1. NASIM HASAN SHAH, J.-This petition is directed against the order of a learned Single Judge of the Lahore 'High Court dated 2-1-1980 disposing ofS . A. O. No. 252 of 1979.
2. The question falling for determination is whether the order of the ejectment passed against the petitioner by the Rent Controller and upheld by the Additional District Judge on appeal and also by the High Court on second appeal requires interference. The answer to this question rests on the determination whether it has been established in law that the respondent is a landlord and the petitioner is a tenant under him.
3. The house from which the petitioner is being ejected was admittedly owned by Abdul Majeed, the maternal-grandfather of the respondent and that the petitioner was tenant under him is the property since 1950. After his death, the wife of Abdul Majeed, Mst. Umatul Hafeez, became owner of the house and the petitioner executed a rent note Exh. P. 1 in her favour and was regularly paying the rent to her. The respondent being the maternal-- grandson of Mst. Umatul Hafeez was made a gift of the house by her. The respondent thereafter issued a notice on the petitioner on 14-9-1966 calling upon him to clear the arrears of rent. In the reply submitted by the petitioner through his Advocate (Exh. A/3) the petitioner while contro--verting the allegation that he was defaulter in payment of rent went on to say in para. 6 of the reply "that my client considers him as his landlord".
4. However, notwithstanding this admission the petitioner did not treat him as his landlord and paid no rent. In the ejectment petition filed by the respondent the petitioner expressly denied the existence of any relationship of landlord and tenant between the parties.
5. The basis for the above plea of the petitioner was that factum of gift had not been established. In this connection reliance was placed on the circumstance that whereas the father of the petitioner Manzoor Ali Chishti A. W. 1, had taken up the position that the gift was made through a written instrument no such written instrument was produced and this assertion was not supported by the other witnesses. The respondent had produced, besides his father, the Record Clerk from the L. D. A.
6. (A. W. 2) and the Record Clerk from the Excise and Taxation Department (A. W. 3) 'to testify that their records showed that the property in dispute now stood in the name of the respondent. The learned Additional District Judge and the High Court have taken the view that notwithstanding the discrepancy in the evidence on this point the true question was as to whether the respondent was entitled to receive the rent and, therefore, was "landlord" within the meaning of the Rent Restriction Ordinance. On this point, the notice Exh. A/1 sent by the respondent and the reply to it Exh. A/3 which were tendered in evidence by the respondent as his own witness without any objection being raised to their production established that the petitioner had recognised the respondent as his landlord and, therefore, the question whether the property had devolved on the respondent by inheritance or by a gift was irrelevant.
7. To meet this objection, Pir Altaf Hussain Shah, learned counsel for the petitioner argued that the notice Exh. A/I and the reply to it Exh. A/3 had not been properly proved and in this connection he relied upon Muhammad Yusuf v. S. M. Yaqub PLD 1973 SC 160. This ruling was also relied upon before the Court below and it was observed that it was not applicable in the circumstances of this case. We agree with this view and may observe that as no objection was raised to the production of the documents when they were tendered in evidence by the respondent they could be read in evidence subsequently and their admissibility could not be objected to. If these documents are read they conclusively establish that the petitioner admitted that he was a tenant under the respondent and, therefore, the relationship of landlord and tenant did exist between the parties. In these circumstances, the Courts below have rightly held that the petitioner w liable to ejectment as the title of the landlord was undeniably needing no further enquiry and the petitioner had defaulted in paying rent to him.
8. This petition, therefore, fails and is dismissed hereby. However, the petitioner is allowed four months' time to vacate the house, provided he continues to pay the monthly rent in accordance with law.