' Ch. Ilahi Bakhsh, who has since died and is represented by the petitioners, Abdur Rashid Chaudhary and others, made an application against respondent No, 1, Muhammad Umar, hereinafter referred to as the respondent, for his eviction from a shop. It was alleged in the ejectment petition that the respondent had committed default in the payment of rent. The respondent resisted the ejectment application contending that the relationship of landlord and tenant did not exist between the parties. His plea was upheld by the Rent Controller, who had decided the application, and, therefore, the application was dismissed by him. The appeal preferred by the petitioners against the order of the learned Rent Controller had also not met with success. They have, therefore, filed this writ petition to challenge the orders of the two tribunals below.
2. The petitioners' predecessor-in-interest, Ilahi Bakhsh, had claimed tenancy on the basis of rent deed Exh. A. W. 1/1. Its execution was, however, denied by the respondent. Ilahi Bakhsh examined four witnesses including himself to prove execution of the rent deed. A. W. 1, Muhammad Saeed is the scribe of the rent deed. A. W. 2, Abdul Hamid and A. W. 3, Shabbir Hussain are its marginal witnesses, while A. W. 4, is Ilahi Bakhsh, who had filed the ejectment application. Their evidence in regard to execution of rent deed was, however, taken exception to by the two tribunals below on the ground that it was discrepant and some of the witnesses were interested ones. Relevant observations made by the learned Additional District Judge read as follows :- "In order to prove the execution of the rent deed the predecessor-ininterest of the appellants examined the scribe of the rent deed Exh. A. W.-1/1 and its two marginal witnesses. Muhammad Saeed P. W. 1 deposed that the rent deed Exh. P. W. 1/1 was written by him and that the respondent had purchased the stamp papers and has signed in his presence. He recognised the signatures of Muhammad Umar, respondent as A. W. 1/2. In his cross examination, he stated that it was not necessary that he must know personally the person who executed the rent deed? He denied the suggestion that the respondent was not the person who executed the rent deed Exh. A. W. 1/1. Abdul Hamid, A. W. 2, is the marginal witness of the document. He stated in his cross-examination that he was passing from near the shop of the petition writer, when he was called by the petitioner to become a witness of the rent deed which was already written. He admitted that the petitioner was related to him. He further admitted that Muhammad Umar respondent was not present at the spot and that Shabbir, other marginal witness also did not sign the rent deed in his presence. Shabbir Hussain A. W. 3, the other marginal witness, is the nephew of the petitioner. He stated that he had gone to the house of the petitioner along with Muhammad Umar respondent where the petition writer was present and the rent deed was written. This witness thus contradicts Abdul Hamid, A. W.
2, in respect of the place of execution of the rent deed. In this regard the petitioner while deposing as his own witness as A. W. 4 has also contadicted Abdul Hamid, A. W. 2 by saying at one place in cross-examination that the respondent had brought both the marginal witnesses with him to his home. He was also unable to tell as to which of the witnesses signed the rent deed first. In such a state of affairs it cannot be said that the rent deed Exh. A. W. 1/1 is a genuine document."
3. Assailing the opinion expressed by the learned appellate authority, it was submitted by learned counsel for the petitioners that the learned Additional District Judge had misread the evidence. In this connection, it was pointed out by him that according to the learned Additional District Judge, Shabbir Hussain had admitted to be the nephew of llahi Bakhsh although he had not made any such admission. It was also urged by him that Shabbir Hussain had not made statement to the effect that the rent deed was written at the house of Ilahi Bakhsh.
4. As for his relationship with Ilahi Bakhsh it was firstly stated by Shabbir Hussain that Ilahi Bakhsh was his uncle but thereafter it was explained by him that he (Ilahi Bakhsh) was his uncle in the sense of brotherhood. It appears that it was in view of the aforesaid statement of Shabbir Hussain that the learned Additional District Judge took Shabbir Hussain as nephew of Ilahi Bakhsh. Even if it is assumed that Shabbir Hussain was not related to Ilahi Bakhsh, it would make little difference because, as indicated above, the correctness of his statement has been doubted by the two tribunals below on other grounds also.
5. Now, I advert to the objections of learned counsel for the petitioner that there is no statement by Shabbir Hussain that the rent deed was written at the house of Ilahi Bakhsh. The precise statement made by him reads a follows : {{URDU TEXT}} ' Although in this statement it was not clearly said by Shabbir Hussain that the rent deed was written at the house of Ilahi Bakhsh yet taking his statement as a whole, that inference can be drawn. As pointed out by the learned Additional District Judge, according to Abdul Hamid the rent deep was written at the shop of the scribe and to the same effect is the statement of the scribe, namely, Muhammad Saeed (A. W. 1). It was, therefore, rightly observed by the learned Additional District Judge that there were contradictions in the evidence of the aforesaid witnesses regarding the place of execution of the tent deed.
6. In view of what has gone above, I find no force in the plea of learned counsel for the petitioners relating to the misreading of evidence.
7. Learned counsel for the parties also addressed arguments with regard to ownership of the shop in question. According to the petitioners the shop belonged to Ilahi Bakhsh and after his death they were its owner. On the other hand, the plea raised by the respondent was that the shop was owned by the Lahore Improvement Trust which has since been succeeded by the Lahore Development Authority. I will not like to go into the question of ownership because even if the petitioners' predecessor-in-interest was owner of the shop in question, he could not be treated as landlord qua the respondent unless it was established that he-had let out the disputed shop to the respondent. According to the two tribunals below, the petitioners had failed to establish the relationship of landlord and tenant between the parties and even if their finding in this behalf happens to be erroneous, it does not, in the circumstances of the present case, call for any interference by this Court in exercise of its writ jurisdiction.
8. Resultantly, this petition fails. It is dismissed with costs.