IMPORTANT POINT
Eviction--Leave to defend--Municipal record is not a document of title--Therefore reliance on municipal record to show that mother of landlord as owner of premises not sufficient to grant leave to defend.

Hemant Gupta, J.

1. The challenge in the present petition is to an order passed by the learned Rent Controller, on 9.3.2009, whereby an ejectment petition filed by the respondent under Section 13-B of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 (as amended by Punjab Act No. 9 of 2001) [for short referred to as `the Act], was allowed and the petitioner was ordered to be evicted for the reason that the respondent, an NRI, requires the demised premises for his own use and occupation.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioner has challenged the order passed by the learned Rent Controller, on three grounds. Firstly, that in the Municipal records, the mother of the landlord was recorded as the owner of the premises in dispute. It was on the strength of an affidavit of the mother of the landlord, the ownership rights were transferred in favour of the landlord on 19.4.2004. Therefore, the landlord was not owner of the premises in dispute for a period of five years prior to the filing of the petition under Section 13-B of the Act. Secondly, under Section 13-B of the Act, the landlord is entitled to only one building for his own use and occupation, but the landlord is already in occupation of two shops and the residential building, adjacent to the shop in dispute on the back side. Therefore, possession of additional shop, cannot be sought by the landlord in the summary proceedings under Section 13-B of the Act. It is argued that the issue whether the possession of the additional building can be sought under Section 13-B of the Act, is pending consideration before the Honble Supreme Court in Special Leave to Appeal against the judgment reported as M/s Bhandari General Store and another v. Makhan Singh Grewal, 2006(1) RCR(Rent) 306. Thirdly, it is argued that the landlord has entered into an oral agreement to sell the shop in dispute, therefore, the ejectment sought by the landlord is not for a bona-fide use and occupation.

3. The learned Rent Controller has considered the factum of mother being recorded in the Municipal record and has held that the entries in the Municipal records are for the purposes of collection of the house tax (sic rent) and not to settle the ownership rights. It is correct enunciation of law that the Municipal record, is not a document of title, but is to determine the responsibility of a person for payment of the house tax to the Municipal Council. In fact, the father of the landlord was the owner of the agricultural land. He died on 18.2.1967. It is categorically pleaded by the landlord that three shops were constructed as one building after sanction of the site plan, in the plot inherited by the petitioner from his father. He has relied upon sanction of mutation in his favour and also relied upon Jamabandi for the subsequent year. He has pleaded that three shops were constructed in the year 1970-71 and thereafter, house on its back.

4. In the application for leave to defend, the petitioner has not disputed the averments made by the landlord that it is the landlord, who has constructed three shops and the house on its back. The petitioner has not asserted in his application for leave to defend that he has been paying the rent of the shop in dispute of the mother of the landlord and not to the landlord. Therefore, the reliance on the House Tax Assessment Register of the Municipal Council, is not sufficient to grant leave to defend to the petitioner.

5. In respect of the second argument that the landlord has sought possession of additional shop and that the possession of the shop does not fall within the scope of summary proceedings under Section 13-B of the Act, suffice it to state that two shops allegedly in possession of the landlord are vacant. The landlord is in possession of the remaining area, wherein the house has been constructed. The shop in possession of the petitioner is the only area, which is on rent. Such small portion would be required by the landlord for its optimum utilization, as he want