IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Revision No.4414 of 2008 Date of decision:02.03.2009 Sarwan Singh ...Petitioner versus M/s Rulia Mal Amar Chand and another ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K.KANNAN Present: Mr.Amit Rawal, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr.J.M.Aggarwal, Advocate for the respondents. 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ? 2. To be referred to the reporters or not ? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest ? K.Kannan, J.(Oral) 1. The landlord faced with leave to defend granted to a tenant is in revision. 2. The tenant raised the contention that the landlord was co-owner with reference to another building in Door No.998 with his brother and therefore, the petition was not maintainable. The Rent Controller found that the question of bona fides was to be tested on a factual admission that there existed another building, which an acquisition made jointly in the year 1964 and property being held in co-ownership, there was triable issue. 3. Section 13-B (2) of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 reads as follows :- “Where the owner referred to in sub-section (1), has let out more than one residential building or scheduled building and/or non-residential building, it shall be open to him or her to make an application under that sub-section in Civil Revision No.4414 of 2008 - 2 - respect of only one residential building or one scheduled building and/or one non-residential building, each chosen by him or her.” 4. From the reading of the sub-section, it is clear that the landlord seeking for eviction under this provision can seek for ejectment of only one such building. The mere fact that the landlord has yet another property in co-ownership cannot constitute a bar under the sub- section. There could be instances where the issue whether yet another building is owned by the landlord or not and whether he had prayed for eviction with reference to yet another building also was true or not. If the landlord is in possession of yet another building or the fact that he had not taken action for eviction with reference to another building, would be matters that would be relevant and afford a ground for leave to defend, if the availability of another building and the action taken with reference to another building is put in dispute. In this case, it has been explained by the landlord that yet another property of which he was the co-owner has fallen to share of his brother and he had also taken independent action for eviction in respect of the other building. A landlord could seek for ejectment in respect of the building of he is admittedly the landlord. The problem could be also visualized from another standpoint that if the contention of the tenant is to be accepted that co-owners of properties in respect of several buildings could not apply for eviction even in respect of one building, then it would mean that a landlord owning some other property in co-ownership would be dis-entitled to apply for evication. This interpretation would run Civil Revision No.4414 of 2008 - 3 - counter to the sub-section referred to above. The defence which was taken by the tenant is a moon-shine and there is no possibility of any triable issue. 5. The order of the Rent Controller under such circumstances is set aside and the Civil Revision is allowed in the above terms. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 02.03.2009 sanjeev