JUDGMENT

A.P. Srivastava, J. - This is a Defendants application in revision which arises out of a landlord's suit for fixation of rent u/s 5(4) of Act III of 1947.

2. The Plaintiff claimed to be the Mutwalli of a waqf which was the owner of the two shops in dispute occupied by the Defendant. The agreed rent was Rs. 20 per month. The Plaintiff, however, alleged that the annual reasonable rent of the accommodation was inadequate and that keeping in view the rent paid in respect of similar accommodation in the locality the fair rent of the shops should be Rs. 30 per month, etc therefore prayed that the rent of the shops in dispute be fixed at Rs. 30 per month with effect from 1-8-1953.

3. The Defendant contested the suit and pleaded that the rent of the shops in dispute was Rs. 9 per month till 1944. Then it was increased by one rupee and the rent continued as Rs. 10 per month till 1946. In 1947 it was again increased to Rs. 17 per month and subsequently when the landlord insisted it was raised to Rs. 20 per month. He denied that the annual reasonable rent of the accommodation was inadequate or that the rent he was paying was unfair keeping in view the rent paid in respect of similar accommodation in the locality. He also pleaded that the suit was not maintainable as brought.

4. The learned Munsif who tried the suit, held that as the landlord has alleged that the annual reasonable rent of the accommodation was inadequate the suit was maintainable. He further held that there was no evidence on behalf of the Plaintiff to show what the reasonable annual rent of the accommodation was. The Defendant too had not produced the necessary evidence on the point. There was therefore no reason why the reasonable rent of the accommodation should not be held to be Rs. 20 per month. The question of fair rent of the accommodation was thereupon considered and the learned Munsif arrived at the finding that the disputed shops were worth Rs. 25 per month. He therefore decreed the suit and fixed the rent of the shops in dispute at Rs. 25 per month with effect from 1-8-1953.

5. The Defendant has come up in revision and it is contended on his behalf that the learned Munsif placed the burden of proof on wrong shoulders and that in any case if it was not proved that the reasonable annual rent of the accommodation was inadequate, he had no jurisdiction to fix the rate of rent at a figure higher than the agreed figure of Rs. 20 per month.

6. Clause (4)of Section 5 of the UP (Temporary) Control of rent and Eviction Act (leaving out the word unnecessary for our present purposes) provides:

If the landlord claims that the annual reasonable rent of any accommodation to which the Act applies is inadequate he may institute a suit for fixation of rent in the Court of the Munsif having territorial jurisdiction if the annual rent claimed or payable is Rs. 500 or less and in the court of the Civil Judge having territorial jurisdiction if it exceeds Rs. 500.

7. The essential condition for the maintenance of a suit by a landlord under Clause (4) of Section 5 therefore is that he should claim the annual reasonable rent to be inadequate. It follows that he can succeed in the suit only if he satisfies the court that the annual reasonable rent is in fact inadequate. The term "reasonable annual rent" is a technical terms as used in the Act and is defined in Clause (f) of Section 2 of the Act. As the accommodation in dispute in the present case was admittedly never assessed to municipal assessment and was on rent in 1942, the reasonable annual rent of this accommodation, according to this definition, was fifteen times the rent for one month nearest to and after April 1942 (vide Sub-clause (3) of Clause (1) of Section 2 of the Act). Before rent could be fixed at the instance of the Plaintiff by the learned Munsif, therefore, it was necessary for the Plaintiff to show that fifteen times the monthly rent of the accommodation which was being paid near about April 1942 was inadequate. Str