Failure to Consider Specific Bona Fide Requirement in Granting Leave to Defend Vitiates Revisionary Order

The Petitioner-landlord instituted Eviction Petition No. E.77988/2016 under the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958 (DRC Act), founded on the plea that the tenanted premises were bona fide required as a store (storage space) for a shop he intended to open in the connected/adjoining premises.

By the Impugned Judgment dated 04.06.2019, the learned SCJ-cum-RC (Central), Tis Hazari Courts, Delhi, granted the Respondent-tenant leave to defend.

The learned RC founded its grant of leave on the following triable issues: (i) rival claims regarding the availability of alternative accommodation — whether certain properties (Property No. 117, Moti Bazar and Properties No. 4255-56 & 4257, Gali Bharionwali, Nai Sarak) were lying vacant or were in use as godowns for the Petitioner's family businesses.

The learned RC also cited (ii) an ownership issue arising from the non-filing of a relinquishment deed executed by the Petitioner's brother and rent receipts naming M/s. Rakesh Kumar Naresh Kumar as landlord; and (iii) the timing of the petition, instituted 2½ years after an eviction petition qua Shop No. 4 in the same property, suggesting an afterthought.

Aggrieved, the Petitioner preferred the present Revision Petition under Section 25B(8) of the DRC Act, contending that the Impugned Judgment was "generic" and failed entirely to advert to his pleaded bona fide need of storage space.

1. Whether the Impugned Judgment granting leave to defend suffered from an error apparent on the face of the record, inasmuch as the learned RC omitted to consider the Petitioner's specifically pleaded bona fide requirement — namely, use of the premises as a store ancillary to the adjoining shop — which formed the very foundation of the eviction petition.

2. Whether such omission warranted interference by the High Court within the narrow, supervisory scope of revisional jurisdiction under the proviso to Section 25B(8) of the DRC Act.

Proviso to Section 25B(8) of the DRC Act, which confers a limited, supervisory revisional jurisdiction on the High Court, expressly excluding appellate review.

Sarla Ahuja v. United India Insurance Co. Ltd., (1998) 8 SCC 119 and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. v. Dilbahar Singh, (2014) 9 SCC 78, noting that this jurisdiction "cannot be equated with the exercise of appellate jurisdiction".

Abid-Ul-Islam v. Inder Sain Dua, (2022) 6 SCC 30, holding that the omission of an appellate remedy against the Rent Controller's order is "conscious and deliberate," that the High Court's role is one of "superintendence over the decision-making process," and that interference is permissible only in cases of "error apparent on the face of the record, which would only mean that in the absence of any adjudication per se," without undertaking a "roving inquiry".

Pankaj Pahwa v. Prem Wati & Ors., 2024:DHC:9322 and Sanjeev Hiranandani v. Sunny Grover, 2025:DHC:11285 reiterated that interference is warranted only where the order suffers from jurisdictional error, manifest illegality, material irregularity, perversity, or where "a material plea has been left unconsidered".

The eviction petition rested on a specific pleaded requirement — storage space ancillary to the commercial premises from which the Petitioner intended to conduct business — which "constituted the very foundation of the eviction petition".

A careful reading of the Impugned Judgment revealed that the learned RC had "principally adverted to the alleged availability of alternative accommodation, the Petitioner's ownership of the premises and the timing of the institution of the eviction petition," but disclosed "no consideration of the specific plea that the tenanted premises were required to serve as a storage space for the adjoining shop".

The Court held that the omission to advert to the principal ground on which the petition was founded rendered the decision-making process "incomplete, erroneous" and constituted "an error apparent on the face of the record" amounting to perversity — thereby satisfying even the stringent Abid-Ul-Islam threshold of an "absence of adjudication per se" on a material plea.

The Court set aside the Impugned Judgment dated 04.06.2019 and remanded the matter to the learned RC for fresh consideration in accordance with law.

The parties were directed to appear before the learned RC on 03.08.2026, and it was clarified that the Court had expressed no opinion on the merits of the rival contentions, leaving all questions open for determination.