The duty of the tenant to comply with the terms of the tenancy and the landlord's right to seek eviction of a non-paying tenant.

Vijender Jain, CJ. - The appellants have filed the present appeal under Clause X of the Letters Patent impugning judgment dated 4.1.2006 of the learned Single Judge passed in C.W.P. No. 10982 of 1999.

2. Before we advert to the controversy raised in the appeal, we deem it appropriate to notice the facts.

3. The appellants are the owners of the land measuring 144 kanals and 8 marlas situated within the revenue estate of village Saatrod, District Hisar. On the said land, the private respondents were inducted as Gair Mumkin tenants on 1/3rd Batai. Since they did not pay the Batai for the crops from Rabi, 1987 to Rabi, 1992, which worked out to Rs. 96221.86, despite repeated demands, the appellants moved an application on 29.5.1992 under Sections 9(1)(ii) and 14- A(i) of the Punjab Security of Land Tenures Act, 1953 (for short, the Act) for eviction of the private respondents from the land in question. The Assistant Collector Ist Grade, Hisar (hereinafter described as AC 1st Grade), vide his order dated 2.2.1993, accepted the application of the appellants and ordered the ejectment of the private respondents on the ground of non-payment of rent/Batai, which resulted in the appeal having been filed before the Collector, Hisar. The said appeal was accepted by the Collector, who observed that AC 1st Grade had failed to inform the private respondents the amount due on account of rent after calculating the same along with interest so as to enable them to make the requisite payment. This observation was made with specific reference to the proviso to Section 14-A(i) of the Act. The matter was, consequently, remitted back to the AC 1st Grade. Before parting with the order, the Collector observed as under :

"I grant one more opportunity to the appellants for payment of the balance amount and I remand this case with the direction that the lower court after the receipt of the file shall calculate the amount of interest and expenses and will provide an opportunity to the appellants to make the payment within a specific period and if inspite of that opportunity, the total calculated amount is not paid by the appellants then the ejectment orders will become operative with immediate effect."

Instead of accepting the order of the Collector, both the parties filed appeals against it before the Commissioner, Hisar, who dismissed the same by observing that the impugned order had been passed keeping in view the interest of justice. It was also noticed that both the parties had agreed that out of six cases, in five cases the amount in question had been deposited.

4. The appellants, who felt aggrieved against the order of the Commissioner, preferred a revision petition before the Financial Commissioner, who upset the orders of the lower revenue authorities and ordered the eviction of the private respondents by holding that since the amount of Batai worked out by AC 1st Grade, i.e., Rs. 96221.86 was known to them (the tenant-respondents), they ought to have made the payment of the same and their failure to do so necessarily should result in their ejectment.

5. The private respondents, thereafter, filed C.W.P. No. 10982 of 1999 which was allowed by the learned Single Judge by the impugned judgment and the same has resulted in the present appeal.

6. Learned Single Judge, while accepting the writ petition of the private respondents, concluded that proviso to Section 14-A(i) of the Act is pari materia to the proviso to clause (i) of Sub-section (2) of Section 13 of the Haryana Urban (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1973 as well as proviso to Section 13(2)(i) of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 and went on to apply the ratio of the judgment of the Supreme Court in Rakesh Wadhawan and others v. Jagdamba Industrial Corporation & others, 2002(2) PLR 370 to hold that it was the duty of the AC 1st Grade to calculate the amount of rent/batai, then to make the same known to the private respondents so as to enable them to pay by affording a