Case: Molar Mal Vs. Ms. Kay Iron Works (P) Ltd

had filed an eviction petition before the Court of Rent Controller, Jagadhri in the year 1979 seeking eviction of the appellant herein from the petition scheduled land situated on Jagadhri Road, Yamuna Nagar and under Section 13 of the Haryana Urban (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1973 (hereinafter referred to as `the Act) claiming that the petition scheduled land is required by it for its personal use and occupation. As required under that Act it also contended that it is not occupying in the urban area of Yamuna Nagar any other rented land for the purpose of its business not it has vacated any such rented land without sufficient cause after the commencement of the Act. It also alleged in the said petition that the premises already in its possession are not sufficient for its requirementt opposed the said petition on a number of grounds, primarily on the ground that the petition scheduled premises was not a rented land but was a building as contemplated under the Act and he also alleged that the landlord had not given material particulars in regard to its requirement of additional space. By an amendment of his objection, the tenant further pleaded that the landlord had filed several other applications against other tenants alleging personal requirement and during the pendency of the eviction petition in question, it had obtained possession of building and land from three other tenants, hence, the landlords claim for his eviction is not bona fide. In its rejoinder petition, the landlord admitted that it had obtained possession of three premises through eviction proceedings and the same along with petition scheduled land was required for its extension of coal yard, the foundry and for storage of foundry material like sand, earth, fire wood,3. Trial Court accepted the case of the landlord and ordered eviction of the appellant4. In appeal, the Appellate Authority remanded the matter back to the Rent Controller for a fresh decision. This order of remand came to be challenged before the High Court and the High Court was pleased to accept this challenge and directed the appellate court tor and decide the appeal itself. It, however, restricted the scope ofg to be confined to Issue Nos. 3 and 4A only. On remand the Appellate Authority allowed the appeal of the tenant and decided the said issues in favour of the tenant. Being aggrieved by the order of the Appellate Authority, the landlord preferred a revision petition before the High Court which came to be allowed in favour of the landlord by the judgment of the High Court pronounced on 26th of May, 1998. The tenant preferred a review petition before the High Court alleging certain specific omission in the judgment of the High Court and the said review petition being dismissed by an order of the High Court dated 3rd of July, 1998, the tenant has preferred the above noted civil appealIn the instant case, we are not convinced that the High Court has exceeded in its jurisdiction while allowing the revision of the landlord on this count. Therefore, this question urged on behalf of the appellant is also rejected.

Reasoning: 7. We are not inclined to accept the first two points raised on behalf of the appellant before us. It is true in the original eviction petition all the material particulars of the requirement of the landlord were not mentioned in detail, but then in the rejoinder application all the necessary particulars are given by the landlord, notice of which the appellant had and the original authority had struck a proper issue on this question and parties understood each others case and led evidence on this issue, though Rule 4 of the Rules does require the landlord to give material particulars, this Court has held with reference to the same rule in the case of Ms. Rubber House v. Ms. Excelsior Needle Industries Pvt. Ltd., 1989(2) SCC 413 : 1989(2) RCR 530 (SC) that the said rule is not mandatory and is only directory. Therefore, the fact that the landlord did not give all the material particulars of his requirement in the first instance cannot be made a ground for rejection of the application. Similarly, we are of the opinion, on the facts and circumstances of this case, the argument of the tenant that the High Court exceeded in its jurisdiction by interfering on a finding of fact arrived at by the Appellate Authority is also to be rejectedIn the instant case, we are not convinced that the High Court has exceeded in its jurisdiction while allowing the revision of the landlord on this count. Therefore, this question urged on behalf of the appellant is also rejected8. This leaves us to consider the third point raised on behalf of the appellant10. Based on this proviso and relying upon the fact that before the eviction was ordered in this case, the landlord had obtained possession of three other rented lands through eviction petitions filed under Section 13(3)(b) of the Act, it is contended, by virtue of the above proviso, that the landlord is statutorily prevented from seeking eviction of the appellant from the tenanted land. Opposing this contention, the landlord raised a preliminary object that this objection was not specifically raised before the courts below. Therefore, the11. We will first deal with the above objection of the landlord in regard to permitting thes to raise this question before us. It is true that in the written statement originally filed, the tenant did not raise this specific contentionIt is true that in spite of these pleadings, may be because of the fact that the tenant did not specifically invoke the proviso to Section 13(3)(b), no issue was raised by the Rent Controller. Hence, the trial court did not advert to this question. Before the appellate authority, however, the tenant raised this specific objection which came to be rejected on the ground that these evictions were obtained after filing of the instant eviction petition, consequently, the proviso in question did not apply to the facts of the caseIn this background, we are convinced that the tenant did not raise this question before the courts below which ought to have been considered by the courts below. Therefore, we deem it appropriate that the tenant be permitted to raise this questionNow the question is whether the bar under the proviso is applicable only to the filing of an application or is it a bar on the right of the landlord. If the interpretation suggested by the landlord is accepted then the bar will be on the application by the landlord and not on his right to evict. This, in our opinion, will not be the correct interpretation of the proviso. A careful perusal of the various provisos found inn (3) of Section 13 of the Act clearly shows that the Legislature intended to further restrict the right of a landlord to seek eviction under the clauses mentioned in thatn apart from the restrictions imposed in Section 13 of the Act. For example, if the landlord is seeking eviction of a tenant on the ground that the same is required for the use of his son then, in view of the proviso applicable to that, he can seek eviction of the premises only once. Similarly, if the landlord is seeking eviction for his own occupation under Section 13(3)(b) of the Act then by virtue of the proviso applicable to that, the landlord can seek such eviction only once in regard to the premises of