Landlord must issue receipt after receiving rent from the tenant.

The tenant is the petitioner. The ground on which eviction was sought for is wilful default. Both the Courts held that the tenant had committed wilful default and ordered eviction. Against that this revision petition has been filed.

2. The rent paid is Rs.150/- per month. The period of default is 01-12-1993 to 08-07-1994 which is the date of the petition. According to the landlord the lease commenced in 1991. Ex-P1 is a pocket notebook in which the payment of rents is recorded and the tenant has signed the same. The landlord also prayed for eviction on the ground of subletting and demolition and reconstruction. But these grounds did not find acceptance with the authorities and therefore, the only point that is argued the ground of wilful default.

3. The tenant pleaded that though he had paid the rents without any default the landlord had failed to issue the receipts. The tenant also pleaded that the landlord is in possession of a sum of Rs.10,000/- being paid on two dates 17-07-1992 and 20-07-1992 and if this is taken into account there will not be any wilful default. This also was not accepted by the Courts below. No notice was given under Section 10 of the Rent Control Act before filing the eviction petition. This is the factual background against which the revision must be decided.

4. The learned counsel for the petitioner would submit that when Ex-P1, the pocket notebook has been produced from the custody of the landlord, the probability that the pocket notebook recording subsequent payments was also with the landlord and was deliberately suppressed by him cannot be ruled out. According to the learned counsel when no notice had been given by the landlord, the Proviso to Section 10 should have been resorted to and time should have been given by the Controller for payment of the arrears of the rent. For this purpose, the counsel relied on P.M. Punnoose Vs. K.M. Munneruddin & Ors.(2002 AIR SCW 3663). He submitted that the landlord had deliberately suppressed the pocket notebook in which rents subsequent to 01-12-1993 had been paid. It was also submitted that Exs-R8 and R9, which show the payment of advance, ought not to have been disbelieved by the Court below. Exs-R8 and R9 are ledgers maintained in the course of business and therefore, when they speak of payment of Rs.5000/- each on 17-07-1990 and 20-07-1990 the payment should have been held to have been proved the ground of wilful default should have been rejected.

5. It is further submitted that had notice been given before the petition and the tenant had still not paid the rent then the Explanation to Section 10 would have come into operation and the default would be considered as wilful. But in this case no notice was given, so it was the duty of the landlord to prove that the default was wilful and when it was not proved the tenant ought to have been given a reasonable time to pay the rent. It was also submitted that the benefit of doubt should have been given to the tenant. It was also submitted that the Courts below appeared to think that non-compliance with Section 8 of the Rent Control Act was fatal to the petitioner's case but Section 8 is only directory and not mandatory. For all these reasons, the learned counsel prayed that the order of eviction must be set aside.

6. The learned counsel for the respondent, on the other hand, submitted that the Rent Control Act does not insist upon issuance of notice and therefore, notice was not mandatory. When an application is filed for eviction on the ground of wilful default it is for the tenant to prove payment of rent. The consequences of not obtaining receipt has been spelt out in Marudachala Udayar Vs. Dhandapani (1980 I MLJ 169) and it has been held that it is the duty of the tenant to obtain receipts and if the landlord either refuses to receive rent or evades issue of receipt, Section 8 has been introduced to protect the tenant’s his own interest. The learned counsel also relied on Damodaran Naicker Vs. J