Holding

A person need not be the owner of the premises to be a landlord; the respondent, being entitled to receive rent, is a landlord within the meaning of Section 2(c) and may seek eviction under Section 13(3)(a).

Summary

The appellant, K.D. Dewan, had occupied a residential premises in Chandigarh since 1965, initially paying rent to the father of the respondent and thereafter to the respondent, Harbhajan S. Parihar. The respondent filed an eviction application under Section 13(3)(a) of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949, claiming the premises for his personal occupation. The Rent Controller and the Appellate Authority held that a landlord‑tenant relationship existed and that the respondent satisfied the statutory definition of "landlord". The respondent appealed to the High Court, which dismissed the revision, and the matter reached the Supreme Court. The Court examined the definition of "landlord" in Section 2(c) and held that ownership is not a prerequisite; a person entitled to receive rent qualifies as a landlord. Consequently, the respondent was entitled to seek eviction under Section 13(3)(a). The appeal was dismissed with costs, and the appellant was granted a reasonable time to vacate.

Issues considered

What is the meaning of "landlord" under Section 2(c) of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949?
Whether the respondent, who is not the owner but receives rent, qualifies as a landlord for purposes of invoking Section 13(3)(a) to evict the tenant?

Legislation cited

Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958s. 14(1)(e)
East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949s. 13(3)(a), s. 2(c)
Industrial Disputes Act, 1947s. 12

Subjects

landlord definitiontenant evictionrent controlpersonal occupationEast Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Actcivil appeal

Judgment

K.D. DEWAN A
v.
HARBHAJAN S. PARIHAR

OCTOBER 16, 2001

[SYED SHAH MOHAMMED QUADRI AND S.N. PHUKAN, JJ.] B

Rent and Eviction :

.f East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 :.

Ss. 2(c) and 13(3)(a)-Landlord seeking eviction of tenant from residen- C
tial building on ground of personal occupatiori-"Landlord"·-Meaning of-
Held, to be a landlord within the meaning of s.2(c) a person need not neces-
sarily be the owner-For purposes of the Act Iegisldture has made a distinction
(
between an owner of a premises and a landlord-The Act deals with the rights
and obligations of a landlord only as defined therein-Ownership of pref!1ises D
is iinmaterial for purposes of the Act-To claim relief u/s. 13(3)(a) a person.
must be a landlord within the meaning of the terms in s.2(c)-His being owner
of premises is neither a pre-requisite nor a relevantfac~or-Father of respond-
ent having inducted appellant into possession and appellant paying rent ini-.
tially to father of resp~ndent and on his death to respondent, as such responde_~t E
is landlord of the premises and entitled to seek relief under s. 13(3 )(a)-Rent
Controller ordered ev,iction holding that ~here. existed relationship of landlord
and tenant between the parties and landlord satisfied requirement ofs.13(3 )(q)-
Appellante authority dismissed the appeal-;--No illegality found in the orde.r of
High Court dismissing. revision of tenant. '
F
M.M. Quasim v. Manohar Lal Sharma & Others, AIR (1981) SC 1113,
distinguished.

CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION Civil Appeal No. 4834 of
1999.
G
From the Judgment and Order dated 6.4.99 of the Punjab and Haryana
High Court in C.R. No. 3791 of 1998.

O.P. Sharma, K.R. Gupta, R.C. Gubrelle and Abhishek Atrey for the
appellant. H
241
242 SUPREME COURT REPORTS (2001] SUPP. 4 S.C.R.
A A. Mariarputham, Maninder Singh, Aruna Mathur, Ms. Pratibha M.
Singl;:t and Ms. Kavita Wadia for the Respondent.
)
The following Order of the Court was delivered :

This appeal, by special leave, is from the judgment and order of the High
B Court of Punjab and Haryana in C.R. No. 3791 of 1998 dated April 6, 1999.
f
The appellant is the tenant of Suit Premises No. 2235. 1st Floor, Sector
21-C, Chandigarh (for short, 'the Premises') of which one Bhakhtawar Singh
was said to be the owner. The father of the respondent, Bagicha Singh, inducted
C the appellant into possession of the premises in 1965. The respondent was
\I
payrng rent to him till his death in 1976. Thereafter, the appellant has been
paying the rent to the respondent. On the ground that he required the premises
for his own occupation the respondent filed Rent Application No. 231/1996
under Section 13(3)(a) of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949
D (for short, 'the Act'). The appellant denied that the relationship between him
and the respondent was ·that of the tenant and the landlord and further denied
that the respondent required the premises for his personal occupation.

