IN THE HIGH COURT OF GUJARAT AT AHMEDABAD R/CIVIL REVISION APPLICATION NO. 20 of 2024 ==========================================================

MOHAMMAD JAMIL ALIMIYA SHAIKH Versus MOHAMMAD ISHAQ SIRAJBHAI ==========================================================

Appearance:

MR M T SAIYAD(3848) for the Applicant(s) No. 1 DEVANGI B SOLANKI(8888) for the Opponent(s) No. 1 SABIRHUSEN J SAIYED(8847) for the Opponent(s) No. 1 ==========================================================

CORAM:HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE J. C. DOSHI Date : 02/12/2025

ORAL ORDER

1. The present Civil Revision Application, invoking the provisions of Section 29(2) of the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates (Control) Act, 1947 (for the sake of brevity, ‘the Rent Act’), is directed against the judgment and decree rendered in Civil Appeal No. 19 of 2017, whereby the learned Appellate Court – the Small Causes Court, Ahmedabad – vide judgment and decree dated 15.12.2023, was pleased to dismiss the appeal and affirm the judgment and decree dated 21.12.2016 passed in H.R.P.

Suit No. 445 of 2013.

2. Shorn of non-essential details, the relevant factual matrix of the lis in hand is adumbrated, thus: The suit property, being City Survey No. 2989 and Municipal Census No. 1582/2 admeasuring 104.10 sq. mtrs., comprising two rooms, an open land portion on the southern side, and a latrine–bathroom situated at Ward Shahpur-2, Ahmedabad, is the subject matter of the present proceedings (hereinafter, “the suit property”). The father of the present applicant was inducted as a tenant in the suit property as far back as 1942. The suit property was initially owned by another landlord, who had instituted H.R.P. Suit No. 39 of 1979 wherein the standard rent of the premises came to be fixed at Rs.23/- per month. The respondent subsequently purchased the suit property from the said erstwhile owner by a registered sale deed dated 13.08.2012 and, ergo, became entitled to receive rent only from the date of such purchase.

2.1. It is the case of the applicant that the respondent issued a demand notice claiming arrears of rent for the period between 01.01.1997 and 31.03.2013 at the rate of Rs.100/- per month, despite the standard rent being Rs.23/- per month. The said notice was addressed to a flat purchased by the applicant’s sister—who resides in Paris—though the applicant himself never resided there. The respondent thereafter instituted H.R.P. Suit No. 445 of 2013 before the learned Small Causes Court, seeking eviction on several grounds including alleged acquisition of suitable accommodation and arrears of rent. All other grounds were negatived, and the suit came to be decreed solely on the ground of arrears of rent vide judgment below Exh. 84. The applicant’s challenge thereto in Civil Appeal No. 19 of 2017 before the Small Causes Court Appellate Bench No. 1, Ahmedabad, came to be dismissed by order below Exh. 48, culminating in the present proceedings.

3. At the very outset, learned advocate for the revisionist submitted that the entire edifice of the impugned decree rests on a fundamentally erroneous assumption that the applicant was in arrears of rent for a period commencing from 01.01.1997, notwithstanding the incontrovertible position of law that the respondent–landlord, having acquired title to the suit property only on 13.08.2012, could not, in vacuo, lay a claim for arrears pertaining to any period antecedent to his purchase. In absence whereof, the very foundation of the findings recorded by both the Courts below crumbles.

3.1. It is further submitted that the demand notice forming the substratum of the eviction proceedings is vitiated ab initio, for it was dispatched to an address where the applicant never resided, nay, to a premises owned and intermittently occupied by the applicant’s sister residing in Paris. The statutory requirement of issuance of a valid, due, and proper demand notice—being the life-blood of proceedings under the Rent Act—has indubitably not been complied