Civil Revision No.3189 of 2009 -1- **** IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Revision No.3189 of 2009 Date of decision : 11.1.2010 Kapal Kumar Khanna ....Petitioner Versus Janak Raj ...Respondent **** CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE S. D. ANAND Present: Mr. B.R.Mahajan, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. Sudeep Mahajan, Advocate for the respondent. S. D. ANAND, J. The respondent-land lord applied for ejectment of the petitioner-tenant on an averment that the latter was in arrears of rent and house tax and that the former requires the premises for his own use and occupation. Issues no.1 and 2, which pertained to the validity of the tender made on the first date of hearing and liability of petitioner to pay house tax at the rate of 15% of the rental value, were not pressed at the time of arguments before the learned Trial Court which (Court) upheld the plea by the respondent-land lord that he requires the premises for his own use and occupation. The finding on point of bonafide requirement was upheld by the learned Appellate Court. The petitioner-tenant is in revision against the ejectment direction. Learned counsel, appearing on behalf of the petitioner, argues that there is nothing bonafide in the request of the respondent-land lord because he is aged about 70 years and he would not just be in a position Civil Revision No.3189 of 2009 -2- **** to run any business at Amritsar. It is also argued that want of bonafides on the part of the respondent-land lord in the context is further evident from the fact that he does not own any residential house in Amritsar and it would be illogical to except that a person not having a residential house at Amritsar would be able to run a business over there. In the course of the petition, the respondent-land lord had made a precise averment that he does not own and possess any other non-residential building in the urban area of Amritsar and that he had also not vacated any such building in the urban area of Amritsar within the statutory period. It is in evidence that the respondent-land lord had been putting up with his son Naresh Kumar and his family. Naresh Kumar aforementioned died. Thereafter, the house where the respondent-land lord and other indicated above had been residing was sold by the widow of Naresh Kumar and all of them shifted to house No.152, Lajpat Nagar, Noorwala Road, Ludhiana which is owned by wife and children of Naresh Kumar. A period of estrangement between the respondent-land lord and his daughter-in-law followed and the latter also served a legal notice upon the former requiring him to vacate the premises aforementioned. It was under those circumstances that the respondent-land lord applied for the ejectment of the petitioner-tenant from the shop under reference for his bonafide requirement in order to able to earn his own living. It is neither here nor there for the petitioner-tenant to argue that plea of bonafides of necessity raised by the respondent-land lord is a farce and that the issuance of a legal notice by the wife of Naresh Kumar is a forged affair. It is a pure and simple case where the respondent-land lord wants to run his own business in the shop in dispute owned by him. It is in evidence that he had earlier been running a Kiryana business at Civil Revision No.3189 of 2009 -3- **** Zafarwal, District Gurdaspur, for the period upto 1984. It was in that year he shifted to Ludhiana to reside with Naresh Kumar. Though there is evidence on the file that he has another son at Ludhiana but there is no law which would require the respondent-land lord to compulsively reside with that son of his, even though there can be no dispute that there is no evidence of estrangement between him and his other son. There is plethora of law on the point that a land lord is the best judge of deciding his requirement unless, ofcourse, there is proven material on record to indicate that a false pretense of personal requirement is being raised. The present is a pure and simple case where the landlord has lost one son of his and his relations with wife of the deceased son have become strained to an extent that she has served a legal notice upon him to vacate the premises where he was putting up with her and his family. There was nothing unnatural on the part of the respondent-land lord in deciding not to put up with his other son even though there is no evidence to prove any estrangement between them. He is well within his right to get the premises under reference vacated for his bonafide requirement. The mere fact that he is aged about 70 years would be no bar to the allowance of the request. I find that the Rent Controller and also the learned Appellate Authority had recorded a well reasoned concurrent finding which does not call for any interference. The petition shall stand dismissed. However, the petitioner- tenant is given one month time from today to vacate the premises under reference. January 11,2010 (S. D. ANAND) Pka JUDGE