Occasional visits by a tenant to the rented premises do not amount to non-occupation, and a tenant may have a reasonable cause for not occupying the premises regularly.

V. P. Bhatnagar, J.—Shri G. C. Bhatia is the tenant whose eviction from the rented building had been sought by the landlord Shri R. L. Seith on the ground that Shri Bhatia had ceased to occupy the said premises for a continuous period of 12 months without reasonable cause. The learned Rent Controller, accepting the ground on which the eviction had been sought, ordered the eviction of the tenant by his judgment, dated August 19, 1982. The learned Appellate Authority, Simla dismissed the appeal of the tenant vide judgment, dated August 27, 1983 aggrieved from which the present revision petition has been preferred.

2. In para 18 (a) of the application for eviction filed before the learned Rent Controller, Simla, the following ground for eviction was raised : "The respondent has ceased to occupy the premises for a continuous period of 12 months without reasonable cause. As already stated above since the respondent has already been transferred out of Simla since more than 5 years and his family members have also shifted alongwith him, no one is residing in the premises and they are being kept locked since the last 5 years. To be more specific the respondent has ceased to occupy the premises con tinuously for the last 12 months prior to the filing of this petition." Reply to the above averment runs: "The premises are in use and occupation of the respondent and his family members. The respondent is on deputation and his present deputation will concide with his retirement in 1982, after which he intends to settle do wn permanently, at Simla, as he has no house of his own, any where throughout India." It has to be determined in the background of the above pleadings and the evidence led by both the parties as to whether the respondent (Shri R. L. Seith) in this petition has succeeded in proving that the petitioner (Shri G. C. Bhatia) had ceased to occupy the tenanted premises for a continuous period of 12 months without any reasonable cause. It may also be stated here that the period of 12 months during which the petitioner was stated to have ceased to occupy the premises was indicated in para 18 (a) itself and the said 12 months were prior to the finding of the petition. The petition was instituted on March 31,1980. Therefore, the relevant period during which the occupation of the petitioner has to be seen would be from April 1, 1979 to March 31, 1980.

3. The respondent has examined PW 2 B. K. Khanna and PW 3 Ashok Rawal in addition to stepping himself into the witness-box as PW 1 in support of his case. His own testimony cannot be of much assistance to him inasmuch as he has admitted during the cross-examination that the visited the premises in dispute 3/4 times during the relevant period. His personal knowledge, therefore, extends only to said occasions and the remaining part of his testimony to the effect that he had been informed by other tenants and the sweepress constitutes hear-say evidence and, therefore, inadmissible.

4. PW 2 B. K. Khanna has stated in the examination-in-chief itself that the petitioner has not been mostly staying in Simla during the last 5 years. It is implicit in his above statement that the petitioner has been I staying every now and then in the disputed premises. To the same effect is I the testimony of PW 3 Ashok Rawal who has deposed in his cross-examination that petitioners family has been staying for 10-15 days in the tenanted I premises during every summer.

5. It is clear from the statement of Shri G. C. Bhatia, petitioner, that he alongwith his family had to shift out of Simla after December, 1975 and further that he along with his family members had been visiting Simla off and on, specially during the summer months. His family members stayed in Simla during the months of May and June, 1979 and he had also F joined them from the period from end of May to June 24, 1979. The perusal of the certificate of medical reimbursement, Ex. R-19, shows that the petitioner had been under medical treatment at