Rafiq Khan vs. Mohammad Arif Khan

Held

The High Court allowed the revision petition and set aside the trial court's judgment and decree, dismissing the plaintiffs' suit. The Court found that the trial court had erred in arriving at its conclusion due to a lack of legal evidence. The Court noted that the plaintiffs' claims of running a business for approximately 18 years were highly improbable given the absence of any Income Tax returns, GST or Sales Tax registration, MP Shops and Establishments Act registration, or electricity bills for the suit shop. The Court found the explanation for the absence of electricity bills, by extending connection from another shop, to be unconvincing. The Court concluded that there was no material on record to indicate that the plaintiffs were in possession of the suit shop or running a business therein on the alleged date of dispossession, apart from the disputed rent note and stray rent receipts. The Court held that the trial court exercised its jurisdiction with material irregularity by holding the plaintiffs in possession without sufficient evidence, thus warranting interference under Section 115 CPC.

Facts

The petitioners (defendants) are landlords who filed a revision petition challenging a trial court order dated December 30, 2023. The trial court had decreed a suit filed by the respondents (plaintiffs) under Section 6 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963, granting them recovery of possession of a shop. The plaintiffs, claiming to be tenants inducted in 2002, alleged they were forcibly evicted on December 3, 2020, without due process. The landlords contended that the tenancy ended in 2007 when the father of the plaintiffs vacated the shop, and they have been in possession since then. The trial court relied on a rent note from 2002 and rent receipts from 2013/2014, which the defendants disputed, to find the plaintiffs in possession. The defendants argued that the plaintiffs failed to prove their possession and business operations in the suit shop.

Key Issues

1. Whether the trial court erred in holding that the plaintiffs were in possession of the suit shop on December 3, 2020, and had been forcibly dispossessed, thereby satisfying the ingredients of Section 6 of the Specific Relief Act, 1963? Petitioner's Arguments: The petitioners argued that the plaintiffs failed to provide any legal evidence to establish their possession of the suit shop for the preceding six months prior to the alleged dispossession. They contended that the rent receipts from 2013/2014 were disputed and not properly proved, and that the plaintiffs' claims of running a business for 18 years were unsubstantiated by any Income Tax returns, GST registration, shop registration under the MP Shops and Establishments Act, or electricity bills. The petitioners argued that the trial court's finding was perverse due to a lack of evidence. Respondent's Arguments: The respondents argued that the landlord-tenant relationship was admitted by the rent note of 2002, which was acknowledged in the written statement. They asserted that the defendants' claim of vacation in 2007 was unsubstantiated and that the burden of proof lay with the defendants, which they failed to discharge. They contended that the trial court's judgment was not perverse.