This is First Appeal under section 21 of the Sind Rented Premises Ordinance, 1979 from the order of learned IVth Extra Joint Civil Judge and Rent Controller, Hyderabad dated 29th January, 1980 whereby the learned Rent Controller had accepted ejectment application of the respon--dent in respect of the house bearing C. S. No. C/463 situated - in Sangat Rai Land, Hyderabad, and directed the appellants to hand over vacant possession of the premises to the respondent within two months.
2. The house in question i.e. C. S. No. C/463 was transferred to the respondent by the Settlement Authorities and a permanent transfer deed was also issued in her favour on 23rd November, 1967.
Her case before the Rent Controller was that the appellants were residing in this house at the time of its transfer and as such they were her statutory tenants. She gave a notice to both the appellants as required by section 30 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation)
Act, 1958, informing them that the house has been transferred to her by the Settle--ment Authorities. This notice was dated 26th February, 1970 and was sent by Registered Post addressed to both the appellants. It may be stated that both the appellants are real brothers inter se and are residing in the disputed house which according to them bears No. C;465 and not C/463. However the notice addressed to these appellants was returned by the Postal Authorities with the endorsement that appellant Pirdino has refused to accept it while appellant Muhammad Hussain was serving sentence in jail. The respondent, therefore, sent another notice by Registered Post A. D.
To Muhammad Hussain through Superintendent Jail, Hyderabad. This was also returned with the endorsement that it was refused. The second notice was returned on 10th September, 1970 and is Exh. 103 on the Lower Court's record. The envelope containing the fist notice dated 26th February, 1970 is Exh. 102.
3. The respondent waited for about 6/7 months after the last notice and then filed the ejectment application out of which this appeal has arisen. The ejectment application was numbered as R. A.
No. 7 of 1971. In her application the respondent had claimed possession of the disputed premises on the ground that the appellants have failed to pay rent for more than six months in spite of the statutory notice, that she requires the house for her bona fide personal ,use and that the appellants have been causing damage to the property so as to materially impair its value.
4. The appellants have filed Joint Written Statement in which they have alleged that the number of the house in which they are residing is C/465 and not C/463, that they are not statutory tenants of the respon--dent, that they never refused to accept any notice and that they have themselves applied to the Settlement Authorities for the transfer of the house in which they are residing. They have, therefore, pleaded that the respondent is neither the owner of the house which they are occupying nor she is entitled to recover rent from them. They have also denied other pleas contained in the ejectment application.
5. The ejectment proceedings lingered on. Before the learned Rent Controller for about 9 years.
Evidence was recorded on preliminary issue regarding the existence of relationship of landlord and tenant between the parties, service of the statutory notices and maintainability of the ejectment application. On all these issues the learned Rent Controller on the basis of the evidence recorded, came to the conclusion that the relationship of landlord and tenant did exist between the parties, that the notices were duly offered to the appellants but were refused therefore they were duly served and that the ejectment application was maintainable. The learned Rent Controller did not think it necessary to make further inquiry regarding wilful default in payment of rent, but passed ejectment order on the ground that it would have -been futile to frame further issue regarding default because appellants bad been persistently denying the title of the respondent and had admittedly never paid any rent to her.
6. The first question that arises in this behalf is about the identity of the house which has been transferred to the respondent and in which the appellants are residing. According to the latter the number of this house is C/465 while according to the respondent its number is C/463. In this connection appellant Pirdino himself had filed an application before the Deputy Settlement Commissioner. Hyderabad alleging that the house in which he is residing bears No. C/465 and not C/463 and that this house should be transferred to him. This application was decided by the Deputy Settlement Commissioner, Hyderabad after a thorough inquiry regarding the actual number of the house. He came to the conclusion that the number of this house was C/463 and not C/465. Against his order appellant Pirdino had filed a Revision Application before Settlement Commissioner, Karachi which was dismissed. Certified copy of the Revision application in which order of the Deputy Settlement Commissioner, Hyderabad has been fully reproduced, has been produced by the Respondent's witness Khursheed Ahmad as Exh. 105 in the lower Court's record.
Order of the Settlement Commissioner has also been filed as Exh. 106.
7. The learned counsel for the appellants has argued that these documents should not have been admitted by the learned Rent Controller in evidence, that objection was raised before the learned Rent Controller when these documents were produced by the witness but they were admitted subject to his objection. However it is argued that in the judg--ment the learned Rent Controller has not taken due note of the objection of the appellants regarding their admissibility. The objection of the learned counsel against the production of these documents is untenable. Both these documents i.e. Exhs. 105 and 106 are certified copies of orders relating to the proceedings in which appellant Pirdino himself was the petitioner. He must not be unaware of these documents which contained orders of the Settlement Authorities. These authorities are quasi-judicial authorities hence even judicial notice can be taken of the orders passed by them and certified copies of their orders, if relevant to the proceedings, can be admitted in the evidence at any stage of the proceedings. The appellants were not taken by surprise when these copies were produced in evidence because appellant Pirdino himself was the petitioner in the Revision Application Exh. 105.
He himself has reproduced the order of the Deputy Settlement Commissioner ad verbam in this application He has not come in the witness-box to deny having made' this application or having filed petition in which the order Exh. 106 was passed. His brother Muhammad Hussain appellant has, however, admitted in cross--examination that Pirdino had filed a Revision Application before the Settlement Commissioner but he does not know if it was dismissed. .