On considering the evidence produced by both the sides, the learned
Rent Controller found that the relationship of landlord and tenant existed
E
between the respondent and the appellant; it was also found that the respondent
satisfied the requirement of clause (a) of sub-section (3) of Section 13 of the
Act. Accordingly, the learned Rent Controller ordered eviction of the appellant
on September 25, 1997. He unsuccessfully challenged that order before the
Appellate Authority, Chandigarh, who dismissed the appeal on July 27, 1998.
F The appellant then carried the matter before th~ High Court of Punjab and
Haryana by filing Civil Revision No. 3791 of 1998 which was dismissed on
April 6, 1999. It is the validity of that order that is challenged ir1 this appeal.

Mr. O.P. Sharma the learned senior counsel appearing for the appellant,
G has vehemently contended that having regard to the definition of the term
'landlord' in clause (c) of Section 2 of the Act, the respondent cannot be treated
as landlord; he laid emphasis on the words "every person from time to time
deriving title under a landlord" and agrued that no document has been filed and
no material was placed before the Court to show that the respondent derived
H his title from the heir of the owner of the preinises after his death. Therefore,
K.D. DEWAN v. HARBHAJAN S. PARIHAR 243
he could not be treated as a landlord for purposes of Section 13(3)(a) of the · A
Act.

Mr. A. Mariarputham, the learned counsel for the respondent, submitted
that the Act maintained distinction between an owner of a premises and a
landlord of the premises; for purposes of Section 13(3)(a), what is required to B
be seen is whether the person seeking eviction satisfies the requirement of the
definition of 'landlord' and, therefore, all the courts rightly held that the
respondent was the landlord and ordered eviction of the appellant. · ·

The short question that arises for our consideration is, what is the import
of the word 'landlord' in clause (c) of Section 2 of the Act?, and whether the C
respondent has rightly been held to be the landlord and entitled to seek eviction
of th~ appellant.

The said provisions reads as follows :

"Section 2(c): 'landlord' means any person for the time being entitled D
to receive rent in respect of any building or rented land whether on his
own account or on behalf, or for the benefit of any other person, or as
a. trustee, guardian, receiver, executor or administrator for any other
. person, and includes a tenant who·.sublets any building or rented land
in the manner hereinafter authorised, and, every person from time to E
time deriving title under a landlord;"

A perusal of the provision, quoted above, shows that the following
categories of persons fall within the meaning of landlord : (1) any person for
the time being entitled to rec~ive rent in respect of any building or rented land;
(2) a,trustee, guardian, receiver, executor or administrator for any other person; F
(3) a tenant who sublets any building onented land in the m~nner authorised
under the Act and (4) every person from time to time deriving title under a
·landlord. Among· these four categories of persons, brought within the meaning
of:' landlord', Mr. Sharma sought to derive support from the last category. Even
so that category refers to a person who derives his title under a landlord and G
not unde~ an owner of a premises. For purposes of the said category the
transf~for of the title referred to therein must fall under any of the categories
(1)to 'to
(3). a
be landlord wi.thin .the meaning of c~ause (c) of section 2 a
a
person need not necessarily be the owner; in vast majority of cases an owner
will be a lanctlo~~ but in. many cases a person other than ~n o.wner may as well H
244 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2001] SUPP. 4 S.C.R.
A be a landlord. It tnay be that in a given case the landlo~d 'is also an owner but
a landlord under the Act need not be the owner. It may be noted that for
purposes of the act the legislature has made a distinction between an owner of
a premises and a landlord. The Act deals with the rights and obligations of a
landlord only as defined therein .. Ownership of a premises is immaterial for
.B puq)oses of the Act.

Having noticed the definition of the term 'landlord',· it will be useful to
refer to Section 13(3)(a) of the Act which re.ads as follows :

"Section 13(1) xxxx xxxx 'XXXX

c (2) xxxx xxxx xx xx

(3) (a) A landlord may apply to the Controller for an order directing
the tenant to put the landlord in possession -:--

(i) in the case of a residential building, if -
D
(a) he requires it for his own occupation"

A plain reading of the provisions extracted above makes it clear that to
claim ·a relief thereunder a person must be a landlord within the meaning of
E the terms in Section 2(c); his being owner of the premises,is neither a pre-
requisite nor a relevant factor.

