Kiron Sethi vs Charanjeet Singh

Court
Delhi High Court

$~3
* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
Date of decision: 15.10.2026
# CNR No. DLHC010097052023
+ RC.REV. 85/2023 & CM APPL. 13596/2023 (Stay)
KIRON SETHI .....Petitioner
Through: Mr. Sunil Chauhan, Advocate
through Video Conferencing.

versus

CHARANJEET SINGH .....Respondent
Through: Mr. Alankar Tewari, Advocate.

CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE HARISH VAIDYANATHAN
SHANKAR

% JUDGEMENT (Oral)

1. The present Petition has been filed under Section 25B(8) of the
1
Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958 , assailing the judgement and order
2
dated 24.12.2022 passed by the learned Senior Civil Judge – Rent
3
Controller, South East District, Saket , whereby the application
seeking leave to defend filed by the Petitioner herein was dismissed by
the learned RC and an eviction order came to be passed against the
Petitioner and in favour of the Respondent herein.
2. Learned counsel appearing for the Petitioner would confine his
challenge to the Impugned Order on two grounds:
I. The Eviction Petition filed before the learned RC was not
maintainable since the Petitioner and his father were not

1
DRC Act
2
Impugned Judgement
3
Learned RC
Signature Not Verified
Digitally Signed
By:HARVINDER KAUR
BHATIA
Signing Date:24.10.2026
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RC.REV. 85/2023 Page 1 of 12

impleaded as parties and only M/s Madan Sarup Kiran Sarup, a
non-entity, was made a party to the said proceedings.
II. Secondly, on a demurrer, assuming that M/s Madan
Sarup Kiran Sarup was a legal entity, upon the death of Mr.
Madan Sarup, who was presumed by the learned RC to be one
of the proprietors, his legal heir out to have been impleaded
and, in whose absence, the Eviction Petition could not have
been decided and should have been abated.
3. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the Respondent, while
drawing sustenance from the Impugned Order, would submit that the
grounds sought to be urged before this Court were already raised
before the learned RC and the same were considered and adjudicated
upon. He would submit that there is no infirmity in the Impugned
Order and there arises no occasion for this Court to interfere with the
Impugned Order.

4. It is apposite to note herein that no further grounds were urged
by the parties and were only confined to the grounds recorded
hereinabove.
ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSION:
5. This Court has heard learned counsel for the parties and, with
their able assistance, perused the material on record along with the
Impugned Judgement.
6. Before proceeding to examine the grounds of challenge urged
on behalf of the Petitioner, it would be apposite to advert to the scope
and ambit of the revisional jurisdiction vested in this Court under the
proviso to Section 25B(8) of the DRC Act.
7. The contours of the aforesaid jurisdiction are well settled. The
Hon’ble Supreme Court, in S arla Ahuja v. United India Insurance
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By:HARVINDER KAUR
BHATIA
Signing Date:24.10.2026
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RC.REV. 85/2023 Page 2 of 12

4
Co. Ltd. , Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. v. Dilbahar
5 6
Singh , and, more recently, in Abid-Ul-Islam v. Inder Sain Dua , has
consistently held that the jurisdiction exercised by the High Court
under the proviso to Section 25B(8) of the DRC Act is supervisory
and revisional in character and cannot be equated with the exercise of
appellate jurisdiction.
8. The aforesaid principles have also been reiterated and relied
upon by Coordinate Benches of this Court, inter alia , in Pankaj
7
Pahwa v. Prem Wati & Ors. , and Sanjeev Hiranandani v. Sunny
8
Grover .
9. In Abid-Ul-Islam (supra), the Hon’ble Supreme Court, while
elucidating the legislative intent underlying Section 25(B) of the DRC
Act, observed that the omission of an appellate remedy against an
Order passed by the learned Rent Controller is conscious and
deliberate. The jurisdiction conferred upon the High Court is,
therefore, one of superintendence over the decision-making process,
including the legality and propriety thereof, and does not permit the
High Court to substitute its own view for that of the learned Rent
Controller merely because another view on the material available on
record may be possible. The relevant observations of the Hon’ble
Supreme Court read as under:
“ 23. The proviso to Section 25-B(8) gives the High Court exclusive
power of revision against an order of the learned Rent Controller,
being in the nature of superintendence over an inferior court on the
decision-making process, inclusive of procedural compliance.
Thus, the High Court is not expected to substitute and supplant its
views with that of the trial court by exercising the appellate

4
(1998) 8 SCC 119
5
(2014) 9 SCC 78
6
(2022) 6 SCC 30
7
2024:DHC:9322
8
2025:DHC:11285
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By:HARVINDER KAUR
BHATIA
Signing Date:24.10.2026
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RC.REV. 85/2023 Page 3 of 12

jurisdiction. Its role is to satisfy itself on the process adopted. The
scope of interference by the High Court is very restrictive and
except in cases where there is an error apparent on the face of the
record, which would only mean that in the absence of any
adjudication per se, the High Court should not venture to disturb
such a decision. There is no need for holding a roving inquiry in
such matters which would otherwise amount to converting the
power of superintendence into that of a regular first appeal, an act,
totally forbidden by the legislature.”

