The supervisory jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 227 is limited to reviewing whether lower courts acted within their jurisdiction and does not extend to correcting errors of law.

JUDGMENT (Oral)

1. This petition, under Article 227 of the Constitution of India, assails judgment dated 10th July, 2019 passed by the learned Rent Control Tribunal in RCT 09/19 (Shakuntala v. Rani).

Facts

2. Rani is the landlady and Shakuntala the tenant, in respect of the premises comprising a flat on the second floor of the property bearing no. C-110/12, Ganesh Nagar, New Delhi-110018 ("the tenanted premises", hereinafter).

3. These proceedings emanate from Eviction Petition ARC 25248/16, instituted by the respondent against the petitioner. The respondent, in the said petition, sought to evict the petitioner from the tenanted premises under clause (a) of the proviso to Section 14(1) of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958 ("the DRC Act"). The statutory provision in question would be referred to hereinafter, as Section 14(1)(a), for convenience.

4. The respondent asserted, in the eviction petition, that the petitioner had been inducted in the tenanted premises as a tenant in 1998 at a monthly rent of Rs. 3,000/-, which was paid by her for about two years from the date of commencement of tenancy, whereafter the petitioner discontinued payment of rent. A demand notice, dated 22nd July, 2006, addressed to the petitioner by the respondent, calling on the petitioner to disgorge the rent of which she was in default having failed to elicit any favourable response, the respondent instituted ARC 25248/16 against the petitioner, seeking her eviction under Section 14(1)(a) of the DRC Act.

5. As is usual in such cases, the petitioner contested the title of the respondent over the tenanted premises. It was contended by the petitioner that the respondent was neither owner nor landlady of the tenanted premises which had been leased out to the petitioner by Ram Swaroop, the father of the respondent, in 1998, at a monthly rent of Rs. 1,000/-, apart from water and electricity charges. The petitioner sought to contend that she had been paying rent at the said rate to Ram Swaroop every month, in cash, till 13th November, 2008 and, as Ram Swaroop refused to collect rent thereafter, by way of deposit in Court.

6. The submissions of the petitioner failed to curry favour with the learned ARC, who, vide judgment dated 4th February, 2019, allowed the respondent's eviction petition, under Section 14(1)(a) of the DRC Act. The learned ARC held that the tenanted premises had been let out by the respondent to the petitioner by way of an oral tenancy and that no rent receipts were being issued by her. He further held that the petitioner had failed to prove her contention that she was the tenant of Ram Swaroop or that Ram Swaroop had ever collected rent from her. The learned ARC further found that the notice of demand dated 22nd July, 2006 had duly been served on the petitioner by the respondent, the receipts in respect of which stood exhibited in the eviction petition. It was further found, by the learned ARC, that the petitioner had been unable to prove that she had tendered rent up to November, 2008.

7. Affirming the rate of rent at Rs. 1,000/- per month, the learned ARC allowed the respondent's eviction petition under Section 14(1)(a) of the DRC Act and, in view of Section 15(1) thereof, directed the petitioner to tender rent to the respondent @ Rs. 3,000/- per month with effect from 26th October, 2003 till the date of the order with simple interest @ 15% within a month and to continue to pay rent at the said rate by the 15th of each succeeding calendar month.

8. This judgment was assailed by the petitioner before the learned RCT by way of RCT 09/19.

9. Though various contentions were advanced by the petiti