The main legal point established in the judgment is that the landlady's bona fide need for the tenanted premises, supported by the disability of her son, justified the eviction under Section 14(1)(e) of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958.

Najmi Waziri, J.:--

1. This petition has impugned an order of 30th September, 2011 in Eviction Petition No. E-4/2010 whereby the respondent-landlady’s eviction petition under Section 14(1)(e) has been allowed, the petitioner’s leave to defend under Section 25-B of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958 (the Act) was dismissed and eviction order with respect to the tenanted premises i.e. shop bearing No. 5357, Laddu Ghati, Paharganj, New Delhi has been passed. The landlady’s case was that the tenanted premises are the only commercial accommodation available to her. She needs it for herself as well as her son Mr. Hariom Mittal who lost his right leg in the year 2005 in an accident. The said son was a truck driver and is now totally dependent upon his mother for starting a new business so as to earn a regular livelihood to maintain his two minor daughters and a son. The landlady’s case was also that the house in which she was living is woefully insufficient to accommodate her, her husband and her six sons and their respective wives and children. In the application for leave to defend the petitioner-tenant had argued that the petition was not bona fide. In support he had (i) listed eleven properties as being available to the landlady, (ii) that the premises were in a slum area and permission ought to have been taken from the competent authority to seek the eviction of the tenant, (iii) that the eviction petition did not specify the boundaries’ or dimensions of the tenanted premises and (iv) finally, that she did not provide documentary details of ownership of the premises.

The landlady denied ownership of all the eleven properties except of properties No. 5355, 56 and 57. She submitted that except for the tenanted shop, the other properties were residential in nature and were already leased out. Therefore, they could not be used for commercial purposes. She reiterated that the suit premises were most suitable for her bona fide need.

The Trial Court found none of the tenant’s arguments to constitute a triable issue. The Court reasoned that although the tenant had denied the relationship of landlord and tenant, he failed to disclose as to who else was the owner of the suit property or to whom was he paying the rent. On the contrary, the landlady had placed on record a copy of a sale deed in her favour along with rent receipts to establish that the tenant had paid rent to her, therefore admitting that the eviction-petitioner was the landlady. Furthermore, the Trial Court was of the view that the tenant was estopped under Section 116 of the Indian Evidence Act from challenging the title of the eviction-petitioner. The tenant’s objection on this ground was found to be baseless, hence rejected. The Trial Court was of the view that no permission was required from the competent authority regarding slum areas since the landlady was not under any obligation to do so. Reliance was placed upon the judgment of this Court cited as 17 (1980) Delhi Law Times 344; it holds that Slum Areas (Improvement and Clearance) Act, 1956 do not apply to an eviction petition under Section 14(1) Proviso (e) and 25-B of the Act. Accordingly, this objection was too rejected. Upon examination of the medical documents apropos the disability of the landlady’s son Mr. Hariom Mittal including the disability certificate issued by a prominent government hospital i.e. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, New Delhi, certifying the son’s permanent disability upto 70% in relation to his whole body, along with FIR No. 701 regarding the accident on 16.8.2005, the Trial Court found that the disability/handicap of the son stood established: The tenant, on the other hand, had not filed any document to substantiate his dispute regarding the said son’s disability, therefore this issue too was not found triable. The Trial Court was further of the view that simply because a son is earning a livelihood through some means, it could not be deemed to be a lack of his dependency upon his parent