Mr. Sharma relied on
the following observation of this. Court in M;M.
Quasim v. Manohar Lal Sharma & others, AIR (1981) SC 1113 :-

F "for the purposes of Section ll(l)(c) the expression 'landlord' could,
therefore, mean a person who is the owner of the building· and who has
a right to remain in occupation and actual possession of the building
. to the exclusion of everyone else .. It is such a person who can seek to
· evict the tenant on the ground that he requires possession in good faith
G· for his own occupation:•:

Mr. Sharma has submitted that the respondent is only a rent collector and
he cannot be said to be a person who has a right to remclin in occupation and
actual possession of the buiiding to the exclusion of everyone else, therefore,
he cannot be g~anted relief under clause (a) of sub-section (3) of S~ction' 13
H of the Act. We are afraid we cannot a~cede to the ~ontentio~ of the le~ed
K.D. DEWAN v. HARBHAJAN S. PARIHAR 245
counsel. To understand an observation in a judgment it is necessary to look into A
the factual context and the provision .which has fallen for consideration of the
·court. In that case Section 1 l(l)(c) of the Bihar Building (Lease, Rent and
Eviction) Control Act, 1947* (for short, 'the Bihar Act') f~ll for consideration
of this Court. Though the definition of the term 'landlord' in Section 2(d) of
the Bihar Act is much the same, its ambit is cut down by Explanation I
B
appended to Section 1 l(l)(c) of the said Act which is in the following terms:

"Explanation I: In this clause the word 'landlord' shall not include an
agent referred to in clause (f) of Section 2"

It is plain that in the context of the explanation in that case the meaning
of the term 'landlord' is understood by excluding an agent for purposes of
c
recovery of possession by the landlord for his occupation which is reasonable
and which is in good faith.

A similar provision is also to be found in Section 14(1)(e) of the Delhi
Rent Control Act, 1958 which specifically excludes an agent from the purview D
of landlord for purposes of recovery of possession from the tenant on the
ground of personal occupation.

From the above discussion it follows that such a truncated meaning of
the term 'landlord' cannot be imported in clause (c) of section 2 of the Act
having regard to the width of the language employed therein and there is no E
other provision in the Act to restrict its meaning for purposes of Section
* "11. Eviction of tenants - (1) Notwithinstanding anything contained in any contract or law
to the contrary but subject to the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 and
to those of Section 12, where a tenant is, in possession of any building, he shall not
be liable to eviction therefrom except in execution of a decree passed by the Court on
one or more of the following grounds: F
(c) where the building is reasonably and in good faith required by the landlord for his own
occupation or for the occupation of any person for whose benefit the building is held
by the landlord :

Provided that where the Court thinks that the reasonable requirement of such occu-
pation may be substantially satisfied by evicting the tenant from a part only of the
building and allowing the tenant to continue occupation of the rest and the tenant agrees G
to such occupation, the Court shall pass a decree accordingly, and fix proportionately
fair rent for the portion in occupation of the tenant which portion shall hence forth
constitute the building within the meaning of clause (aa) of Section 2, and the rent so
fixed shall be deemed to be the fair rent fixed under Section 5.

· Explanation. - In this clause the word "landlord" shall not include an agent referred
to in clause (d) of Section 2" H
246 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2001] SUPP. 4 S.C.R.

A 13(3)(a) thereof to an owner of the premises alone. The appellant has been
paying monthly rent of the premises to the respondent from 1976. The respond-·
ent is thus the landlord of the premises under the Act and is entitled to seek
relief under Section 13(3)(a) of the Act.In this view of the matter, we find no
illegality in the order of this High Courfunder challenge.' The appeal is without
merit and it is liable to be dismissed. •·
B
Mr. Sharma, however, pleads that some reasonable time may be granted
to the.appellant to vacate the premises: Having regard to the facts and circum-
stances of the case, we are of the view that as the appellant has been in
possession of the premises for more than 35 years, in the interest of justice he
c should be granted reasonable time to search an 'alternative accommodation. We
accordingly grant him time till end of April, 2002; subject tohisfiling an usual ..
undertaking within four weeks from:· today'.

The appeal is accordingly dismissed with costs.

R.P. · Appeal disffiissed.