Basic concepts of CPC 4 -definitions

Commission

Commission refers to an authority which is appointed to exercise a power or direction issued by court,when for instance a witness is unable to attend court on account of his illness or other similar reasons, the court can order such a witness to be examined on commission.

Under S 75 of CPC, commission can be issued by court for several purposes, as for instance to examine witnesses, to make a local investigation, to adjust accounts, to make a partition and so on.

Letter of request/Rogatory letter

A letter of request or rogatory letter is a letter issued by a court of one country to a court in a foreign country requesting for some judicial assistance from Judiciary of that country. Such assistance may be in the form of request to serve a summons or to take evidence of specified person.

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Whether tenant should file interpleader suit if he has doubt as to who is owner of tenanted premises?

 In the case of Bharat Bhushan Vij vs. Arti Techchandani, 2008 (153) DLT 247 in paras 4 and 5 it was held as under :

"4. The concept of ownership in a landlord-tenant litigation governed by the Delhi Rent Control Act, has to be distinguished from the one in a title suit. If the premises was let out by a person and after his death, the premises has come in the hands of beneficiary under a Will, the tenant has no right to challenge the title of such a beneficiary. If on the death of the original owner the tenant has any doubt as to who was the owner of the premises, he is supposed to file an interpleader suit impleading all the legal heirs of the deceased and ask the Court to decide as to who shall be the landlord/owner after the death of the original owner. Where no interpleader suit is filed by the tenant and the tenant continues in possession after death of the original owner without demur and without raising an objection against the person, who claims to have inherited the property under the Will, he later on cannot challenge the ownership of such a person. It is not the domain of the tenant to challenge the Will of the deceased landlord. If a landlord is able to show that there is a testament in his/her favour, he/she is deemed to have discharged his/her burden of proving the ownership under the Act. If the tenant takes a frivolous objection about ownership, such an objection cannot be entertained unless the tenant comes forward as to who was the landlord/owner of the premises and to whom he has been paying rent after the death of the original owner.

Delhi High Court

Subhash Jain vs Ravi Sehgal on 4 February, 2014

Author: Manmohan Singh

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Whether tenant can challenge ownership of landlord over tenanted premises in eviction suit?

There is a specific reference to the registered document under which the appellant purchased the suit building from the earlier landlord in the plaint. Yet, in the written statement the respondent denied the title of the appellant. We notice that there are several documents on record relating to the ownership of the appellant, apart from the registered sale deed, such as municipal tax receipts, ration card etc. Yet, the respondent refused to acknowledge the appellant’s title. He denied it in his evidence. This is not a simple case of denial of derivative title by a person who did not know about the purchase of the building by the landlord. Even after going through the relevant documents relating to the appellant’s title the respondent feigned ignorance about it. The High Court has accepted that in his cross-examination the respondent has stated that he was not accepting the appellant as his landlady. The High Court has, however, gone on to say that by this piece of evidence no decree of eviction can be passed against the respondent under Section 12(1)(c) of the M.P. Act because the respondent will have no occasion to establish in what circumstances he denied the title of the appellant. The High Court has further held that the respondent was within permissible limit in asking the appellant to produce documentary evidence about his title as a landlord. The High Court, in our opinion, fell into a grave error in drawing such a conclusion. Even denial of a landlord’s title in the written statement can provide a ground for eviction of a tenant. It is also settled position in law that it is not necessary that the denial of title by the landlord should be anterior to the institution of eviction proceedings. This is so stated by this Court in Majati Subbarao v. P.V.K. Krishnarao(deceased) by LRs.[10].

