An Appellate Authority under the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 has the power to remand a case where the Rent Controller has not considered a relevant issue on merits.

1. Smt Muni Tandon alias Urmila Tandon, the respondent hereinhad filed an ejectment application against the petitioners on the ground of personal necessity. According to her, she had five unmarried school-going daughters and the accommodation already available with her was not satisfactory. The petitioners controverted these allegations. This application was allowed by the then learned Rent Controller on March 30, 1974. The petitioners went in appeal and urged that the application was not in proper form in as much as the respondent had not specifically pleaded in the application for ejectment that she was not in possession of sufficient accommodation. Faced with this situation, the respondent filed an application for amendment of the application for ejectment which was granted and she was allowed to bring her application in conformity with the requirements of S.13(3)(a)(i) of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 (hereinafter called the Act). The learned Appellate Authority set aside the order of ejectment and remanded the case for a fresh trial.

2. The petitioners filed a fresh written statement to the amended application for ejectment. The learned Rent Controller then framed the following issues :-

1. Whether the applicant has locus standi to file the application ?

2. Whether respondents are liable to ejectment on the grounds mentioned in paras 3 to 7, 9 and 10 of the application ?

3.Whether any valid notice of termination of the tenancy was necessary ? If so, whether any such notice was served ?

3. The parties led fresh evidence before the learned Rent Controller who decided all the issues against the petitioners and ordered their ejectment on March 10, 1977.

4. The petitioners filed an appeal and at that stage raised an objection that the trial held by the learned Rent Controller was not in conformity with law because Shri Des Raj Mahajan, the learned Additional District Judge who exercised the powers of the Appellate Authority under the Act, had no jurisdiction to remand the case. They also contended that the order under appeal was wrong on merits inasmuch as there was no real necessity for the landlady to get the premises in dispute vacated.

5. The learned Appellate Authority held that the order of remand passed by the earlier Appellate Authority not having been challenged had become final and since the respondent landlady had genuine need of the premises in dispute for her personal residence, there was no merit in the appeal. The petitioners have challenged this order in revision.

6. In response to the notice of motion issued by my learned brother R.N. Mittal, J., Shri R.S. Bindra, the learned counsel for the respondent, has appeared to oppose the admission of the petition.

7. On behalf of the petitioners, it has been argued that the learned Appellate Authority had no jurisdiction to remand the case and as such the subsequent trial held by the learned Rent Controller was without jurisdiction. It was also submitted that the respondent landlady had during the pendency of these proceedings got some premises vacated and under second proviso to S.13(3)(a)(iv) of the Act she was not competent to file the instant petition. The third point raised was that the son of the respondent landlady was admittedly running handlooms in a portion of the building and since that portion could be utillised for residential purposes the respondent landlady had failed to prove that her requirement for personal residence was a bona fide one.

8. In support of the first contention Shri R.I. Aggarwal, the learned counsel for the petitioners has placed reliance on a Division Bench Judgement of this Court in Shri Krishan Lal Seth V/s. Smt. Pritam Kumari, (1961) 63 Pun LR 865. In that case the landlady had sought ejectment of the tenant on the ground of non-payment of rent as also on the ground of personal necessity. Since the rent, interest etc., was paid on the first date of hearing, that ground was no longer available to her. The