' MUHAMMAD IQBAL KALHORO, J.---Petitioner is the tenant in portion of the %house No,259-B Syedna Ismail Road, Shabbirabad Karachi. Through this petition she has assailed concurrent findings recorded by the two courts below in the rent case No,129/2012 filed by respondent No,1/Moiz Sabawalla, the owner, on the grounds of personal bona fide need and default. Record reflects that in the said case on an application of respondent No,1 moved under section 16 (1) Sindh Rented Premises Ordinance, 1979 ("SRPO") seeking directions for the petitioner to deposit arrears of monthly rent for the period from December 2011 to May 2012, the petitioner was directed to deposit arrears of that period amounting to Rs,138000/- and further to pay future monthly rent in the court on or before 10th of each English Calendar month. It appears that thereafter the respondent filed an application under section 16 (2) SRPO alleging noncompliance of the said order in respect of future rent and prayed to strike off defense of the petitioner and to direct her to vacate the tenement. This application was resisted by the petitioner, however, vide order dated 14.12.2012 it was allowed, resultantly the petitioner was directed to hand over possession of the suit premises to the respondent within 60 days. Appeal filed by petitioner against said order has been dismissed through the impugned judgment, and thereafter she has preferred instant petition.
2. Her case here is that the impugned findings are against the material available on record; that she had made good of the entire default amount, which did not exceed six months, on the first date of hearing i,e, 31.05.2012, and when this is done on the first date of hearing, the scheme under proviso to subsection (2) of section 15 SRPO comes into play whereby rent application has to be rejected by the learned Rent Controller and thereafter if any further proceedings are undertaken by him, they would become coram non judice and nullity in the eyes of law; that after the entire default was made good, further entertaining the matter by the learned Rent Controller, striking off her defense and ordering for her eviction was illegal and ultra vires to the scheme provided under the ibid provision of law; that learned Rent Controller has erred by considering alleged subsequent default on her part in the impugned order, which was neither agitated nor made ground in the rent case; that striking off her defense and passing eviction order against her on the basis alleged default has resulted into miscarriage of justice; that parties are always bound by their pleadings but in the present case the respondent has relied upon the material extraneous to his pleadings; that although the arrears for the alleged period (December 2011 to May 2012) were Rs,138,000/- (Rs,23000/- per month) but she had deposited an amount of Rs,151,800/- which was more than due and it also covered the rent of June 2012, the month for the alleged default of which, the impugned judgments were passed against her Mr. Abdul Qadir Khan learned Counsel for the petitioner mainly emphasized on the above points in his arguments and further stressed that indeed the whole rent case was based on the ground of default only but in order to avoid scheme provided under proviso to subsection (2) of section 15 SRPO, the ground of personal need was agitated in the case which even prima facie was not attracted, explaining the point he stated that the persons for whom the suit premises was sought to be vacated did not qualify to come within the definition of personal need provided in the law. He in support of his contentions relied upon the case laws reported in 2008 CLC 1598, 2013 YLR 2122, 2014 SBLR Sindh 495, PLD 2006 SC 214, 2012 SCMR 254, PLD 1971 SC 124, 2006 SCMR 783, PLD 1974 SC 322, PLD 2007 SC 582, PLD 1965 SC 698, PLD 1980 SC 298, PLD 2002 SC 452, 1991 SCMR 68, 2011 SCMR 265, PLD 2007 SC 472, 1969 SCMR 517, PLD 1991 SC 590, 1991 CLC 1047 and PLD 2000 SC 18.
3. On the other hand, Mr. Mushtaq Ahmed Memon learned counsel for the respondent contended that the rent case was filed not only on the ground of default of six months but also on the ground of personal need, hence proviso to subsection (2) of section 15 SRPO was not attracted; that order under section 16 (1) SRPO although was tentative in nature but its compliance was mandatory as in case of its non-compliance penalty under its subsection (2) in the shape of striking off the defense of the tenant and putting the landlord in possession of the premises was provided; that the petitioner in order to further defend her case and to show her bona fide was required to obey the direction of the court to pay future monthly rent on or before 10th of each month, but she did not do so and committed default in depositing the rent of June 2012, as such she was liable to be ejected from the suit premises. Learned counsel further pointed out that the petitioner even thereafter in disregard to the directions in the order under section 16 (1) SRPO had been regularly failing to deposit the rent on or before the due date, and in proof of his point he referred to the statement of Nazir showing chronological order of payments of rent made by the petitioner. Lastly in support of his arguments learned counsel relied upon the case laws reported in 1987 CLC 674, 1988 CLC 2051, 1997 MLD 2758, 1999 MLD 3165, 2008 CLC 387, PLD 2008 Kar. 160, 2008 CLC 1087, PLD 2011 SC 331, 2012 YLR 438, 2000 CLC 1982, PLD 1963 SC 1, PLD 2007 Karachi 178, 2008 CLC 1415, 2009 MLD 186, 1992 MLD 400, 1992 CLC 2276 and 2010 CLC 1277, PLD 1965 SC 698, PLD 1958 SC 104, PLD 1971 SC 124, 2004 SCMR 1622, 1992 MLD 560, 1979 CLC 650 and 1997 MLD 2103.