the same nature. Therefore, in our opinion, the bar imposed by the proviso is in fact a bar on the right of the landlord to seek actual eviction and not confined to the filing of the application for evictionWe agree with this contention of the landlord that normally the courts will have to follow the rule of literal construction which rule enjoins the court to take the words as used by the Legislature and to give it the meaning which naturally implies. But, there is an exception to this rule. That exception comes into play when application of literal construction of the words in the Statute leads to absurdity, inconsistency or when it is shown that the legal context in which the words are used or by reading the Statute as a whole, it requires a different meaning. In our opinion, if the expression entitled to apply again is given its literal meaning, it would defeat the very object for which the Legislature has incorporated that proviso in the Act inasmuch as the object of that proviso can be defeated by a landlord who has more than one tenanted premises by filing multiple applications simultaneously for eviction and thereafter obtain possession of all those premises without the bar of the proviso being applicable to him. We are of the opinion that this could not have been the purpose for which the proviso is included in the Act. If such an interpretation is given then the various provisos found in clause (3) of Section 13 would become otiose and the very object of the enactment would be defeated. Any such interpretation, in our opinion would lead to absurdity. Therefore, we have no hesitation in interpreting the proviso to mean that the restriction contemplated the proviso to mean that the restriction contemplated under that proviso extends even up to the stage when the court or the tribunal is considering the case of the landlord for actual eviction and is not confined to the stage of filing of eviction petition onlyd two judgments of the High Court, it is contended that the landlord in the instant case is seeking eviction of a part of the premises owned by it which is leased to the present appellant. Eviction of the three other tenants referred to herein above was from the premises which are parts of the same premises, therefore, in view of the above judgment the bar under the proviso is not applicable. We find it difficult to accept this argument of the landlord also. From the language of the proviso we do not find any support for this argument of the appellant or to the conclusions arrived at by the High Court in thed judgments. The proviso does not make any such distinction between a landlord seeking possession of the premises held by more than one tenant occupying the same building or the tenants occupying different independent buildings under the same landlord. As we have observed, the object of the proviso like any other provisions of the Act, is to further restrict the right of the landlord to seek eviction, if that be so, we do not find any justification in reading into the proviso something as conferring a larger right on the landlord to evict more than one tenant if those tenants are occupying different parts of the same premises. Therefore, we are of the opinion that the view expressed by the High Court in the above referred case does not lay down the correct law. Consequently, the argument of the landlord based on the said judgment is also rejected15. It is next contended on behalf of the landlord that the decisions cited above have stood the test of time since 1978 onwards, if not earlier, because of which the law is so understood in that part of the country, therefore, we should not interfere with the ratio laid down by the High Court of Punjab & Haryana in those cases so as not to create uncertainty in judicial thinking. We are unable to accept this argument advanced on behalf of the landlord. When we find that the interpretation of the proviso by the High Court is wholly contrary to the object of the Statute, merely because it had remained to be the interpretation of the High Court for a considerable length of time, the same cannot be permitted to continue to be so when it is erroneous and it is so brought to our notice. We will be failing in our duty if we do not declare an erroneous interpretation of law by the High Court to be so, solely on the ground that it has stood the test of time. Since, in our opinion, in regard to the interpretation of the above proviso, no two views are possible, we are constrained to hold that the law declared by the Punjab & Haryana High Court with reference to the proviso is not the correct interpretation and hold that the said judgment is no more a good law. On behalf of the landlord, another argument based on equity was addressed before us giving various examples of the hardship that could be caused to the landlords by the interpretation we have now given to the said proviso. We do not find that the proviso, as interpreted by us, may cause some hardship to the landlords in some cases but that is the intention of the Legislature which the courts have to take to its logical end so long as it remains in the Statute book. Merely because a law causes hardship, it cannot be interpreted in a manner so as to defeat its object. We may notice at this stage that constitutional validity of the proviso is not in challenge before us, therefore, we will have to proceed on the footing that the proviso, as it stands, is intra vires and interpret the same as such16. This leaves us to consider the last argument of the landlord that the applicability of this proviso being a mixed question of law and fact and there being no issues before the courts below, the same cannot be applied in abstract. We see force in this contention before refusing eviction based on the ground of the bar imposed by the proviso. The Court will have to come to the conclusion that the premisesland eviction whereof has been obtained by the landlord, belong to the same class of building or tenanted land. This finding of the Court will be dependent upon the facts which are not available on records of this case. The absence of this evidence will cause prejudice to the landlord if the said question is to be decided in these appeals. Though in the earlier part of this judgment, we have held that the parties in this case have pleaded the facts necessary for invoking the proviso, still since no issue has been framed on this point, the parties have not led evidence in regard to the nature of the buildingland. Therefore, we agree with the argument of the landlord that in order to apply the proviso, certain factual matrix has to be established absence of which, in appropriate cases, might necessitate a remand to the trial court. On the peculiar facts of this case and taking into consideration the fact that this litigation has been going on since 1979 and there has already been one remand from the High Court to the appellate authority, we find it just and proper that we frame the following issue in regard to this point and remit the case to the trial court for the purpose of recording evidence and its decision :Does the respondent prove that the applicant has obtained possession of other residential building or rented land of the same class under the provisions of Clause (b) of Section 13(3) of the Act so as to disentitle it to obtain possession of the petition scheduled premises ?