ON Civil Appeal No 2732 of 1980
From the Judgment and Order dated 2581980 of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in CRP No 7974 of 1979
155 AV Rangam for the Appellant
C Setharamaiah PK Rao VA Babu and KR Nagaraja for the Respondents
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by KANIA J
This is an appeal by Special Leave against the judgment of a learned Single Judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in Civil  Revision Petition No 7974 of 1979
The appellant before us is the tenant and the original respond ent is the landlord who is dead and is represented by his legal representatives
The premises in question are in Eluru Town in Andhra Pradesh
The appellant is carrying on business in the name and style of Sri Panduranga Engineering Company
According to the original respondent who will hereinafter be referred to as the respondent he was the owner of the building in which the said premises situated and hence the owner of the said premises
The respondent filed an eviction petition against the appellant on the ground of bona fide requirement as he wanted to set up his eldest son in business by start ing a photo studio in the said premises
The appellant disputed the correctness of the said claim
The appellant in his counter to the eviction petition inter alia alleged that the said property in which the said premises were situated was the absolute endowed property of punyamurthula vari Choultry of which the original respondent was the de facto trustee and that the original respondent had no per sonal or proprietary interest in the said property
He asserted that the said property belonged to the said Choul try and that the original respondent had no manner of right to evict the appellant on the ground of personal use and occupation
The appellant asserted that the said premises were not the individual property of the original respondent but trust property
The respondent filed a rejoinder denying that the said premises were the endowed property or that the said property was a part of punyamurthulavari Choultry
He asserted that he was the absolute owner of the said property which was purchased by his father under a registered sale deed dated 29th June 1908
The respondent submitted that the appellant had denied his title and as the said denial was not bona fide the appellant was liable to be evicted also on the ground of denial of title of the landlord
The Rent Controller passed a decree for eviction on the ground that the bona fide requirement of the landlord respondent was made out and also on the ground that the appellant tenant had denied the title of respondent landlord which 156 denial was not bona fide
The appellant preferred an appeal against the said decision to the Appellate Authority
The Appellate Authority however dismissed the appeal upholding both the grounds of eviction found by the Rent Controller
Against this decision the appellant preferred a revision petition to the High Court
The High Court in its impugned judgment upheld the order of eviction only on the ground of denial of title which was not a bona fide denial
It is this decision of the High Court which is challenged before us
The finding that the denial of title was not bona fide is essentially a finding of fact and fairly enough no dispute has been raised by learned counsel for the appellant in respect of that finding
It is however submitted by him that in order to constitute a ground for eviction the denial of title must be anterior to the filing of the eviction petition and a denial of title in the course of eviction petition would not constitute a ground for eviction
He drew our attention to the provisions of section 10 of the Andhra Pradesh Buildings Lease Rent and Eviction Control Act 1960 hereinafter referred to as the AP Rent Act
The AP Rent Act was enacted with a view to consolidate the law relating to regulation of leasing of buildings control of rent thereof and prevention of unreasonable eviction of tenants in the State of Andhra Pradesh
Section 10 of the AP Rent Act deals with eviction of tenants
Sub section 1 of that section prohibits eviction of tenants except in accordance with the provisions of that section or sections 12 and 13 of that Act
The relevant part of sub section 2 of section 10 of the AP Rent Act runs as follows 2 A landlord who seeks to evict his tenant shall apply to the controller for a direction in that behalf
If the Controller after giving the tenant a reasonable opportunity of showing cause against the application is satisfied i x x x x ii x x x x iii x x x x iv x x x x v x x x x vi that the tenant has denied the title of the land lord or claimed a right of permanent tenancy and that such denial or claim was not bona fide the Controller shall make an order directing the tenant to put the landlord in possession of the building and 157 if the controller is not so satisfied he shall make an order rejecting the application
 It was urged by learned counsel for the appellant that the ground for eviction must come into existence before the application to the Rent Controller for eviction is made and hence a denial of title which can be relied upon by the landlord respondent for eviction must be
anterior to the eviction petition
In support of his contention Mr Rangam learned coun sel for the appellant placed reliance on the decision of a Bench of this Court in Kundan Mal vs Gurudutta Judgments Today In that case it has been observed that in providing disclaimer as a ground for eviction of a tenant in clause f of section 131 of the Rajasthan Premises Control of Rent and Eviction Act 1950 the Legis lature decided to give effect to the provisions of clause g of section 111 of the Transfer of Property Act
The principle of forfeiture on disclaimer is rounded on the rule that a man cannot approbate and reprobate at the same time
Since the consequence of applying the rule is very serious it must be held that the denial of title to has to be clear and in unequivocal terms
In our view this decision is hardly of any assistance to learned counsel
