Post-marriage, a daughter may not be considered dependent on her father for accommodation, impacting the landlord's entitlement to retrieve the premises for her benefit.

V.K. Shali, J.:

1. By virtue of the present revision petition the petitioner has challenged the order dated 21.03.2015 passed by the learned Additional Rent Controller (ARC) vide which the leave to defend to the respondent-tenant was granted by the learned ARC.

2. I have heard the learned counsel for the petitioner-landlord. I have also gone through the impugned order. The facts of the case are not in dispute and need not be reproduced herein. The same can be taken from the order passed by the learned ARC.

3. It would be suffice to mention here that the present petitioner is the owner of property No. 1536, Tota Ram Bazar, Ganesh Pura, Tri Nagar, Delhi. The ownership of the suit property by the petitioner is not in dispute. It is not in dispute that there are six shops which are marked as A to F on the ground floor in the site plan. Out of these six shops one shop which is marked as C, i.e. the third shop is in possession of the respondent-tenant Preeti Gupta. All other shops except shops No. 5 and 6, that is, marked E and F happen to be in possession of different tenants. So far as shop No. E to F are concerned, they are stated to be in possession of the petitioner-landlord Bhim Singh Saini where he is running the business of cosmetics, ladies lingerie, etc under the name and style of M/s. B.S. Traders. The petitioner has two children, a son and a daughter. The son of the petitioner is stated to have completed SCC & Graduation as well as Diploma in garment fabrication technology while the daughter is stated to be married way back in 1999.

4. The case which was set up by the petitioner in the petition was that the married daughter of the petitioner who has completed her Graduation from University of Delhi in 2001 and one year certificate course from NTT and had working as a Teacher in a School is presently unemployed. It has been stated that her husband one Kapil Bharti was running a optical shop in Shastri Nagar from a tenanted premise and he was not doing will in his business and, therefore, the family was in financial hardship. It was stated that the daughter of the petitioner was having two children, aged around 13 and 7 years and because of the paucity of funds, they are finding it difficult to manage their affairs and the daughter of the petitioner in order to supplement the income of the family was intending to start a Gifts and Novelties shop but due to non availability of any commercial accommodation was not able to do so. It was further stated that since that tenanted premise was only about 2 kms away from the daughter’s matrimonial home, therefore the same was best suited for the settlement of the daughter. In light of the aforesaid, the present petitioner has sought the eviction of the respondent-tenant from shop marked C shown in the site plan attached to the eviction petition.

5. Respondent had filed the leave to defend application and contested the matter. The learned ARC after hearing the arguments granted leave to defend to the respondent-tenant on the ground that the present petitioner having married his daughter, who was not ordinarily living with him, could not be said to be entitled to retrieve the shop in question from the respondent-tenant for the benefit of his married daughter. The reasoning which was given by the Court was that after marriage the daughter was firstly dependent for the purpose of her accommodation, especially, for commercial purposes on her husband if need be, then upon her father. It was the responsibility of her husband to provide accommodation to the lady who happened to be the daughter of the petitioner in case she wanted to start a new business and for this purpose the daughter could not be considered to be a member of the petitioner’s family depending on him for the purpose of accommodation.

6. The judgment which were cited by the learned counsel for the petitioner in order to support his contention that even if the daughter was married but for the purpose of accommodation wo