10. In Pankaj Pahwa (supra) , a Coordinate Bench of this Court,
upon considering the principles enunciated in Abid-Ul-Islam (supra) ,
reiterated that the jurisdiction exercised by this Court under the
proviso to Section 25B(8) of the DRC Act is limited in scope and that
this Court is not expected to substitute or supplant its view for that of
the learned RC. The revisional scrutiny is confined to examining the
decision-making process and determining whether the Impugned
Order suffers from an error apparent on the face of the record or an
absence of adjudication warranting interference.
11. In view of the foregoing discussion, the position which emerges
is that, while exercising jurisdiction under the proviso to Section
25B(8) of the DRC Act, this Court is neither required nor permitted to
undertake a fresh appreciation of the material on record with a view to
arrive at an independent conclusion on the merits of the dispute.
Interference would be warranted only where the Impugned Judgment
suffers from a jurisdictional error, manifest illegality, material
irregularity or perversity, or where the conclusion arrived at by the
learned RC is wholly unreasonable or founded upon an erroneous
premise of law. Equally, where a material plea has been left
unconsidered, or the decision-making process otherwise discloses an
error apparent on the face of the record, exercise of revisional
jurisdiction may be warranted.
Signature Not Verified
Digitally Signed
By:HARVINDER KAUR
BHATIA
Signing Date:24.10.2026
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RC.REV. 85/2023 Page 4 of 12

12. It is within the aforesaid limited parameters of revisional
scrutiny that the grounds urged by the learned counsel on behalf of the
Petitioner against the Impugned Order are required to be examined.
13. At this juncture, this Court deems it appropriate to extract the
relevant findings rendered by the learned RC, which read as under:
“13. It has been vaguely stated by the respondent in one paragraphs
of his affidavit that the present petition is not maintainable as it has
been filed against a non-entity. No elaboration has been given by
the respondent as to who should have been the respondent in the
present petition, instead of M/s. Madan Saroop Kiran Saroop. The
same has been elaborated by the respondent in the written
arguments filed on his behalf. In the said written arguments, the
respondent has claimed that the tenancy was given to two persons
as co-tenants in the demised premises i.e. Madan Saroop and Kiran
Saroop. It is further stated that both the co-tenants had signed on
the first rent agreement and therefore, there was joint tenancy in
favour of both the tenants for the demised premises. It is further
stated that during the present proceedings, co-tenant Madan Saroop
expired, but the petitioner did not take any appropriate steps for
impleadment of legal heirs of the said co-tenant and thus, the
petition has abated. Firstly, the argument qua abatement of the
present petition cannot be looked into as the same is not part of the
application seeking leave to defend. No ground can be permitted to
be taken by the respondent, which has not been pleaded in the
application seeking leave to defend. Secondly, the said argument of
abatement cannot be looked into as part of “subsequent event”
exception as laid down in judgment Punjab Stainless Steel House
& Another vs. Sangeeta Kedia” 2014 (145) DRJ 250. because the
respondent never filed any application to bring any subsequent
event on record. Furthermore, the question of the petition abating
on death of a tenant, would arise only when the respondent had
initially pleaded in his application seeking leave to defend that the
tenancy in the present case is not a case of single tenancy but of
joint tenancy. There is no pleading to the effect of claiming joint
tenancy of two co-tenants in the same demised premises in the
application seeking leave to defend. Thus, for this reason, the
elaboration provided in the written arguments to para no. 7 of
affidavit of respondent cannot be looked into at this stage of
deciding the application seeking leave to defend, being devoid of
specific pleading in the application seeking leave to defend.
14. Furthermore, perusal of the rent agreement of the year 1973
shows that the said rent agreement is between the landlords and
M/s Madan Saroop Kiran Saroop described as a tenant.
Notwithstanding the fact that two persons namely Madan Saroop
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By:HARVINDER KAUR
BHATIA
Signing Date:24.10.2026
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RC.REV. 85/2023 Page 5 of 12

and Kiran Saroop signed on the said rent agreement on behalf of
the tenant, the agreement was executed only in name of the
respondent, whereby implicitly representing to the landlord that the
tenancy is created in favour of the name of business being carried
out by the signatories to the said agreement. Thus, the document
shows that the landlord had agreed only to create a single tenancy
in favour of business being carried out by the signatories to the said
agreement and not joint tenancy in the name of co-tenants, being
signatories to the said agreement. Thus, the petitioner filed this
petition against the respondent, in whose favour single tenancy was
created and who was described as tenant in the said rent agreement
of the year 1973. It is the person or persons running their business
in the name of respondent, who can defend the present petition
against the claim of the petitioner, but it is not for the petitioner to
look into identities of the persons running their business in the
name of the respondent, specifically claimed as tenant in rent
agreement of the year 1973. Thus, it cannot be said that the present
petition is not maintainable on account of the tenancy being a joint
tenancy and not a single tenancy.”

