Case: Udai Chand Vs. Shanker Lal & Others

BEG, C.J. 1. The plaintiff landlord had purchased a shop by a sale deed dated 17th May, 1965, and then terminated the tenancy of the defendant-petitioner by a registered notice in July, 1965, coupled with a demand for arrears of rent. Upon the failure of defendant to comply with the notice to quit a suit was filed against the defendant-petitioner on 23rd November, 1965. During the pendency of that suit the Rajasthan Premises (Control of Rent & Eviction) Act, 1950, was made applicable by a notification dated 30th March, 1967, to Rajgarh town where, the shop is situated. 2. The defendant petitioner had denied having executed any rent note in favour of Bhurdas, the predecessor-in-interest of the plaintiff landlord who had also notified the defendant petitioner of the sale in favour of the plaintiff by a registered notice dated 25th June, 1965, received by the defendant petitioner on 29th June, 1965. The defendant petitioner pleaded having taken the shop from another individual. Mahant Ram Ratan Das. 3. In the course of litigation, the defendant-petitioner had asked for an issue to be framed on the, question whether there was legal necessity for the transfer in favour of the plaintiff. In other words, he had questioned, at that stage, the legality of transfer in favour of the plaintiff on the ground of. want of title in the plaintiffs predecessor-in-interest and also on the ground that the sale deed was invalid. The High Court had, however, on a revision application preferred by the defendant-petitioner rejected the demand of the tenant for framing of an issue on the question whether there was legal necessity for the transaction. The ground for this rejection was that, as the defendant petitioner had obtained possess ion under a tenancy from Bhurdas, the predecessor-in-interest of the present landlord, Surajmal, the defendant petitioner Udai Chand, was estopped from questioning the title of his landlord by reason of the principle laid down in Section 116 of the Evidence Act.Ultimately, upon the decree for eviction, the defendant petitioner had again challenged the view that he Was estopped from questioning the title of Bhurdas. On this question the learned judge who heard the second appeal in the High Court observed:"I would like to mention here that the learned- Counsel for the appellant did not challenge the correctness of the finding that the rent notes Ex. 8 and Ex. 10 were executed by the defendant in favour of Bhurdas. The learned Counsel for the appellant also did not challenge the genuineness of the sale deed dated May 17, 1965 executed by Bhurdas in favour of Surajmal". 4. The High Court then quoted the recitals of Ex. 10 showing that the defendant had admitted that the shop was owned by Bhurdas to whom he would pay rent. The defendant- petitioners second appeal was, therefore, dismissed by the High Court. The defendant-petitioner then filed a special leave petition in this Court under Article 136. Ground No. 7 of the grounds of special leave petition was:"That the Honble Court should have appreciated that the rent note Ext. 10 nowhere states that Bhoordas was the owner of the house and hence the inference of the Honble Judge that the petitioner had admitted t hat Bhoordas was the owner of the shop, is not correct and hence the judgment under appeal deserves to be set aside".

Decision reasoning: 1[ds]We are const rained to observe that the tendency to file appeals in hopeless cases only to gain time and ward off eviction has assumed alarming proportions. We cannot mitigate possible rigours of any law by permitting defaulting tenants to hold up their evictions indefinitely or for inordinately long periods on flimsy or unsustainable grounds. We cannot permit abuses of the process of law and of law Courts. Accordingly, we allow this application for revocation of special leave. We hereby revoke the special leave granted and reject the special leave petition. We also vacate the stay granted. The application for urging additional grounds is rejected.