The principle laid down in that case is that in order to constitute a ground for eviction the denial of title has to be clear and in unequivocal terms
In the present case the facts found show that the denial of title of the respondent by the appellant was in dear and unequivocal terms
Although it is observed in the said judgment that in providing this ground for eviction the Legislature of the State of Rajasthan decided to give effect to the provisions of clause g of section 111 of the Transfer of Property Act the judgment nowhere lays down that the denial of title must be anterior to the eviction petition nor does it say that the provisions relating to eviction of tenants under the Transfer of Property Act are applicable to the eviction of tenants under the Rajasthan Rent Act
In this connection we may point out that it is well settled that the Court hearing a suit or appeal can take into account events which are subsequent to the filing of the suit in order to give appropriate relief or mould the relief appropriately
Moreover it is signifi cant that in the present case the denial of the landlord s title was not the only ground pleaded in support of the claim for eviction but it was also contended by the respond ent that the appellant was liable to be evicted as the respondent wanted the said premises for his personal bona fide use and occupation
158 It was argued by learned counsel for the appellant that even accepting that there was a denial of title by the appellant and the result would be only that the respondent landlord became entitled to forfeit the lease and in order to be a ground for eviction in a suit that forfeiture would have to precede the suit or petition for eviction
It was submitted by him that it was not open to a landlord to take advantage of a denial of title by the tenant in the very proceedings for eviction in the course of which the denial was made
The denial must be anterior to the eviction pro ceedings
In support of this argument learned counsel placed reliance on the decision in Maharaja of Jeypore vs Rukmani Pattamahdevi 46 IA 109 AIR 1919 PC 1
In our view this argument also does not stand scrutiny
In V Dhanapal Chettiar vs Yesodai Arnrnal  a Constitution Bench of this Court comprising seven learned Judges held that in the matter of determination of tenancy the State Rent Acts do not permit a landlord to snap his relationship with the tenant merely by serving on him a notice to quit as is the position under the Transfer of Property Act
The landlord can recover possession of the property only on one or more of the grounds enacted in the relevant section of the Rent Acts
Even after the termination of the contractual tenancy the landlord under the definitions of landlord and tenant contained in the Rent Acts remains a landlord and a tenant remains a tenant because of the express provision made in the enactments that a tenant means a person contin uing in possession after the termination of the tenancy in his favour 
Yet another important feature of the Rent Acts is that either by way of a non obstante clause or by neces sary implication these enactments have done away with the law contained in section 108 of the Transfer of Property Act dealing with rights and liabilities of the lessor and the lessee
The difference between the position obtaining under the Transfer of Property Act and the Rent Acts in the matter of determination of a lease is that under the former Act in order to recover possession of the leased premises determi nation of the lease is necessary because during the continu ance of the lease the landlord cannot recover possession of the premises while under the Rent Acts the landlord becomes entitled to recover possession only on the fulfilment of the conditions laid down in the relevant sections
He cannot recover possession merely by determining the tenancy
Nor can he be stopped from doing so on the ground that he has not terminated the contractual tenancy
In the case before us we find that the denial of landlord s title by the tenant has been expressly made a ground for eviction under section 102vi of the AP Rent Act which we have already set out earlier
In view of this the entire basis for the argument that the denial of title must be anterior to the proceedings for eviction under the AP Rent 159 Act is knocked out
In our opinion the argument of learned counsel for the appellant must therefore be rejected
We find on the other hand that a number of High Courts have taken the view that even a denial of the landlord s title by a tenant in a written statement in an eviction petition under the Rent Act concerned furnishes a ground for eviction and can be relied upon in the very proceedings in which a written statement containing the denial has been filed See Sada Ram and Others vs Gajjan Shiama AIR 1970 Punjab  Haryana 511 Shiv Parshad vs Smt
Shila Rani AIR 1974 HP 22 and Machavaram Venkata Narayana Rao vs Sarvepalli Nara yana Rao Sarada and another As ob served by the Punjab and Haryana High Court to insist that a denial of title in the written statement cannot be taken advantage of in that suit but can be taken advantage of only in a subsequent suit to be filed by the landlord would only lead to unnecessary multiplicity of legal proceedings as the landlord would be obliged to file a second suit for eject ment of the tenant on the ground of forfeiture entailed by the tenant s denial of his character as a tenant in the written statement
It was submitted by learned counsel for the appellant that in any event the respondent failed to apply for amendment of his plaint and incorporate the ground of denial of title therein as he was bound to do so in order to get relief on that ground which had arisen after the eviction petition was filed
We agree that normally this would have been so but in the present case we find that the Trial Court namely the Rent Controller framed an issue as to whether the tenant s denial of the landlord s title to the schedule property including the said premises was bona fide
The parties went to trial on this clear issue and the appel lant had full knowledge of the ground alleged against him
