The main legal point established in the judgment is that the Rent Controller has no power to condone the delay in filing the application for leave to defend after the expiry of the prescribed period.

Manmohan Singh, J.

1. By way of the present petition under Section 115 of CPC, the petitioner has assailed the eviction order dated 26th March, 2013 passed by the learned Addl. 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. Brief facts for the purpose of adjudication of the present petitions are that the respondent had filed an eviction petition bearing No.E-25/2010 against the petitioner under Section 14(1)(e) of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958 (hereinafter referred to as “the Act”) in respect of an L- Shape shop No.3 situated in the property bearing No. 41, Subhash Park, Kotla Mubarakpur, New Delhi (hereinafter referred to as the “tenanted premises”). However the petitioner did not file the leave to defend application within the prescribed period of 15 days.

3. The petitioner had filed an application under Section 5 of the Limitation Act seeking condonation of delay in moving leave to defend application. It was stated in the application that the copy of the summons and annexure was not complete and page Nos. 19, 20, 32, 33, 38 and 39 were missing and therefore the said service could not be called as complete service. It was further stated that the copy of the plaint was very dim and illegitimate and the same could not be called as complete service in the summary trial. The petitioner also assailed the maintainability of the eviction petition in respect of the commercial property.

4. It was further stated that the counsel was engaged on 29th May, 2011 and the inspection was carried out on 30th May, 2011 by the counsel of the petitioner and even in the summons, no next date of hearing was mentioned and hence the summons itself were illegal and not as per principles of natural justice. It was stated that the petitioner is an illiterate person and it could not be presumed that the petitioner may be aware about the technicalities of filing the reply within 15 days from receipt of the summons and moreover the summons were not supported with complete set of plaint and annexure.

5. The petitioner to explain the delay in filing the leave to defend application has taken grounds such as copy of the summons and annexure were not complete and copy of the plaint was very dim and illegitimate and the same could not be called as complete service etc.

(i) The said plea raised by the petitioner has been discussed in the following decisions: 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