Case: Jangbir Vs. Mahavir Prasad Gupta

Jangbir, appellant, is a tenant of a room in a house which was purchased by the respondent Mahavir Prasad Gupta on 15th May, 1956, for Rs. 1930/- shown in his sale deed as situated in "Khasra No. 203, Khewat No. 1, situated at Village Chowkri Mubarkabad, Delhi Province, within the abadi of Onkar Nagar-II". The landlord owner had filed a suit for the ejectment of the appellant and for recovery 9f rent which was dismissed by a Subordinate Judge of Delhi on 26th May, 1966 on the ground that the jurisdiction of the Civil Court was barred bythe Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958, (hereinafter referred to as the Act) which provided the only modes of relief for aggrieved landlords by proceeding under therespondent landlord had alleged that the suit lay in the ordinary Civil Court and that it was governed by the provisions of the Transfer of Property Act inasmuch as the house, in which the appellant was the tenant of a room, fell outside the area to which the Act wasshort question on which the case was decided was whether the house of the respondent was situated in an area to which the Act had been applied by a notification under Section 507(a) ofthe Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957, dated 7th January, 1960. published in the Delhi Gazette on 17th January, 1960 read with the notification dated 12th April, 1962 under Section 1, sub. s. (2) of the Act. published in the Gazette of India on 21st April, 1962.The operative part of the notification of the Delhi Administration reads asF. 9/5/ 59-R&--In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (a) of Section 507 ofthe Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957 (66 of 1957), the Corporation with the previous approval of the Central Government hereby declares that the following localities mentioned in the Schedule given below, hitherto forming part of the rural areas, shall cease to be rural area".Thereafter, was given a schedule and then came the heading: "Shahdara Zone". The schedule has 5 columns. The first is for the "Serial No." The second is for the name of the "Revenue estate", which is translation of Mauza, said to be an area composed of several villages. The third column is for the name of the actual village or colony of the Mauza. It is headed "Name of Colony Village pro- posed to be included in the urban area". The fourth column is for what is called the "square number". The last and the fifth column was headed: "Khasra/ Killa Nos. covered by the Colony/Villages". We are. concerned here with serial No. 7 which has the entries indicated below made under the appropriate number of each column:"1. No. 7.2. Chowkri Mubarakabad.3. Onkar Nagar Lekhu Pura.4. Square No. Not given.5. Across "Onkar Nagar" are shown: "238, 242, 240, 234, 235, 236, 23 4, 231, 230 and 271"; and, across "Lekhu Pura" are shown: " 215 to 217, 211, 212, 199 to 203".The notification published in the Gazette of India on 21st April, 1962, may be reproduced in toto. It reads:"New Delhi, the 12th April, 1962.G.S.R. No. 486--In exercise of powers conferred by the proviso to sub-section (2) of Section 1 ofthe Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958 (59 of 1958), the Central Government hereby extends all the provisions of the said Act:--(a) to the areas which immediately before the 7th April, 1958, were included in the Notified Area Committee, Najafgarh and the Notified Area Commit- tee, Narela; and(b) to the localties mentioned in the schedule to the notification of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi No. F-9/5/59-R&, dated the 28th December, 1959, published in the Delhi Gazette Part IV, dated the 7th January, 1960, and which by virtue of that notification have formed part of the urban areas within the limits of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.(No. 35/8/61-Delhi-I)A.V. Venkatasubban, DeputySubordinate Judge, very rightly observed that there was no dispute between the parties that Mauza Chowkri Mubarakabad was included. within the limits of Delhi Municipal Corporation by the notification dated 7th January, 1960. He pointed out that there was no indication of a sub-division of Khasra No. 203 showing that any part of it was divided or separately numbered.The disappointed plaintiff landlord was, how ever, not content with so obviously correct a finding. He appealed to the District Judge who agreed entirely with the Trial Court and also recorded a finding of fact that Khasra No. 203, situated in the Mauza or Revenue Estate of Chowkri Mubarakabad, was covered by the notifications. It seems to us that no other inference was reasonablyplaintiff respondent seems, in a gambling spirit, to have decided to try hi s luck by a second appeal to the High Court. What surprises us is that a learned Judge of the Delhi High Court, without considering the objects of the notifications or discussing any principle of construction of documents which could indicate that a point of law had really arisen for decision before him, decided to set aside the concurrent findings of fact, and, thereby, patently exceeded the jurisdiction of the High Court under Section 100 Civil Procedure Code.

Court's reasoning:
Thus, we find the provisions of Section 1 (2) of the Act as well as of Section 507(a) and (b) of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act refer only to "areas" and not to mere Khasra Nos. which are convenient divisions for the purposes of indicating what lay within each area. The Khasra is often spoken of as the "village map". Khasra for "abadi" areas even indicate. the type of construction which may lie within a particular number or the use to which a piece of land was being put. The term "urban area" or "rural area" is used for much larger units than Khasra Nos. It would, obviously, be quite impossible to think of one particular number, within an "abadi" area, left out or dropped deliberately, without any rhyme or reason, from the notifications mentioned above. No conceivable reason has been suggested for such an omission. Indeed, there is not even an omission the effect of which may have been helpful to the appellant. It was only a case where the whole number is shown against one village only instead of being shown against two.The learned High Court Judge, by basing his whole judgment on a farfetched conjecture from supposed omission of No. 203 in column 5, against Onkar Nagar, adopted a construction of the Notification, if that is what the learned Judge was doing, which was quite unintelligible with reference to the facts of the case or purposes of such notifications. The learned Judge would have been well advised to rest content with the obviously correct position that what the two Courts below had done was to arrive at a pure finding of fact as to whether a particular Khasra number containing the house in question was included within a Mauza to the whole of which the provisions of the Act had been plainly extended. In view of all the facts of the case, no other conclusion was reasonably possible.