The court established that the Rent Controller had no power to condone the delay in filing the application for leave to defend under the Delhi Rent Control Act, emphasizing the summary nature of eviction proceedings.

Manmohan Singh, J.

1. By way of the present petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India read with Section 25B(8) of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958 (hereinafter referred to as “the Act”), the petitioner has assailed the eviction order dated 8th April, 2013 of the learned Rent Controller whereby the leave to defend application filed by the petitioner was dismissed for the reason mainly that the same was not filed within the stipulated period prescribed under the Act.

2. The respondent had filed an eviction petition being No.E-17/12 against the petitioner under Section 14(1)(e) of the Act in respect of a room bearing No. 3B, with Balcony alongwith common toilet and bathroom in the property bearing municipal No. A-14/3, Jamna Bhawan, 2nd Floor, Asaf Ali Road, New Delhi(hereinafter referred to as the “tenanted premises”).

3. It is admitted by the petitioner that incomplete summons were served on the petitioner on 23rd August, 2012, the same however did not contain pleading and documents. Therefore not considered as valid summons. It is stated that on 25th October, 2012 the counsel for the petitioner appeared before the learned Trial Court and requested for supply of the complete set of pleadings, paper books and documents. It is stated that it was in those circumstances that the learned Trial Court vide order dated 25th October, 2012 granted time and liberty to the petitioner to inspect court file and thereafter to file the application for leave to defend, and for this purpose, the matter was put up for 21st January, 2013.

4. It was the case of the petitioner that the delay in filing the leave to defend application is due to the fact that incomplete summons were served on the petitioner without the paper books containing pleading and documents and the same could not be called as complete service. The leave to defend application was filed within 15 days of receipt of the complete set of paper books were received by the petitioner.

5. The said plea raised by the petitioner has been discussed in the following decisions:

(i) In M/s. Delhi Book Store vs. K.S. Subramaniam, AIR 2006 Delhi 206.

“10. Another submission vehemently made on behalf of the defendant is with regard to the service of the summons upon the defendant in accordance with the provisions of Order 37 of the CPC. It is contended that the documents were not given to the defendant along with the plaint and the service of the summons was not proper. The copy of the summonses which were served upon the defendant indicates that they were duly received by the defendant and nothing was recorded on the said summonses that the documents annexed to the plaint have not been served upon the defendant. Even after the summonses were received and prior to filing the application for leave to defend, there is nothing on record which could indicate that the defendant had written to the plaintiff or placed any document on the Court file at the time of putting in appearance that the requisite documents were not supplied to the defendant. This again appears to be an afterthought on the part of the defendant.”

(ii) Rena Verma vs. Veena Gupta, CM(M) 178/2012, dated 6th August, 2012, (Date of decision : 6th August, 2012).

“The contention of the petitioner before this court is that the copy of the eviction petition was illegible and hence rendered her unable to file the application for leave to defend. The same contention was urged by the petitioner before the ld. ARC, but the perusal of record shows that after service of summons, the petitioner took no step to obtain the copy of petition or to bring the matter before the trial Court immediately, but instead waited till last day, i.e., 01.02.2011 to file an application for direction to the petitioner to supply legible copy of petition. The only reason put forward by the petitioner was that no steps could be taken by him due to his marriage. Even the application filed under Order 37 Rule 4 of CPC on 30.09.2011 for review of order dat