14. The High Court has expressed that the respondent was justified in asking the appellant to produce the documents. Implicit in this observation is the High Court’s view that the respondent could have in an eviction suit got the title of the appellant finally adjudicated upon. There is a fallacy in this reasoning. In eviction proceedings the question of title to the properties in question may be incidentally gone into, but cannot be decided finally. Similar question fell for consideration of this Court in Bhagadi Kannabalu. In that case it was argued that the landlady was not entitled to inherit the properties in question and hence could not maintain the application for eviction on the ground of default and sub- letting under the A.P. Tenancy Act. This Court referred to its decision in Tej Bhan Madan v. II Additional District Judge and Ors.[11] in which it was held that a tenant was precluded from denying the title of the landlady on the general principle of estoppel between landlord and tenant and that this principle, in its basic foundations, means no more than that under certain circumstances law considers it unjust to allow a person to approbate and reprobate. Section 116 of the Evidence Act is clearly applicable to such a situation. This Court held that even if the landlady was not entitled to inherit the properties in question, she could still maintain the application for eviction and the finding of fact recorded by the courts below in favour of the landlady was not liable to be disturbed. The position on law was stated by this Court as under:

“In this connection, we may also point out that in an eviction petition filed on the ground of sub-letting and default, the court needs to decide whether relationship of landlord and tenant exists and not the question of title to the properties in question, which may be incidentally gone into, but cannot be decided finally in the eviction proceeding.”

 REPORTABLE

 Supreme Court of India

Keshar Bai vs Chhunulal on 7 January, 2014

Bench: Ranjana Prakash Desai, J. Chelameswar

CIVIL APPEAL NO. 106   OF 2014
      

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Whether landlord can be denied eviction decree on ground that he has alternative accommodation at distant place?

 In Sarla Ahuja's case (MANU/SC/0665/1998 : AIR 1999 SC 100) (supra) the Supreme Court was dealing with a case where a widow wanted to shift her residence from Calcutta to New Delhi to occupy her own building which was in the possession of her tenant. The suit was filed under Section 14(1)(e) of the Delhi Rent Control Act 1958 ("Delhi Act" for short). There the landlord has to prove that he has no other reasonably suitable residential accommodation. The Rent Controller passed a decree of eviction. But the Delhi High Court non-suited the landlady on the ground of the availability of the house in Calcutta. The Supreme Court set aside the High Court's order and restored the Rent Controller's order holding that to deprive a landlord of the benefit of the ground mentioned in Section 14(1)(e) of the Delhi Act on account of availability of alternative accommodation, it is not enough that such alternative accommodation is in a far different State. Such accommodation must be available in the same city or town, or at least within reasonable proximity thereof, if it is outside the limits of the City. The Supreme Court observed that the requirement that the landlord should have no other reasonably suitable residential accommodation dose not mean that if the landlord has another house anywhere in the world he cannot seek recovery of possession of the suit premises. Possession of flat in Calcutta would not disentitle the landlady from recovering possession of the tenanted premises in Delhi. These observations of the Supreme Court are clearly applicable to this case. Assuming that the plaintiff has any property in Rajasthan or Bihar that will not disentitle him from getting possession of the suit premises situate at Bombay. Therefore, there was no need for him to disclosed any property which he owns in Rajasthan or in Bihar. There is no question of drawing any adverse inference against the plaintiff on that count.

IN THE HIGH COURT OF BOMBAY

Writ Petition No. 5217 of 1994

Decided On: 26.10.2005

Sanwarmal Kejriwal Vs.Hari Kumar Sharma

Hon'ble Judges/Coram:

Ranjana Prakash Desai, J.

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Whether previous judgments are admissible in evidence?

