Neutral Citation No. - 2024:AHC:185522 Court No. - 4 Case :- MATTERS UNDER ARTICLE 227 No. - 6479 of 2021 Petitioner :- Zulfikar Ahmad And 7 Others Respondent :- Jahangir Alam Counsel for Petitioner :- Vinayak Mithal Counsel for Respondent :- Gaurav Dhama,Raj Kumar Singh,Rajat Aren,Sheetla Sahai Srivastava Hon'ble Ajit Kumar,J.

1. Heard Sri Vinayak Mithal, learned counsel for the petitioners and Sri Rajat Aren and Raj Kumar Singh, learned counsel for the respondent.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioners states that petitioners do not want to file rejoinder affidavit and the petition may be heard and decided on the basis of pleadings available on record.

3. Petitioners before this Court are tenants in the premises in question of respondent no. 1. The release application for the two shops in question was filed by respondent/ landlord on the ground of personal need to open a shop to carry out motorcycle and scooter repairing works, which he was doing in a premises taken on rent and the landlord of that premises, according to him, had asked him to vacate the premises. The release application stood granted by the Prescribed Authority finding the bonafide need to be in existence and comparative hardships there to be in favour of the respondent/ landlord. Said order was unsuccessfully appealed against and hence the order passed by the appellate authority is also under challenge.

4. The only argument that has been advanced by learned Advocate appearing for the petitioner Mr. Vinayak Mithal is that the Prescribed Authority had failed to give due consideration to the alternative accommodation available in the form of a third shop which could have been used reasonably to set up the business by landlord, in view the provisions as contained under rule 16(1)(a) of the U.P. Urban Buildings (Regulation of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Rules, 1972. It is submitted further that the court of appeal has also manifestly erred in affirming the order passed by the Prescribed Authority.

5. Leading the argument on the above point, Mr. Mithal has taken the Court to a specific stand taken by him in his objections filed to the release application vide paragraph no. 4 to state that the landlord has wrongly shown a shop already available with him on eastern side of the tenanted premises and since it was pleaded in the statement on affidavit by the tenant for which ultimately an amendment was carried out in the release application to raise a pleading to the effect that the particular premises was having a stair case also and could not be used as a shop, rather it was already being used as a store.

6. It was further pleaded in the objection filed to the amendment application that in the plaint case in a partition suit being O.S. No. 1524 of 2008 the landlord had himself referred to three shops in question which included the shop which was not being shown as store. It is thus sought to be argued that this alternative accommodation which was very much available, was a fact that had been deliberately concealed by the landlord while applying for release of the shop in question. Hence, there was hardly any bonafide need. According to Mr. Mithal, this aspect of reasonable suitability of alternative accommodation was not accorded due consideration and the release application came to be allowed only on the ground that there was no other shop available to him believing the statement of the landlord that third shop was a store and further that the landlord being the sole arbitor of his need and requirement, the tenant could not have suggested about the suitability of alternative accommodation to the landlord.

7. Mr. Mithal strenuously argued that this alternative accommodation and its suitability required to be discussed by the Prescribed Authority while considering the point of comparative hardships and non consideration thereof, according to him, is a manifest error of law and fact in the order of Prescribed Authority granting release. Mr. Mithal has placed reliance upon a