(emphasis supplied)

14. Upon a perusal of the relevant extract of the Impugned Order
as well as the material on record, this Court is of the view that the
challenge raised by the Petitioner is essentially twofold: first, that the
Eviction Petition was instituted against a non-entity, namely, M/s
Madan Sarup Kiran Sarup, and was, therefore, not maintainable; and
second, that even assuming the said concern to be a legal entity, upon
the demise of Mr. Madan Sarup, his legal heirs were required to be
impleaded, failing which the Eviction Petition was liable to abate.
Neither of the aforesaid grounds, in the facts and circumstances of the
present case, warrants interference by this Court in the exercise of its
limited revisional jurisdiction.
15. At the outset, it is pertinent to note that the learned RC has
examined the aforesaid objections in the context of the rent agreement
executed in the year 1973, which admittedly described M/s Madan
Sarup Kiran Sarup as the tenant in the demised premises. The learned
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BHATIA
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RC has observed that, notwithstanding the fact that two individuals,
namely, Mr. Madan Sarup and Mr. Kiran Sarup, had signed the said
agreement on behalf of the tenant, the tenancy itself was created in the
name of the business concern and not independently in the names of
the two individuals as joint tenants. The aforesaid conclusion has been
drawn from the document constituting the foundation of the landlord-
tenant relationship between the parties. This Court finds no manifest
illegality or perversity in the approach adopted by the learned RC in
examining the nature of the tenancy with reference to the terms of the
rent agreement.
16. The mere fact that the rent agreement was signed by two
individuals does not, by itself, establish that the tenancy was created
in their individual capacities as joint tenants. The execution of a
document by persons representing a business concern is not, without
more, sufficient to displace the description of the tenant expressly
recorded therein. The material consideration is the capacity in which
the signatories executed the agreement and the identity of the tenant in
whose favour the tenancy was created. In the present case, the rent
agreement of the year 1973 identifies M/s Madan Sarup Kiran Sarup
as the tenant. The learned RC has, therefore, proceeded on the basis of
the contemporaneous documentary record and concluded that the
tenancy was a single tenancy in favour of the business concern, rather
than a joint tenancy created separately in favour of the two
individuals.
17. The contention of the Petitioner that M/s Madan Sarup Kiran
Sarup is a non-entity and, consequently, could not have been
impleaded as a respondent in the Eviction Petition, also does not merit
acceptance. The Petitioner has not demonstrated, in the context of the
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BHATIA
Signing Date:24.10.2026
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rent agreement relied upon by the learned RC, how the description of
the tenant therein could be disregarded merely on the assertion that the
business concern did not possess a separate legal personality. Even
assuming that the said concern was not an independent juristic person,
it would not, by itself, follow that the Eviction Petition was
necessarily incompetent. The legal consequences of the description
under which a business is carried on have to be examined with
reference to the nature of the tenancy and the persons who constitute
or represent the concern.
18. In this regard, the learned RC has specifically observed that the
landlord had created the tenancy in the name of the business concern
and that the persons carrying on business in the said name were the
persons who could defend the Eviction Petition instituted in respect of
the demised premises. The said finding must be appreciated in the
context of the rent agreement, which expressly identifies the tenant as
M/s Madan Sarup Kiran Sarup. The Petitioner has not demonstrated
any material on record which would establish that the learned RC
misread the aforesaid document or arrived at a conclusion contrary to
its terms. In the absence of any such infirmity, this Court cannot
interfere with the finding of the learned RC merely because the
Petitioner seeks to advance a different interpretation of the description
of the tenant.
19. The second objection raised by the Petitioner proceeds on the
premise that the tenancy was a joint tenancy in favour of Mr. Madan
Sarup and Mr. Kiran Sarup in their individual capacities. However, as
noticed hereinabove, the learned RC has returned a finding that the
tenancy was created in favour of the business concern and not in
favour of the two individuals as co-tenants. Once the foundational
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BHATIA
Signing Date:24.10.2026
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premise of the Petitioner's argument remains unsubstantiated, the
consequential contention that the death of Mr. Madan Sarup
necessitated the impleadment of his legal heirs, and that the
proceedings stood abated in their absence, cannot be accepted merely
on the basis of the signatures appearing on the rent agreement.
20. It is also material to note that the learned RC has declined to
entertain the plea of abatement on the ground that the same had not
been specifically raised in the application seeking leave to defend. The
learned RC has further observed that the Petitioner sought to elaborate
upon the plea of joint tenancy and abatement in the written arguments,
without having laid the necessary factual foundation in the application
seeking leave to defend. The said approach cannot be faulted in the
facts of the present case. Proceedings under Section 25B of the DRC
Act are governed by a special statutory procedure, under which the
tenant is required to disclose, in the application seeking leave to
defend, and the affidavit thereof, the facts which would disentitle the
landlord from obtaining an order of eviction. The requirement of
setting out the material grounds at that stage cannot be rendered otiose
by permitting a party to construct a factual edifice at the stage of
written arguments.
21. In any event, the death of the father of the Petitioner would not,
in the facts of the present case, have occasioned an abatement of the
eviction proceedings. This is for the reason that the Eviction Petition
was instituted against M/s Madan Sarup Kiran Sarup, being the
business concern in whose favour the tenancy had been created, and
not against Mr. Madan Sarup and/ or Mr. Kiran Sarup in their
individual capacities as joint tenants. The demise of one of the
individuals who had signed the rent agreement, therefore, would not,
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By:HARVINDER KAUR
BHATIA
Signing Date:24.10.2026
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RC.REV. 85/2023 Page 9 of 12

