Mr. K. Kannan, J. (Oral):- The revision petition is at the instance of the tenant, who has been ordered to be evicted by the Rent Controller on the ground of personal necessity by the Appellate Court reversing the decision of the Rent Controller. Before the Rent Controller, the landlord sought for eviction on the ground that the property which had been let out for running a business in general store had been modified for user of property for running some other business dealing with some gas products. The other ground urged was that the landlady who was running a boutique wanted to run a business in the same premises and that it was necessary for her own use.

2. The tenant contested the petition on the ground that the landlady had filed a petition with reference to change of user earlier along with several other grounds on 29.10.1994. Even when the petition was pending, a second petition was filed on the same ground including the ground of change of user and allowed earlier petition filed to be dismissed for default. There had been no attempt to have the petition restored and the petitioner was barred from prosecuting the petition without restoring the earlier application under Order 9 Rule 9 CPC.

3. Adverting to the issue relating to the ground of personal necessity, the contention was that in the earlier petition, there had been no such need expressed and at the time when the second application was filed in the year 1998, the learned counsel appearing for the landlord had actually been in occupation of the property that had fallen vacant in Shop No.21 which is an immediate adjacent property to the demised premise. The adjoining property in Shop No.22 had been originally rented to one Mr. Bawa, who had vacated the premises in the year 1987. The petition, without disclosure of a vacant property in her possession was, therefore, not competent to file the petition, especially without even complying with the requirement of law under Section 13 (ii) of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949. The trial Court dismissed the petition holding that the landlord did not examine herself to express her requirement and only her husband had been examined. He also found fault on account of the fact that the landlord had not disclosed the fact that she had yet another building vacant at that time. The trial Court adverted to the cross-examination of PW-1, husband of the landlady who spoke about the fact that one Bawa was having the shop on rent from the petitioner and he had vacated the premises in the year 1992-93. The husband had also admitted that the said fact of vacating the shop by Bawa had not been mentioned in the rent petition. It would appear that when the husband was examined in Court in the year 2007, he had occupied the adjoining building at Shop No.22. The Rent Controller, therefore, found that the statutory requirement had not been fulfilled and there was, therefore, no bona fides. If the property had been vacant from the year 1992 itself, the landlord could have occupied the premises at the time when the petition was filed in the year 1998 and the occupation of the husband subsequently cannot cure the defect.

4. The Appellate Court affirmed the decision with reference to finding that the landlord had not established the fact of change in user but reversed the finding with reference to bona fide necessity by observing that the landlord’s husband had actually started his own business in dealing with the spare parts after his retirement and the landlord was the best judge of her own requirement. If yet another property had been in occupation of the husband, she cannot be denied the right of obtaining eviction in respect of the same property.

5. As regards the bona fide necessity I would support finding of the Rent Controller where he has made specific reference about a property in the hands of yet another tenant Bawa as having fallen vacant in the year 1992-93 although the tenant’s contention was that it had falle