In the case of “Kunhayammedand others v/s. State of Kerala and another” (supra), it has been held that in spite of a petition for special leave to appeal having been filed, the judgment, decree or order against which leave to appeal has been sought for, continues to be final, effective and binding as between the parties. Once leave to appeal has been granted, the finality of the judgment, decree or order appealed against is put in jeopardy though it continues to be binding and effective between the parties unless it is a nullity or unless the Court may pass a specific order staying or suspending the operation or execution of the judgment, decree or order under challenge. The expression “jeopardy” does not mean “not binding” or “not final” or “not effective”. That expression relates to danger of suffering harm or loss. As contended by Mr. Dessai, learned Senior Counsel, Judgment in jeopardy does not disturb its finality. Since no stay or suspension of the operation or execution of the judgment and award in L. A. Case No. 19/1989 or of the judgment in First Appeal No. 116/ 1997 and in LPA No. 15/ 2000 has been granted by the Apex Court, the same continues to be effective and binding as between the parties. The doctrine of merger is based on the principle that there cannot be more than one decree or operative order in respect of the same subject matter and at the same time. In so far as Sanyogita Rane group is concerned, they were parties to that L. A. Case No 19/89. In so far as Morajkar group is concerned, they had tried to intervene in the same proceedings when they were pending in the form of LPA No.15/2000, by filing an application for impleading them as parties. However, Morajkar group withdrew the said Civil Application No. 444/2006 on 09/06/2009. Under section 40 of the Evidence Act, previous judgments are admissible in support of a plea of res judicata in civil cases. If not res judicata, the principles analogous to that are applicable. In any case, the judgment in First Appeal No. 116/1997 was binding on the Reference Court wherein it was held that the land bearing survey no. 106 of Carapur village belongs to Manoramabai Rauji Rane Group. The Reference Court was therefore bound to rely upon the said findings and decide the subsequent case on the basis of the same findings and this is what has been done by the Reference Court. The judgment in the LPA No. 15/2000, being of Division Bench of this Court, is binding on me. In this judgment, it has been upheld that land bearing survey No. 106 of Carapur village belongs to Manoramabai Rauji Rane Group. It is not known as to how long the Special Leave Petition before the Hon'ble Apex Court would take for its final disposal. There is no point in keeping the present appeal pending till then. If the judgments are set aside in the said Special Leave Petition, Sanyogita Rane Group can take recourse to Section 144 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

BOMBAY HIGH COURT

Mrs. Sanyogita Rane and Others Vs. Mrs. Manoramabai Rauji Rane (Since deceased) and Others

Judge : U.V. BAKRE

Decided On : May-11-2012

Case Number : First Appeal No. 105 of 2010 Alongwith Cross-Objection No. 11 of 2010

Citation;2013(7) ALLMR 633,2013(2) ABR 816

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Pleading and proof in reference u/s 30 of land acquisition Act

 Section 53 of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 states that the Code of Civil Procedure will apply to proceedings before the Court save in so far as the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure are  inconsistent with anything contained in the said Act. There can be no dispute that a reference under Section 30 the said Act are civil proceedings.

The nature of this proceedings as has always been understood is that they are in the nature of a interpleader's suit. The Full Bench of the Kerala High Court in the case of Thevaril Ranee Sidhan and Anr. v. The Special Tahsildar for Land Acquisition and Ors.

relying on an earlier decision of the Division Bench of that Court in Chandan Vydiar v. Chakkuti Vidyar (1969 Kerala L R 691) has stated that the proceedings for apportionment of compensation are in the nature of an interpleader suit and the parties to these proceedings are free to litigate in the ordinary way as in an ordinary suit to determine what their respective rights in respect of the amount of compensation or any portion thereof are. The proceedings being of civil nature, the parties certainly are required to plead their case and lead evidence in support of the same. The ordinary rule of pleadings that no amount of evidence can be looked into in support of a plea not taken ought to be followed in such cases as well. The respondents therefore, after pleading that the land belonged to the Comunidade were not entitled to lead evidence claiming that they were owners of the same. In other words, the respondents were not entitled to deviate from the plea taken. The respondents having filed a written statement duly verified and having claimed prescription as against the Comunidade, were not entitled to depose contrary to the said pleadings and claim a right that they were the owners of the acquired property and that too without producing any documents of title. Any other view would create untold hardships to other parties who would not know as to what case they have to meet.

Bombay High Court

Jacinto Minguel De Quadros ... vs Haridas Maruti Kamat, Mahadev ... on 18 October, 2005

Equivalent citations: 2006 (2) BomCR 84, (2005) 107 BOMLR 879

Bench: R Lodha, N Britto

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