IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Revision No.5938 of 2011 (O&M) Date of decision:18.10.2011 Manmohan Singh r/o House No.150, Sector 11-A, Chandigarh. ....Petitioner versus Dr. (Mrs.) S. Chahal w/o Dr. S.S.Chahal, r/o House No.43-H, Bhai Randhir Singh Nagar, Ludhiana, and another. ....Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Mr. Ashwani Chopra, Senior Advocate, with Ms. Devati Anand, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. Akshay Bhan, Advocate, and Mr. Rajesh Sood, Advocate, and Mr. Alok Mittal, Advocate, for respondent No.1. Ms. Saloni Sharma, Advocate, for respondent No.2. ---- 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ? No. 2. To be referred to the reporters or not ? No. 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest ? No. ---- K.Kannan, J. 1. Two points are taken in civil revision by the tenant whose application for grant of leave to defend in a petition instituted by 'specified landlord' was dismissed: (i) the petitioner before the Rent Controller was not a 'specified landlord', who could invoke the benefit of Section 13-A of the East Punjab Urban Restriction Act, 1949; and (ii) the petition could not have been maintained on the Civil Revision No.5938 of 2011 (O&M) - 2 - averments made in the petition where the petitioner has not conceded that the 2nd respondent in the petition, who is the petitioner herein, was his direct tenant. 2. As regards the first contention that the landlord did not fulfill the requirement of the definition of the “specified landlord”, the counsel argued with reference to Section 2 (hh):- “ 'specified landlord' means a person who is entitled to receive rent in respect of a building on his own account and who is holding or has held an appointment in a public service or post in connection with the affairs of the Union of a State.” The contention of the learned counsel is that the petitioner was only a teacher in a school that obtained government grant and she was not directly in public service. Though elaborate arguments had been made on this aspect, I do not propose to traverse all of it, since the matter is squarely governed by the decision of this Court in Jaspal Singh Versus Gurbax Singh and another-2003(1) Rent Controller Reporter 393, that dealt with the case of a teacher in a private school which was aided and recognized by the Government. The case has been dealt with by this Court by making reference to earlier decisions of this Court as well as of the decisions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court and it has been laid down that the public service which is contemplated under Section 13-A read with Section 2(hh) should be liberally construed. The counsel for the respondent also Civil Revision No.5938 of 2011 (O&M) - 3 - cites before me other decisions of this Court that dealt with similar situations of persons employed under Municipal Committee (Shri Fateh Chand Verma Versus Shri Balbir Singh-1987(1) RCR (Rent) 385), a nationalized bank (Vijay Kumar Bhambari Versus Ram Nath Bajaj-1990 AIR (Punjab) 208, and a Government Company (Harjit Singh Versus M/s Daya Ram Sat Narain-2003(1) PLR 579), that have given expansive meaning to the expression “public service” for understanding the term “specified landlord”. I, therefore, find the petition is perfectly maintainable at the instance of a teacher, who had retired from a private school wholly aided by the Government as falling within the definition of Section 2(hh). 3. A subsidiary contention was made by the petitioner that Section 13-A requires the certificate of the status and the retirement details to be furnished along with the petition, but in this case, it has been filed only subsequent to the petition and before the time of arguments. I will take this to be merely a defect in procedure and does not go into the root of the case. This is only to ensure that a tenant, who has not a right to defend except after obtaining a leave to defend, ought to have definite information even at the time when he is served with notice of the petition filed by the landlord, that the latter is fully competent to invoke the provisions of Section 13-A. If, in this case, before a decision is given by the Court if the certificate has been filed, I would take that to be sufficient compliance of the requirement of Section 13-A of the Act. Civil Revision No.5938 of 2011 (O&M) - 4 - 4. The second serious contention taken by the tenant before this Court is that the definition of 'landlord' and 'tenant' brought through this provision requires that the tenant must be a person, who was claiming directly under the landlord. In this case, the landlord had relied on a rent note that showed that property had been rented out to M/s Kandhari Beverages and the landlord had claimed that the 2nd respondent was a person, who was allowed by the Kandhari Beverages to be in occupation under their permission. According to the learned senior counsel Shri Chopra, the petition was not maintainable since the 2nd respondent in the petition had not been admitted to be a tenant directly under the landlord. This objection is meaningless, for, the tenant himself was claiming that the alleged rent note by the landlord with the 1st respondent was not true, but there was a rent note by the landlord directly in his favour. If the tenant himself was claiming that he was a tenant directly under the landlord, there is no scope for rejecting the landlord's petition. Again, even if the contention were to be that the landlord could evict only the tenant directly under him on the basis of the averments in the petition, then such a tenant, namely, M/s Kandhari Beverages had also been made as a party. A petition for eviction ought to be possible against any tenant directly under the landlord as well as any person claiming under such a tenant. Otherwise, it will lead to absurd consequences of the tenant deliberately putting the property in the hands of some other person to defeat the landlord a right of Civil Revision No.5938 of 2011 (O&M) - 5 - action under Section 13-A. So long as the person claimed by the landlord to be his tenant as well as the person alleged by the landlord to be claiming under such a tenant were both parties in the petition, the maintainability of the petition cannot be doubted at all. 5. The 2nd respondent M/s Kandhari Beverages is also represented through counsel and the counsel admits the status as a tenant and has no objection for the petition being allowed. The counsel for the revision petitioner contends that M/s Kandhari Beverages is acting in collusion, but it is still irrelevant if the petitioner himself had been allowed to state his defence and there remains nothing in his favour to allow him the opportunity of taking a defence by a written statement. 6. The rejection of the petition for leave to sue was perfectly justified, for, there is no scope to allow the liberty of a full-fledged trial. The order of the Rent Controller is confirmed and the civil revision is dismissed. (K. KANNAN) JUDGE 18.10.2011 sanjeev