Chhote Lal v. Shri Kewal Krishan Mehta

Judgment

CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. 1947 of- 1967. Appeal by special leave from the judgment ainid order dated November 20, 1967 of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Civil Revision No. 1058 of 1966. R. V. Pillai, M. L. Aggarwal and N. K. Aggµrwal, for the appellant. S. P. Sinha and M. V. Goswami, for the respondent. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by- Bhargava, J.-This appeal by special leave is by a tenant who · has been ordered to be ejected on the ground that he was in arrears of rent for more than three months and did not tender them even :at the first hearing by the .Rent Controller o.f the application for ejectment presented by the 111indlord under section 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act III of 1~49. The High Court of Punjab and Haryana in its judgment stated that, admittedly, the 'rent of the premises was fixed at Rs. 20 per month and was to be paid in advnnce each month. In addition, the rent of the electricity was to be paid separately;

In dealing with the case, the High Court proceeded on the basis that, on the date of the ·application which was made on 22nd September, 1964, the rent that was in arrears amounted to Rs. 400 calculated @ Rs. 20 per mensem. In addition, Rs. 22.0SP. were due as interest on this amount up to that date, and the costs due could be taken at the figure of Rs. 25. This totals to a sum of Rs. 447.0SP. It was argued that, .fa .addition,· a sum of Rs. 50.28P. was due as electricity charges. The amount in deposit, according to the tenant, came to Rs. 469. while the various amounts due, mentioned above, made up a total of Rs. 497.33P. Qn these facts, the High Court further was of the view that the amount due in respect of electricity charges will certainly form part of the rent 'and, relying on an earlier decision of the same Court in Hari Ram Jaggi v. Des Raj Sethi('), it held that the deposit of Rs. 469 did not cover the entire ·arrears of rent due. so that the tenant was liable to ejectment.

On this view, the High Court upheld the order of the District Judge directing evic- 1ion of the tenant-appellant. This appeal is directed against this order of the High Court. (I) 1966 P.L.B. 431. CHHOTE LAL v. K. K. MEHTA (Bhargava, J.) In deciding this case, neither the District Judge nor the High Court took care to examine the pleadings in the appl~cation for eviction put forward by the landlord-respondent, nor did they try to properly interpret the rent-note containing the terms of the ten~cy. In para, 1 of the application presented by the landlor~. it was clearly stated that "the respondent is a tenant of the petitioner at a monthly rent of Rs. 20." There was no mention at this stage that there was any. other amount which fonned part of the rent. In clause ( c) of para. 2, it was stated that "the respondent has installed a separate meter without the consent of the petitioner thereby causing dama_ge to the property and has failed to pay the electricity charges ftom January, 1963 to November, 1963 (when he got a new meter) which come to Rs. S0.28nP."

In this pleading, alJ that was claimed was that the landlord was entitled to receive electricity charges from the tenant. lt was nowhere stated that these ·arrears of electricity charges fonned part of the rent. Consequently, no issue was framed in the trial Court on the question whether the electricity charges formed part of the rent or not. For the first time, the appellate Court tuok this point into consideration and held that the electricity charges formed part of the rent. On the face of it, there was no justification for accepting this new point when it was not pleaded at all in the original application. Further. even the rent note itself makes it clear that the electricity charges could not possibly form part of the rent. The rent note first mentions that the appellant is taking on rent the premises "on a monthly rent of Rs. 20, douhle of Rs. 10, for residential purposes, for a period of five months commencing from 1st May, 1954."

Thereafter, the rent note, as translated in the paper book. shows that there was a further agreement as under :- "I shall pay one month's rent in advance and shall remain paying rent every month in advance. I shall not sub-let the entire or any portion thereof. I shall pay the electric charges separately. I shali not make any alteration ..... " The .agreement to pay the electric charges was, thus, separately me!11ioned. In Urd!1, the language in which the rent !IlOte was scrib4. the w~rd which has been translated as charges was "Kiraya It is because of the use of this word that the High Court seems to have held that the electric charges payable . here P~rt ot the ~ent. It failed to notice that the clause itself said t at this amount 1n respect of electric charges was to be paid shparately. Further, .this was not rent for electric fittings, but was ! e amount payable m respect of actual electric energy consumed in each month.

The amount due for consumption of electricity each month c~uld only be known at the end of that month, while. under the earher. clause of the agreement, the rent had to be paid (1971]3 S.C.R in adva:nce. On the face of it, therefore, the electric charges for a month could not possibly be paid with the rent. These electric charges could not,· consequently, form part of the rent. The charges were further variable and would depend on the amount of electricity consumed. No fixed amount was payable in respect of electricity cha~ges. If electric charges were to be held to be parf Df the rent, it would lead to the inference that even the rent of ~·building was variable and was different· each month. In view of these circumstanq:s, it is clear that the District Judge and the High Court went wrong in proceeding on the g;isis that the electric charges formed part of the rent and that non-payment of electric charges dur amounted to non-payment of arrears of rent.

As we have mentioned ·earlier, the High Court followed the decisiop of the same Court in the earlier case of Hari Ram Jaggi(' ). The High Court failed to notice that, in that case, there was a fixed amount payable every month as electric charges. We do not consider it necessary to express any opinion whether, in such a case, the electric charges could or could not form part of the rent. On the face of it, where the electric charge~ are not fixed and can· only be ascertained at the end of each month, after t11e electricity consumed is known, while the rent is payable in advance. it is clear th.at t~e electric eharges cannot be held to form part of the rent. The l;iasis, on which that earlier case was decided, does not, therefore, exist in the present case. The High Court has accepted that the. amount in deposit was enough to cover arrears of rent, in case the electric charges are not treated as part of the rent.

On this finding, the decision of the High Court upholding the order of eviction cannot be justified. It, however, appears that the District Judge had recorded another finding against the tenant. According to the District Judge, there was no deposit or tender even of the amount of Rs. 469. In the revision before the High Court, this finding of the District Judge was also assailed by the tenant. The High Court did not examine the propriety or correctness of this finding. Consequently, it is necessary that this aspect of the case should be examined by the High Court. As a result, we.set aside the order of the High Court dismissing the revision, and hold that, in case there was a proper deposit or tender of the sum of Rs. 469 by the tenant, the tenant was not in arrears of rent and was not liable to ejectment. The case will now go bac1c to tjle High Court for re-bearing of the revision on the question whether this sum of Rs. 469 had been te:ndered or deposited in accordance with law so as to s·atisfy the requirements of section 13 of Act m of 1949 The costs of this appeal will abide the result.

G.C. Case remanded. 1(1) (1966] PLR 431.