IMPORTANT POINT
Ejectment--Bonafide Necessity--Respondent is practising advocate and is recently married--Claim of respondent for being in occupation of tenanted premises in his own right and on part of his parents to settle him independently not unnatural.

S.D.Anand, J.

1 Facts in the first instance -- House No. 616, Sector 18-B, Chandigarh one kanal area accommodation) was owned by Shri Mool Chand Malhotra. On his death, it came to be owned by his two sons namely Anil Malhotra and Ravinder Malhotra, in equal shares. Anil Malhotra was in occupation of the ground floor of the house excluding the Garage; whereas Ravinder Malhotra was in possession of the first floor and also the garage located on the ground floor of the house. Ravinder Malhotra sold the portion under his occupation to respondent Gaurav Garg (herein after referred to as -the landlord-), vide registered sale deed dated 10.8.1999. The other copurchasers in the transaction were parents of the landlord. With the purchase of the portion aforementioned, the respondent and his parents became owners of the purchased part of the building aforementioned.

2 The landlord filed an ejectment plea against the tenant (hereinafter referred to as -the petitioner-) on an averment of personal necessity and non-payment of rent. The averment made by the landlord, in the context, was that he is a recently married practising Advocate; that his father/co-owner is also a practising Advocate and that the later (father of the landlord) wants to settle his son independently in the premises aforementioned which would be used for residential and also office purpose. It was the further averment that the parents of the petitioner are themselves putting up in a rented accommodation which is insufficient to accommodate their recently married son and a domestic help. Yet another averment in the relevant behalf, was that the petitioner and his wife own a 2-1/2 storied 7-1/2 marla house (bearing House No. 3145, Sector 40, Chandigarh) and they can shift to that house wherein the accommodation available is sufficient for their use.

3 Insofar as the non-payment of rent is concerned, it is apparent from the record that the petitioner is not proved to have paid rent for the indicated period on account of denial of relationship.

4 Learned counsel, appearing on behalf of the petitioner, argued that the moment it was held by the learned Rent Controller that there was relationship of landlord and tenant between the parties, it was incumbent upon him to grant an opportunity to the petitioner to pay up the arrears of rent. The plea was resisted by the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondent who argued that grant of an adjournment would not be warranted if there was denial of relationship of landlord-tenant interese.

5 The plea raised on behalf of the petitioner deserves to be out rightly negatived in view of the law laid down by this Court in Yashpal Singla v. Vijay Kumar 2004(1) R.C.R.(Rent) 718-2004(2) Civ. C.C. 603 and Jagdish Singh v. Mohan Lai, 2004(2) R.C.R.(Rent) 114 - 2004(3) Civ. C.C. 134. In both the cases aforementioned, the tenant had denied the existence of relationship of landlord-tenant, however, the Rent Controller recorded a finding in favour of the landlord on point of existence of relationship. It was under those circumstances that this court held that there was no justification for grant of an opportunity to tenant to deposit the arrears of rent.

6 It was, then, argued by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the ejectment petition filed by the respondent-co-owner was not maintainable in respect of the tenanted premises in the absence of evidence that there had been any partition of the entire property between co-owners and the tenanted portion had fallen to the share of the respondent. Reliance, in support of the view, was placed upon Messrs. Karta Ra, Rameshwar Dass v. Ram Bilas and others, 2006(1) R.C.R.(Civil) 23 - 2005(2) R.C.R.(Rent) 643- (2006) 1 Supreme Court Cases 125.

7 The plea was resisted on behalf of the respondent by averring to the contrary. In support of the averment that a petition was indeed maintainable at the instance of co-owner. Reliance was placed upon Pal Singh v. Surinder Singh 1989(2) R.C.