The court emphasized the importance of pleading essential ingredients in an ejectment petition under section 13(3)(i) of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act but clarified that strict adherence to pleading rules applies equally to both the petitioner and respondent, and the absence of certain averments does not automatically lead to dismissal.

O.Chinnappa Reddy, J.

1. The respondent-landlord filled an application for ejectment of the petitioner-tenant under section 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act. One of the grounds on which the landlord sought eviction of the tenant was that the house was required for the personal use and occupation of his married son as the present accommodation in his possession was insufficient and inadequate. The tenant claimed that the petition was not bona fide and that it had been filed with the ulterior motive of enhancing the rent. The Rent Controller found that the landlord had a large family consisting of 26 members who were living in the house presently under the occupation of the landlord which consisted of four or five rooms which were wholly insufficient to accommodate all of them. He held that the requirement of the landlord was bona fide. Therefore, he allowed the petition for ejectment. The findings of the Rent Controller were confirmed by the Appellate Authority and the tenant has come up in revision.

2. It was argued by Shri Puran Chand, learned counsel for the tenant that the landlord had not averred in the petition two out the three essential ingredients which were required to be averred by every landlord seeking ejectment of a tenant under section 13(3)(i), East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act. According to the learned counsel, here was no averment that the landlord was not occupying any other residential building in the urban area concerned and he had not vacated such a building without sufficient cause after the commencement of Act in the said urban area. He relied upon a recent decision of a Full Bench of this Court in Banke Ram v. Shrimati Sarasvati Devi (Civil Revision No. 392 of 1974)(1977 RCR 595).

3. It is true that in the Banke Ram versus Shrimati Sarasvati Devi, a Full Bench of this court held that it was necessary for the landlord to plead the ingredients of sub-clauses (b) and (c) of section 13(3)(i) as much as the ingredients of sub-clauses (a). lt should be noted, however, that the Full Bench did not lay down that failure to plead the ingredients of sub-clauses (b)(c) must necessarily result in dismissal of the petition for ejectment. Indeed the ingredients of sub-clauses (b) and (c) are no magic formulae or incantation which if not recited must necessarily entail a dismissal of the petition. The Full Bench observed :-

"In the present case, we are concerned only with the question as a principle of law as to whether it is essential to plead in a eviction application the ingredients of sub-clauses (b) and (c) and not the questions that if in a particular case these ingredients are not pleaded but the parties have lead evidence with regard to them, what will be the effect? In any case, where facts have not been averred in the pleadings a number of questions can arise as to whether proper evidence has been adduced by the landlord regarding those facts which do not find place in the pleading, and secondly whether such evidence will be admissible or not and lastly, whether the tenant was taken by surprise or not and had led evidence with full knowledge of the requisite contentions raised by the landlord and whether the tenant has in those circumstances been prejudiced or not. The court would be required to give full consideration to the contention raised by the respective parties and the facts and circumstances of each case before giving its decision in favour of the landlord or the tenant, but the decision of the High Courts or the Supreme Court, in this regard, cannot be of any avail to detract from the validity of the proposition that it is necessary for the landlord to make averments regarding the ingredients of sub-clauses (b) and (c). However, it may be made clear that when it is held that it is essential to plead the ingredients of sub-clauses (b) and (c) in the eviction application by the landlord, it should not be understood that under no circumstances, in absence of pleadings, the