Delhi HC Upholds Eviction, Finding 1973 Lease Named Business—not Father and Son—as Tenant, So Father’s Heirs Need Not Be Joined

The respondent-landlord obtained an eviction order from the Rent Controller after the petitioner’s application for leave to defend was dismissed.

The 1973 rent agreement named “M/s Madan Sarup Kiran Sarup” as tenant and was signed by Madan Sarup and Kiran Sarup.

In revision, the petitioner argued that the named concern was a non-entity and that, alternatively, Madan Sarup’s legal heirs had to be impleaded after his death because the tenancy was joint; otherwise, the proceedings abated.

The Rent Controller had found that the tenancy was in favour of the business concern, not the two signatories as individual joint tenants, and that the abatement plea had not been properly pleaded in the leave-to-defend application.

Section 25B(8) of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958 confers supervisory and revisional—not appellate—jurisdiction on the High Court.

Under Sarla Ahuja v. United India Insurance Co. Ltd., Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. v. Dilbahar Singh and Abid-Ul-Islam v. Inder Sain Dua, the High Court reviews the legality and propriety of the Rent Controller’s decision-making process and does not substitute its view merely because another view is possible; interference is confined to errors such as jurisdictional error, manifest illegality, material irregularity, perversity or an error apparent on the record.

In Section 25B proceedings, the tenant must disclose in the leave-to-defend application the material facts said to disentitle the landlord to eviction; a party cannot ordinarily supply a missing factual foundation through written arguments.

The High Court treated the rent agreement’s identification of the business concern as tenant as supporting the Rent Controller’s finding that the tenancy was a single tenancy in the concern’s name, rather than a joint tenancy held individually by the two signatories.

The fact that both individuals signed the agreement did not, without more, displace the tenant description in the document.

Since the petitioner did not establish that the tenancy was held jointly by the individuals, the claimed need to implead Madan Sarup’s heirs and the consequential plea of abatement were not made out.

The Court also found no error in the Rent Controller’s refusal to entertain the abatement argument where the necessary plea had not been set out in the leave-to-defend application and no appropriate application had been filed to raise it as a subsequent event.

Finding no jurisdictional error, material irregularity, manifest illegality or perversity in the Rent Controller’s order, it dismissed the revision petition and disposed of any pending applications.