4. I have considered the above submissions, perused the material and have taken guidance from the case laws cited at the bar. There is no cavil to the proposition that if a rent case is filed on the sole ground of default and the tenant on the first day of hearing admits his liability to pay the entire dues, then under proviso to subsection (2) of 15 SRPO, the Rent Controller shall, on being satisfied that the tenant has not defaulted on any previous occasion and the default is not exceeding six months, direct the tenant to pay all the rent claimed from him on or before the date fixed for this purpose and upon such payment he shall reject the rent application. However, it is equally obvious from a bare perusal of said provision of the law that this scheme has to he applied in respect of the cases filed solely on the ground of default that is not beyond six months.
' Therefore it is not hard to assume that in the cases where in addition to alleged default of six months, if some or any of other grounds provided under the law have been raised by the landlord for ejectment, the rent application on payment of the arrears of rent claimed on the first date of hearing would not be liable to be rejected. In the circumstances, the tenant will have to face up the other grounds too because mere making good of the default by the tenant in presence of other grounds would not suffice to avoid him eviction, unless those remaining grounds are adjudicated in his/her favour. In the present case, the record shows that default was not the sole ground taken by the respondent to seek eviction of the petitioner; in Para No,12 of the rent application he has also expounded his personal need as one of the grounds for seeking eviction of the petitioner from the suit premises. Therefore, petitioner's making good of the entire default on the first date of hearing was of no consequence insofar as respondent's right to continue with his case on the ground of personal need is concerned, and it did not confer any jurisdiction on the learned Rent Controller to reject the application on the basis of payment of arrears. Regarding contention of learned counsel for the petitioner that the ground of personal need has been agitated male fidely in order to avoid rejection of the rent application in the case of payment of entire dues under the scheme discussed above, it may be observed that such inference cannot be drawn summarily without recording evidence of the parties, and for the evidence to have been recorded, it was incumbent upon the petitioner to obey the direction of the court relating to payment of future rent on due date. The other limb of the same contention was that the persons for whom the suit premises was being sought did not qualify to be family members defined under the term 'personal need' in clause (g) of section 2 of SRPO. In this respect, I am of the view that the law does not appear to restrict the term 'personal need' to the wife and children only in all the circumstances. In the times of need and particular circumstances such as the ones propounded in the present rent case its applicability can be expanded to and it can include the family and/or children of the siblings who by virtue of some incident or accident become dependent on the landlord. The objection of learned counsel for the petitioner in this regard therefore is not sustainable. And as observed above, this question was to be thrashed out in the evidence and to qualify for the same the petitioner was required to comply with the tentative order of learned Rent Controller to pay in addition to arrears the future rent also on or before the due date.
5. A perusal of the tentative order would indicate that the petitioner in no ambiguous words was directed to pay the arrears and also the future rent on or before the 10th of each English Calendar month. The history of the payments in this behalf shows that the petitioner consistently has been defying the direction in respect of the future rent. The first payment of Rs,1,51,800/- {which is of arrears, December 2011 to May 2012 and does not include the rent of June 2012 as in that case it would have been Rs,1,61,800/-(Rs,23,000/-p.m.)} was deposited on 31.05.2012, the next payment of Rs, 23,000/- was made on 10.07.2012. But the balance amount of Rs,9,200/- towards the rent of June 2012, if in the payment of Rs,1,51,800/-, Rs, 13,800/- which were more than the actual arrears (Rs,1,38,000/-) are considered as part payment towards rent of June 2012, was not paid. It may be relevant to observe here that the respondent had claimed Rs,1,51,800/- as arrears of rent instead of Rs,1,38,000/- in his rent application on the assumption that due to inflation the rent of the premises was to be Rs,25,300/-, but it appears that the learned Rent Controller considered Rs,23,000/- as the rent per month and calculated arrears accordingly and directed the petitioner to deposit the same. And perhaps it was in the said circumstances the petitioner as an abandon caution happened to deposit the entire claimed amount of Rs,1,51,8,000/-. But by any estimation, it did not include the entire rent of June 2012 and there is no reason to not count it as a default on the part of the petitioner and defiance of tentative order. Record also indicates that the rent of September 2012 was deposited by the petitioner on 14.09.2012 and the rent of November 2012 on 12.11.2012; these payments were apparently made after the due date fixed by the learned Rent Controller in this behalf and were considered so by him against her in the impugned order dated 14.12.2012 passed under section 16(2) SRPO. The report further shows that some of the subsequent payments by the petitioner were not made either within date fixed by the learned Rent Controller. Of a particular mention is the fact that after 17.12.2013, no rent was deposited by the petitioner till 19.03.2015 when she deposited accumulated rent of intervening period and then again no payments but only on 30.08.2016 accumulatively of the entire ensuing period thereafter. Such conduct of the petitioner is indicative of the fact that she has no deference for the order of the rent controller to pay future rent on or before 10th of each calendar month.
6. For foregoing discussion, I am of the view that the petitioner has not been able to show any illegality in the impugned judgment and order warranting interference by this court in the constitutional jurisdiction. Resultantly the petition is dismissed along with pending applications. The petitioner is directed to vacate the suit premises in 60 days of today. There is no order is to cost.