The main legal point established is the requirement for a landlord's bona fide need for eviction, which must be a sincere, honest desire and not a mere pretext.

Mukta Gupta, J.

1. An eviction petition was filed by Vijay Kumar, the Respondent herein seeking eviction of shop in the property No. 45, Central Market, Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi-110024 (in short ‘the suit property’) which was let out to the father of the Petitioner Anubhav Dhawan about 30 years ago and no Rent Agreement was executed. Father of Anubhav Dhawan was carrying on the business of trading in laces and ribbons, saree and suit borders under the name and style of ‘M/s Venus General Stores’ from the said shop which Anubhav Dhawan continued.

2. It was claimed that Vijay Kumar was the absolute owner of the tenanted shop in the suit property. Besides, the suit property consists of four more shops and for the sake of convenience the same are given private numbers, that is, Shop Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 and the shop with Anubhav Dhawan was Shop No. 3. Father of Vijay Kumar had purchased the suit property and after Vijay Kumar’s parents died intestate the other sisters and brother of Vijay Kumar relinquished their respective shares in favour of Vijay Kumar vide registered Relinquishment Deed dated 4th February, 2013 vide Registration No. 812. Thus he became the sole and absolute owner of the suit property. Vijay Kumar has only one shop in his possession i.e. shop No. 1 and the other four shops were with different tenants. Father of Vijay Kumar, during his lifetime was running the business of general store in the name and style of ‘M/s Vijay Store’ which Vijay Kumar continued after his demise.

3. It is stated that the shop was required bona fidely by Vijay Kumar for his own use since trade of general store needs a lot of storage space to keep the products allied with the trade and since the shop was too small, there was no storage facility. Vijay Kumar had been using the basement of E-7, Lajpat Nagar-New Delhi for the purpose of storage of his merchandise however, due to heavy rains in the rainy season and dampness so caused Vijay Kumar could not store his merchandise and he had no space available nearby his shop for the purpose of storage of goods. Vijay Kumar is also owner of one half portion of the basement adjoining to C-II/22 and the entire first floor without terrace in property No. C-II/23 Lajpat Nagar, New Delhi. The first floor being residential in nature is used by the son of Vijay Kumar for his residence. The basement of C-II/22 was also 300 meters away from his shop and could not be used for the purpose of storage. The ground floor of property No. A-20, Lajpat Nagar-III, owned by Vijay Kumar was being used by him for residential purpose. Besides the premises noted above, he had no other reasonably suitable accommodation which could act as storage for ‘M/s Vijay Stores’.

4. In the written statement filed by Anubhav Dhawan it was stated that Vijay Kumar has even failed to show his needs by not filing any supporting document and also the suitability of the tenanted shop for the purpose it is sought to be evicted. Lack of bona fide on the part of Vijay Kumar is evident as he stopped using the basement of E-7, Lajpat Nagar for storage. The dampness, if any, could be repaired. Vijay Kumar has failed to disclose that he was using the back portion of the shop which is in his possession for storage purpose. Thus Vijay Kumar admittedly has space for storage in his shop No. 1 in the suit property.

5. After the parties led their evidence vide the impugned order dated 29th August, 2014 the learned ARC directed eviction of Anubhav Dhawan from the tenanted premises, that is, Shop No. 3 in the suit property. The learned ARC noted that there is the admission of the witnesses of Anubhav Dhawan, RW-2 Surinder Arora, RW-3 Sunny Chaurasiya and RW-4 Vijay Sehgal that the area behind the Shop No. 1 of the suit property was 36 sq. ft which was also a part of Shop No. 1 and was not sufficient for storage. The servants of Vijay Kumar used to go to the godown to get the articles. Lajpat Nagar being a busy market and with heavy vehicular and