Section 10 CPC applies to separate civil suits and does not extend to applications in pending suits. The Rent Act provides a special procedure for eviction proceedings and does not require adjudication of title issues.

JUDGMENT

Harkesh Manuja, J. - Petitioner is aggrieved against the order dated 02.08.2022; whereby an application filed at his instance, under Section 10 CPC for staying of proceedings of Rent Petition No.18 of 2021 till the decision of Civil Suit No.196 of 2021, has been dismissed.

2. Brief facts leading to the present revision petition are that property No.736/1, Ahata Murari Lal, Kalka consisting of first floor and second floor was rented out in favour petitioner No.2 Dr. Dinesh Kumar Sharma, by the original owner Sh.Sadhu Ram Mittal, way-back in the year 1983. After the death of Sh.Sadhu Ram Mittal, his legal heirs sold the property in question to the respondent herein vide registered sale deed dated 25.07.2019.

3. In July 2021, petitioner No.2 filed a suit for preemption against respondent as regards sale deed dated 25.07.2019, claiming himself to be owner in occupation of the suit property.

4. Simultaneously, during the same period, respondent filed an eviction petition against the petitioners.

5. In the eviction petition, petitioners moved an application under Section 10 CPC with a prayer for stay of further proceedings till the decision of civil suit for preemption filed at their instance. The respondent submitted her reply and contested the same. The learned Trial Court vide its impugned order dated 22.08.2022 dismissed the application filed by the petitioners.

6. Learned counsel for the petitioners contends that once the ownership of the property was being claimed at their instance in the suit for preemption, pending the said suit, the learned Rent Controller should have allowed the application filed under Section 10 CPC in the later ejectment petition filed by respondent. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that as the matter in issue involved in both the proceedings was directly and substantially the same, the learned Rent Controller was under an obligation to stay its hand till the final adjudication of the previously instituted suit between the same parties.

7. I have heard learned counsel for the petitioners and having gone through the record as well as on perusal of Section 10 CPC, I do not find any merit in the present revision petition.

8. On a bare reading of Section 10 CPC, it can be traced out that the same can only be invoked in case, the two separate proceedings in which the matter in issue is said to be directly and substantially be same, must arise out of two separate civil suits. The language used by the legislature, under Section 10 CPC which is relevant for the purpose of present adjudication are reproduced hereunder:-

'Section 10. Stay of suit:-No court shall proceed with the trial of any suit in which the matter in issue is also directly and substantially in issue in a previously instituted suit between the same parties or between parties under whom they or any of them claim litigating under the same title where such suit is pending in the same or any other Court in India have jurisdiction to grant the relief claimed, or in any Court beyond the limits of India established or continued by the Central Government and having like jurisdiction, or before the Supreme Court.'

9. Even the heading of the provision makes it more than apparent that the said provision is applicable to suits only and an application can be filed in a pending suit for staying the proceedings in case the matter in issue involved therein is directly and substantially an issue in a previously instituted suit between the same parties.

10. In the present case, the petitioners have moved an application under Section 10 CPC, in an eviction petition pending before the learned Rent Controller, filed under the Haryana Urban (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1973, and the same not being a suit, the learned Rent Controller committed no error of law while declining the same.

11. In this regard, I find support from the case titled as National Institute of Mental Health & Neuro Sciences Vs. C. Parameshwara, (2005) 2 SCC 256, relied upon by the lea