RCR 142/2013

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IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI

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RC. REV. No.142/2013

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17^th September, 2014

M/S. ROXY DRYCLEANERS

......Petitioner

Through:

Mr. P.P.Ahuja, Advocate.

VERSUS

SAMEER WASON & ANR.

...... Respondents

Through:

Mr. P.K.Rawal and Mr. Harish

Kumar, Advocates.

CORAM:

HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE VALMIKI J.MEHTA

To be referred to the Reporter or not? Yes

VALMIKI J. MEHTA, J (ORAL)

1.

By this petition under Section 25-B(8) of the Delhi Rent

Control Act, 1958 (in short ‘the Act’), the petitioner /tenant impugns the

judgment passed by the Additional Rent Controller on 31.10.2012, by which

the Additional Rent Controller has decreed the bonafide necessity eviction

petition filed under Section 14(1)(e) of the Act by the respondents/landlords

with respect to the tenanted premises being shop no. 53(new), Old Rajinder

Nagar Market, New Delhi.

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2.

The facts which were pleaded by the respondents/landlords

were that the tenanted shop/suit premises were required for the bonafide

need of the respondent no.2 herein, and who was the petitioner no.2 before

the Additional Rent Controller. The need which was pleaded was that the

respondent no.2 does not have any other commercial premises in Delhi and

he wants to start his own business in the suit/tenanted property. It was

pleaded that the respondent no.1 herein, petitioner no.1 before the Additional

Rent Controller and the co-landlord, was already carrying on his business

from one other shop in the property in which the tenanted premises were

situated, and therefore, the bonafide necessity eviction petition was only

with respect to the bonafide need of the respondent no.2 herein to start his

business.

3.

In a bonafide necessity eviction petition under Section 14(1)(e)

of the Act, three aspects have to be seen by the court. First is whether the

respondents/landlords are the owners/landlords of the suit premises or not.

Secondly, whether there exists a bonafide need of the landlord, and thirdly

whether the landlord has any other suitable alternative premises so as not to

require the suit premises.

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4.

As per the case of the petitioner/tenant itself in the leave to

defend application, originally the petitioner firm was a partnership firm

which got dissolved and rights in the dissolved firm with its tenanted

premises thereafter came to be vested with one of the partners Sh.

Gurbachan Singh. Sh. Jitender Pal Singh is the son of Sh. Gurbachan Singh,

and the present proprietor of the petitioner firm, and who is hence the

present tenant in the tenanted premises. It is further pleaded in the leave to

defend application that Sh. Gurbachan Singh himself was tendering rent to

the respondents/landlords. Accordingly, it was pleaded that there was no

partnership firm and the tenancy rights now solely vest with Sh. Jitender Pal

Singh who is now the sole proprietor of the petitioner firm. In the leave to

defend application it was further simultaneously pleaded, and which is an

alternative plea to the aforesaid plea of Sh. Jitender Pal Singh being the sole

proprietor of the petitioner firm, that the eviction petition is bad for non-

joinder of necessary parties because the legal heirs of the other partners, who

have since died, have not been sued as respondents in the eviction petition in

spite of the fact that there are other eviction petitions filed and in which the

other legal heirs of the other partners have been brought on record. It is also

pleaded that there was a subsequent event during the pendency of the

eviction petition that the respondents/landlords got possession of one shop

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bearing no. 53-A in the same property, and this subsequent event as pleaded

should satisfy the bonafide need in the eviction petition and which was

accordingly prayed that the same