It was open to him to have objected to the framing of this issue on the ground that it was not alleged in the eviction petition that the appellant had denied the title of the respondent and that the denial of title was bona fide
If he had done that the respondent could have well applied for an amendment of the eviction petition to incorporate that ground
Having failed to raise that contention at that stage it is not open now to the appellant to say that the eviction decree could not be passed against him as the ground of denial of title was not pleaded in the eviction petition
No other argument have been advanced before us
In the result the appeal fails and is dismissal with costs
SKA Appeal dis missed


Summary:
When the foreign vessel MV Vali Pero arrived at the port of Calcutta 10 non Greek seamen on board that ship filed a suit in the admiralty jurisdiction of the Calcutta High Court for recovery of their dues
During the trial depositions of the defendants  witnesses were recorded on commission
Objection was raised on behalf of the plaintiffs to reception in evidence of these depositions on the ground of absence of witness  signature of the deposition as re quired in Rule 4 of chapter XXII of the Calcutta High Court Rules 1914 applicable to the Original Side
The objection was upheld by the learned Single Judge as also by the Divi sion Bench
The learned Single Judge then decreed the suit on the unrebutted evidence of the plaintiffs
One Special Leave Petition has been filed against the judgment of Division Bench affirming the order of the learned Single Judge ex cluding the defendants  evidence
The other Special Leave Petition has been filed against the judgment of the learned Single Judge decreeing the plaintiff s suit after excluding the defendants  entire oral evidence
On behalf of the  appellants it was contended that omission of witness  signature on the deposition recorded by the Commissioner did not invalidate the deposition atleast in a case like the present where the correctness and authen ticity of the deposition was undisputed that in this sense the requirement of the witness  signature on the deposition was not a mandatory requirement that the defect was curable by obtaining the witness  signature even now that the respondents  counsel had admitted the correctness of the depositions and that the respondents had omitted to raise any objection will after the suit was closed for judgment
In reply the respondent relied on the reasons 188 given in the Division Bench s judgment construing the re quirement in Rule 4 as mandatory
It was also urged that the argument of curing the defect by obtaining signatures even now was not advanced in the High Court and should not be permitted at this stage
Allowing the appeals and remanding the suit to the learned Single Judge to be decided afresh this Court HELD 1 The requirement of witness  signature on the deposition in Rule 4 is directory even though the require ment of the deposition being recorded read over to him and corrected wherever necessary is mandatory
Mere omission of the witness  signature on the deposition does not render the deposition invalid when the correctness and authenticity thereof is undisputed
196F 2 The essential requirement of Rule 4 is that the deposition of a witness examined on commission shall be taken down in writing read over and where necessary translated to the witness in order that mistakes or omis sions if any may be rectified or supplied
The mandate in Rule 4 to this extent must be complied strictly in order to ensure a correct record of the deposition
196B C 3 The signature of the witness is not a part of the deposition and apart from acknowledging the correctness of his deposition on the deposition itself it is not essential for any other purpose in this context
196D 4 While the essential requirements of Rule 4 are no doubt mandatory requiring strict compliance the requirement of witness  signature therein is directory of which substan tial compliance is sufficient
196G 5 There is substantial compliance of this directory requirement where the correctness and authenticity of the deposition is undisputed
Compliance can be had of this requirement even by subsequent admission of correctness of the deposition by the witness in case of dispute
196H 197A 6 Under the Code of Civil Procedure a deposition recorded in a Court except that under Order 18 Rule 16 CPC does not require the witness  signature on the deposition
The requirement of signature is not court s assurance since the witness is not examined in court
Ac cordingly it cannot be said reasonably that the omission of witness  189 signature on the deposition renders the deposition incom plete
196E 7 Rules of procedure are not by themselves an end but the means to achieve the ends of justice
Rules of procedure are tools forged to achieve justice and are not hurdles to obstruct the pathway to justice
197B 8 Construction of a rule of procedure which promotes justice and prevents its miscarriage by enabling the court to do justice in myriad situations all of which cannot be envisaged acting within the limits of the permissible construction must be preferred to that which is rigid and negatives the cause of justice
Where the outcome and fair ness of the procedure adopted is not doubted and the essen tials of the prescribed procedure have been followed there is no reason to discard the result simply because certain details which have not prejudicially affected the result have been inadvertently omitted in a particular case
197B C 9 Ordinarily the word shall  used at several places in Rule 4 must be given the same meaning at all places
However it is also settled that this is not an invariable rule and even though the word shall  is ordinarily mandato ry but in the context or if the intention is otherwise it may be construed to be merely directory
In short the construction ultimately depends on the provision itself keeping in view the intendment of the enactment and the context in which the word shall  has been used
197H 198A Ganesh Prasad Sah Desari  Anr
vs Lakshmi Narayan Gupta   Govindlal Chagganlal Patel vs The Agricultural Produce Market Committee Godhra  Ors   referred to