The landlord must establish that he requires the premises for his personal use and occupation in order to obtain an order of ejectment under section 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949.

1. This revision petition at the instance of a tenant against whom an order of ejectment was passed by the Rent Controller, Chandigarh, which has been confirmed in appeal by the Appellate Authority, Chandigarh.

2. The facts may be stated thus Khazan Singh, landlord is the owner of House No. 1209, Sector 18-C, Chandigarh, and R.K. Jain is the tenant. On May 25, 1977, the landlord filed an application for ejectment of the tenant on three grounds but ultimately confined his claim to one ground, namely :-

"That the petitioner wants the demised premises for his personal use and occupation."

To the above referred to averment in the petition the tenant in his written statement averred :-

"It is stated that the petitioner does not require the premises for his own use and personal occupation. The petitioner is carrying on business in Ludhiana and settled in Ludhiana. The petitioner wanted to an increase of rent to Rs. 450/- per month and the respondent did not agree to the said increase and as a consequence thereof the petitioner has presented this petition in this Honble Tribunal seeking........"

This solicited replication from the landlord, who counter served as under :-

"Petitioner wants himself to live in the house and lead a retired life peacefully. Petitioner is not active partner of any business at Ludhiana. Moreover, by living at Chandigarh petitioner wants to get himself treated at P.G.I. for his major defect in his right feet, because of which he cannot walk. Petitioner never asked the respondent to increase the rent."

The respective averments of the parties were not only supported by their evidence, but were improved upon. The landlord added that he felt insufficiency of accommodation when his daughters and children came during vacations and that his landlord at Ludhiana was pressing for the vacation of the house. He also added that his son works on his behalf in a factory where he is a sleeping partner and he does not go there personally. The tenant on the other hand stated that he had found the petitioner to be limping by foot even in the year 1967, when the tenancy commenced. He claimed the application to be not bonafide. On that evidence, the Rent Controller ordered eviction of the tenant-petitioner relying upon the judgments of this court in Shri Siri Ram Nagpal v. Shri Lal Chand and anr. (1), and Jagan Nath v. Sat Pal and anr. (2) which are to the effect that the landlord is entitled to the exercise of his choice of his living in his own house and with regard to insufficiency of accommodation he is the sole judge. Reliance was also placed on Kedar Nath Bhatnagar v. Shri Dharam Paul 1978(1) RCR 49 wherein it has been held that the landlord is best judge of his requirement. To the same effect is Ajit Singh v. Tarlochan singh (4), recognising the entitlement of the landlord to live comfortably in his own house and of his being the sole arbitrator of his requirement.

3. The learned counsel for the petitioner vehemently contended that the approach of the Rent Control Authorities in deciding the controversy between the parties was erroneous in law. Stressing the point he urged that the items of necessity pointed out by the landlord in his petition and improved upon his statement are only reflective reasons or excuses on his behalf and are not sufficient to come within the ambit of the word `require used in section 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act. In support thereof he cited a decision of their Lordships of the Supreme Court reported in Phiroze Bamanji Desai v. Chandrakant M. Patel and ors. (5), wherein their lordships have settled that the word `requirement of a landlord seeking ejectment of a tenant must reflect an element of need and not a mere wish or want. The decision of their Lordships in Phiroze Bamanji Desais case (supra) was taken aid of in repelling a landlords contention by S.P. Goyal, J., a decision reported in Shri Ratan Chand Jain v. Shri Charan Singh 1978(1) 265. There the landlordss a