1. ' The appellant has challenged the concurrent findings of the two Courts below holding that the.
2. Appellant failed to prove the personal and bona fide requirement as well as default in payment of rent as alleged by him.
3. ' I have heard Mr. Gharib Nawaz and Mr. Khalilur Rehman, the learned counsel for the appellant and respondent respectively.
4. ' The application for eviction was filed by the appellant against the respondent on the grounds of personal and bona fide requirement as well as default in payment of rent from March to June, 1973.
5. It was alleged in the application that besides the monthly rent of Rs, 400 which is not in dispute the respondent was also liable to pay water and conservancy charges. Both the Courts of Rent Controller as well as the first appellate authority held that neither any default was committed nor the appellant succeeded in proving his personal and bona fide requirement of house and accordingly the application was rejected. Mr. Gharib Nawaz, the learned counsel for the appellant contended before me that the Courts below misread the evidence while considering the above issues. It is contended that Courts below considered the personal requirement of appellant of the house as if the appellant required the same for commercial purposes. It is urged that the admitted position on record is that the appellant had retired from the service in the year 1970 and wanted to settle down at Karachi. Regarding default in payment of rent the learned counsel contended that under an oral agreement which was arrived at between the parties the rent was. Payable by the respondent on the expiry of each month which meant that the respondent should have paid the same within 15 days of the expiry of each month and there fore there was clear default on the part of respondent in payment of rent. I will first deal with the , issue of default. The default against the respondent in the application is alleged for the months of March to June, 1973. The appellant in his application nowhere asserted that the rent was payable by the appellant on a specified date. The appellant in his evidence before the Controller also nowhere stated that rent of premises was payable on any specified date. The respondent in his cross-examination was also not Suggested that' the monthly rent was payable on any specified date. The admitted position on record is that there is no written agreement between the parties providing for payment of monthly rent by any specified date. The oral agreement alleged by the learned counsel is neither alleged in the rent application nor the appellant stated the same in his evidence. In the absence of any agreement providing for payment of monthly rent by a specified date the rent could be paid by the respondent within 60 days of the rent becoming due. In the application for ejectment the rent was claimed from the month of March, 1973 to June, 1973. Mr. Gharib Nawaz contended that the tenancy in this case started from 19th of each month and therefore the rent for March, 1973 mentioned in the application was for the period from 19-2-1973 to 18-3-1973. Even if this assertion of learned counsel is accepted, the rent for the period from 19-2-1973 to 18-3-1973 in absence of an agreement between the parties providing for payment of rent by a specified date could be paid up to 18-5-1973. The evidence on record shows that on 14-5-1973 the respondent tendered a cheque in the sum of Rs, 800 to the appellant directly which was returned by him on the ground that it should be paid to his attorney at Karachi who alone was authorised to receive the rent of the premises.
6. Thereafter the cheque was sent to the attorney of the appellant who did not accept the same on account of the B dispute between the parties regarding payment of water and conservancy charges. Mr. Khalilur Rehman the learned counsel for the respondent pointed out that upon refusal of the appellant and his attorney at Karachi to receive the monthly rent respondent started depositing monthly rents in Court in a Miscellaneous Rent Case from 5th of July, 1977. The contention of Mr. Khalilur Rehman is not controverted and in these circumstances it cannot be said that the two Courts below in arriving at the conclusion that there was no default on the part of the respondent, misread the evidence.
7. ' The next contention of the learned counsel for the appellant relates to the misreading of evidence by the Courts below on the plea of personal and bona fide requirement. Although the finding on this issue is a pure question of fact which is not open to review by this Court in Second Appeal but since the learned counsel has alleged misreading of evidence by the Courts below I have considered the evidence produced by the parties in the case on this issue. In his application for eviction the personal and bona fide requirement was stated by the appellant in paragraph 7 of his application which is as follows :- "That the applicant maintains a large family and he is now shifting from Lahore to Karachi and thus he required the premises in question in good faith for his own occupation."
8. ' In support of the above assertion in the, jectment application the applicant examined himself only and he made the following statement before the Rent Controller :- "The premises in question are required by me for my own personal use At present I am living at Lahore. I have got business at Lahore and Karachi."
9. ' This was the total evidence produced by the applicant in support of his claim that he required the premises for his personal and bona fide use. In cross-examination the appellant admitted that after his retirement in 1970 he is living at Lahore and that he was doing business of rice procurement which is both at Lahore and Karachi. When further cross examined by the counsel for respondent the appellant admitted that he has no business office or godown at Karachi or pay any income-tax. The appellant's attorney who was also examined in the case admitted in his cross- examination that after his retirement the appellant is permanently settled at Lahore and doing business there. The respondent in his statement stated that the appellant did not require the premises for his personal and bona fide needs as he is permanently settled at Lahore after his retirement where he is doing business there. The respondent further stated that respondent had no business in Karachi and his son is settled in America while all his daughters are married. The above statement of respondent was not challenged in cross-examination at all. It is significant to note that in his evidence before the Court the appellant did not state who are the other members of his family and whether he had decided to move from Lahore to Karachi after his retirement. The assertion of the appellant that he carried on business at Karachi as well was not believed by the two Courts below in view of the fact that the appellant, in his cross-examination admitted that he neither owned any office nor any other business premises in Karachi. After considering the evidence in the case I am of the view that in disbelieving the personal and bona fide requirement of appellant the Courts below neither misread the evidence nor the conclusions drawn by them were perverse or contrary to evidence on record. The fact that another view of the evidence is possible is no ground for interfering in Second Appeal with the concurrent findings of facts by the Courts below. Before concluding, I may mention here that on the last date of hearing, i. e. On 21-2- 1982 Mr. Gharib Nawaz, the learned counsel for the appellant filed a statement signed by the appellant before me stating that after ejectment of appellant the respondent would not relent the premises or part with the possession of same during his lifetime. At the request of the learned counsel I kept this statement on record but I am afraid the same cannot be taken into consideration by me while deciding this appeal. The appeal has no merit and is accordingly dismissed but there will be no order as to costs.