondent showing the agreed rate of rent to be Rs. 500. 00 p. m. and as with the consent of the rsspondent those counter-foils had been sent to the Central Forensic Science Lab. for opinion of handwriting expert which had opined that the signatures on those counter-foils of rent receipts were in the handwriting of the respondent, therefore, Tribunal ought to have held the agreed rate to be Rs. 500. 00 p. m. He has also leaned heavily on a reply dated 30. 1. 91 sent by respondent through his counsel to one of the notices of the petitioner. It is claimed that the said reply contained an admission that the rent agreed to was Rs. 500. 00p. m. The particular sentence extracted from that repply and to which my pointed attention was drawn runs :

"it is right that my client is a tenant at the rate of Rs. 500. 00 per month. He is a tenant at the rate of Rs. 50 per month. "

( 4 ) ON the other hand it is argued on behalf of respondent that petitioner (?) had never been issued any rent receipt, that the counterfoils placed on the record are pure fabrications and that they do not bear the signatures of the respondent. As per the learned counsel for the respondent the house tax of the premises js being assessed keeping in view the rate of rent as Rs. 50. 00 p. m. and in support my attention has been drawn to the survey report prepared by the officials of the MCD which records the rent of the premises to be Rs. 50. 00 p. m. My attention has also been drawn to one of the notices admittedly issued by the petitioner to the respondent. It is dated 22. 2. 88. The submission is that had the respondent been in arrears of rent the petitioner would certainly have claimed the same through it. I may clarify that by the said notice petitioner asked respondent to vacate the premises and threatened legal proceedings in case peaceful vacant possession of the premises was not delivered to him within one month of the service of the notice. it was nowhere asserted therein that the respondent was also in arrears of rent. As per the learned counsel for the respondent, it was in fact, the respondent who, in response to that notice had alleged that the agreed rate of rent was Rs. 50. 00 p. m. and that rent receipts were not being issued and that it was only thereafter, as a counter-blast, that the notice of demand was issued and proceedings instituted.

( 5 ) THE submissions as detailed by me above do present the entire canvass and depict the stand taken by the parties pitched against each other. Has the learned Tribunal gone wrong in assessing the scenario ? This is the question which stares at me and craves for an answer.

( 6 ) AS far as the report of the handwriting expert is concerned, undoubtedly it is there but then it has not so far been tested on the anvil of cross-exam.