by itself, render the proceedings incompetent or necessitate the
impleadment of his legal heirs, particularly when the tenancy was not
found to have been created jointly in favour of the two individuals. In
the absence of any material establishing that the deceased was a co-
tenant in his individual capacity, the contention that the Eviction
Petition stood abated on account of his demise is devoid of merit.
22. The distinction between a subsequent event and a ground which
was available to a party at the time of filing the application seeking
leave to defend is also relevant in this regard. As recorded by the
learned RC, the Petitioner did not invoke the subsequent-event
exception by filing an appropriate application seeking to bring the
alleged subsequent event on record. The learned RC, therefore,
declined to examine the plea of abatement as a subsequent event,
while also noting the absence of any specific pleading asserting a joint
tenancy in the application seeking leave to defend. In the absence of
any demonstrated error in this approach, the Petitioner cannot seek to
overcome the deficiencies in the pleadings by merely reiterating the
said objections in the present proceedings.
23. Even otherwise, the plea of abatement is inseparably linked to
the Petitioner's assertion that the tenancy was held jointly by two
individuals in their respective capacities as co-tenants. The learned RC
has examined the rent agreement and rejected the said assertion on the
basis of the description of the tenant therein. The Petitioner has not
established that this finding is based on a misreading of the record, an
erroneous application of law or an inference which no reasonable
judicial authority could have drawn. In the absence of such a
demonstration, the revisional jurisdiction of this Court cannot be
invoked to undertake a fresh factual inquiry into the nature of the
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BHATIA
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tenancy or to substitute an alternative interpretation for the one
adopted by the learned RC.
24. This Court is conscious of the fact that the identity of the tenant
and the effect of the death of a party during the pendency of eviction
proceedings may, in an appropriate case, raise substantial questions
concerning the maintainability or continuation of the proceedings.
However, such questions have to be examined on the basis of the
pleadings, the documentary record and the applicable law. In the
present case, the Petitioner has failed to demonstrate that the
objections raised before this Court disclose any such defect in the
proceedings as would vitiate the Impugned Order. The mere
formulation of an objection concerning the legal status of the tenant or
the non-impleadment of legal heirs cannot, in itself, furnish a ground
for interference when the factual premise underlying the objection has
not been established.

25. Accordingly, this Court finds that the learned RC has
considered the objections raised by the Petitioner with reference to the
rent agreement and the pleadings forming part of the record and has
returned findings supported by the material available before it. The
Petitioner has been unable to establish any jurisdictional error,
material irregularity, manifest illegality or perversity in the Impugned
Order. The grounds urged on behalf of the Petitioner, in substance,
seek a reconsideration of the nature of the tenancy and a
reappreciation of the material already considered by the learned RC,
which is impermissible within the limited scope of revisional
jurisdiction under the proviso to Section 25B(8) of the DRC Act.
26. In view of the foregoing discussion, this Court finds no ground
to interfere with the Impugned Judgment and Order dated 24.12.2022
Signature Not Verified
Digitally Signed
By:HARVINDER KAUR
BHATIA
Signing Date:24.10.2026
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RC.REV. 85/2023 Page 11 of 12

passed by the learned RC. The present Petition is, accordingly,
dismissed.
27. The present Petition, along with pending Application(s), if any,
stands disposed of in the aforesaid terms.

HARISH VAIDYANATHAN SHANKAR, J.
OCTOBER 15, 2026/nd/va
Signature Not Verified
Digitally Signed
By:HARVINDER KAUR
BHATIA
Signing Date:24.10.2026
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RC.REV. 85/2023 Page 12 of 12