Sudhir Agarwal, J.—

1. All these four petitions involve common questions of law and facts and, therefore, as agreed by learned counsel for the parties they are being decided by this common judgment under the Rules of the Court at this stage.

2. In all these cases the defence of petitioner-defendants has been struck off in purported exercise of power under Order XV Rule 5 C.P.C. (inserted by U.P. Act No. 37 of 1972 and substituted by U.P. Act No. 57 of 1976 w.e.f. 04.01.1977) since the petitioner-defendants were found to have breached the second requirement of Order XV Rule 5 C.P.C. and have not deposited monthly rent during pendency of proceedings for certain periods.

3. I have heard Sri Gulrez Khan and Sri J.H. Khan, Advocates for the petitioners and Sri K.K. Tiwari, learned counsel for respondent no. 3.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the first condition to attract Order XV Rule 5 is that there must be an existing relationship of landlord and tenant between parties before the court but when the very relationship is an issue, Order XV Rule 5 cannot be resorted. He further submitted that the date of first hearing would be the date on which court applied its mind to

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