A landlord's knowledge and correspondence with a tenant using the premises' address for a different purpose does not necessarily amount to waiver or acquiescence of the misuse, especially when the landlord has served notices objecting to the misuse and threatening termination of the lease.

( 1 ) THIS is the tenant s second appeal under section 39 of the Delhi Rent Control Act 59 of 1958 from the order of the Rent Control Tribunal dated 18th November 1963 affirming on the tenant s appeal the order of the Rent Controller dated 12th June 1963 directing eviction of the tenant and ordering recovery of possession of the suit premises in favour of the landlord.

( 2 ) THE appellant, a tenant under the Respondent 1n the premises bearing Municipal No. 8014 situated in Ramjas Road, Karolbagh, New Dehi at Rs. 250/ per mensem, took the said premises on rent on 31st March 1955, The eviction proceedings were started on 10th January 1962 on a two fold ground namely, (i) that the premises had been let for residential purposes but the tenant had started running a College therein known as Gupta College and (ii) that in spite of previous notice, the tenant. bad used or dealt with the premises in a manner contrary to the conditions imposed on the landlord by the Delhi Development Authority at the time of giving him the lease of the land on which the premises are situated. The main point considered by the Rent Controller to require determination was as to the purposes for which the building in question had been let to the tenant. Both the Rent Controller and the Tribunal have come to the concurrent conclusion that the premises had been let to the tenant for residential purposes but the tenant changed its user later on and he did not stop the misuser in spite of service of notice. The misuser was held to be detrimental to the interest of the landlord because the lease of the land on which the building is constructed is likely to be forfeited if the misuser is not stopped.

( 3 ) ON second appeal, the learned counsel for the appellant, to begin with, submitted that the Rent Controller and the Rent Control Tribunal have both failed to notice the distinction between the nature of the property which is leased out and the purposes for which it is leased out. According to him, the mere fact that in Exhibit A. 7 dated 31st March 1955, which evidences the lease, it is stated that Shri Parkash Chander the tenant had undertaken to Take on rent as a tenant Shri Tara Chand Malik s residential house does not necessarily mean that the said house was let out for residential purpose. But when Shri A. R. Wig, the learned counsel for the tenant appellant, was confronted with Exhibit P. 9 in which it is expressly stated that the premises in question had been let cut to Shri Parkash Chander for his personal residence only, he was constrained to drop this argument and to concede that the premises in question had been initially let out for residential purpose.

( 4 ) SHRI Wig next contended that the tenant had started using the premises for a College in July, 1955 and the landlord was fully aware of this user from the very start and he must, therefore, be deemed to have acquiesced in it. As a matter of fact, the initial argument put forth by Shri Wig was that consent of the landlord must be presumed in these circumstances and he REFERRED TO me to a decision of the Supreme Court in Dr. Gopal Dan v. Dr S. K. Bhardwaj, but this decision is, in my view, wholly unhelpful to the appellant. Not only are the facts of the reported case different, but there the Court was concerned with the provisions of the Delhi and Ajmer Rent Control Act, 1952, whereas in the case in hand clause (e) (i) of the proviso to section 14 (i) of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 59 of 1958 calls for determination. According to this clause, if the premises had been let, on or after 8th June 1952, the tenant can use the premises for a purpose other than for which they were let only after obtaining the consent in writing of the landlord. Failure to do so is, according to section 14, a ground for rendering recovery of premises on the landlord s application to the Kent Controller. The decision of the English Court of Appeal in Hyde v. Pimley, may also be ignored because that decision