8. In view of the clear order of the Settlement Authorities determin--ing the identity of the house in dispute the appellants cannot now claim that the house in dispute bears No. C/465 and Dot C/463 or that they are not residing in the house which has been transferred to the respondent.
9. Yet another important document which has come on record during the evidence of the appellants themselves is a newspaper cutting (Exh. 118) containing an advertisement of Settlement Authorities in respect of the properties offered for auction. In this list house No. C/463 in ward `C', Hyderabad has been shown at serial No. 5 of this ward and Muhammad Hussain has been shown as the occupant of this house. Muhammad Hussain shown in the relevant column of the occupants its this list, cannot be other than the appellant in this appeal. This docu--ment shows that the evacuee owner of this house is one Pritamdas whereas the evacuee house which has been transferred to the respondent vide P. T. D. lExh. 98) belonged to one Wadomal. It is, therefore, argued by the learned counsel for the appellants that the house transferred to the respondent cannot be the same, in which the appellants are residing. This argument is equally misconceived.
In the Settlement record the number of the property and the occupant as well as its location have been correctly stated. It is just possible that originally according to the infor--mation collected by the Settlement Authorities, Pritamdas might have been found to be the owner of this property, while on some later informa--tion they corrected the record and found that the actual owner of the property was Wadomal. It may be stated here that incorrect description as to owner of the evacuee property in the record of the Settlement Department would not raise any doubt about the identity of an evacuee property, the number, location and occupant etc. Of which are clearly established on the record. The learned Rent Controller has, therefore, rightly come to the conclusion that the number of the house in question is C/463 and that it is the very house which was permanently transferred to the respondent and in which both the appellants are residing.
10. The learned counsel for the appellants has referred to notice Exh. 102 which is addressed to both the appellants jointly on which the address has been shown as H. No. C/465, Sangat Rai Lane, Hyderabad this notice was resurrect with the endorsement that the appellant Pirdino refused to accept it while appellant Muhammad Hussain was in jail. Learned counsel for the appellants has challenged the legality of this notice and the service on two grounds. Firstly that the notice could not have been-addressed jointly to the two occupants and that it should have been addressed separately to the two persons and secondly the endorsement of refusal cannot be taken as due service because it was not properly addressed.
11. So far as the first objection is concerned it is not denied that both the appellants are real brothers and are residing in the same house. Under such circumstances it was not necessary to serve each one of them with a separate notice. From the Settlement record Exh. 118 which is the auction notice of the Settlement Department and which has been referred to above, only appellant Muhammad Hussain has been shown as the occupant. It appears that Muhammad Hussain was the head of the family and therefore he alone has been shown as the occupant in the record of the Settlement Department. It was not necessary to record the name of each member of the family occupying the house in the relevant column of the record. Hence even if the notice had been addressed to Muhammad Hussain alone it would have been quite valid.
12. So far as the objection about the address mentioned on this envelope is concerned, it may be stated that the notice was sent in the year 1970 when the appellants had been claiming that the house in which they resided bears No. C/465 and not C/463. The object of the respondent to giving the notice at the address of C/465 was by way of abundant caution so that the appellants may not have an opportunity of evading the notice on the ground that it was not properly addressed.
Moreover appellant Pirdino has failed to appear as a witness to rebut to allega--tion that the notice was offered to him by the postman and it was refused.
13. It has been argued that the postal authorities had kept this notice for about two months with them before returning it to the respondent with-the endorsement of refusal. He has also referred to the postal office guide and urged that according to the para. 32 of the guide, the postal authorities could not have retained this letter for more than seven days after all inquiries to find the addressee have proved unsuccessful. Within 7 days of such inquiry the letter is to be returned to the sender. It is therefore, urged that the respondent had manipulated with postal authorities and got false endorsement of refusal in respect of the letter which was never offered to Pirdino. Paragraph 32 the substance of which has been quoted above does not help the appellants at all. There is nothing on the record to show as to how much time did the postal authorities take to finish their inquiry about the whereabouts of the addressee. The period of seven days is to be counted from the day when such inquiry concludes and not from the day when the letter was first mailed. No irregularity of any sort appears to have been committed by the postal authorities in making inquiries about the addressee and then returning the letter after two months with the endorsement as stated above.
The endorsement on the envelope Exh. 102 is to the effect that Pirdino was found near the water- tap who was asked to accept the notice who replied that as his brother Muhammad Hussain is in jail, he cannot accept the registered letter without his consent. With this endorsement it was returned to the sender. The presumption is that the postal authorities took two months to locate the addressee. There was admittedly some confusion about number of the house in the early seventies i. e. Before the filing of the ejectment application. There was no illegality on the part of the postal authorities if they took two months to find out Pirdino. The objection is, therefore, misconceived.
14. It has already been held that even if notice to Muhammad Hussain alone had been given by the respondent, it would have fulfilled F the requirement of section 30 of the D. Ps. Act. By way of abundant caution the respondent gave another notice to Muhammad Hussain after she came to know from the postal endorsement on the first notice that Muhammad Hussain was serving sentence in jail. The envelope of this notice is Exh. 103 which is addressed to Muhammad Hussain son of Muhammad Bux as follows :-- "Mr. Muhammad Hussain son of Muhammad Bux Inspector of Police now undergoing imprisonment C/o Superintendent, Central Jail, Hyderabad."
Even this notice was returned with the endorsement that it was refused. Even if the first notice is not relied upon, the second notice Exh. 103 must be taken to have been properly addressed tar the appellant and the endorsement of refusal must be taken as proper service. Learned counsel for the appellants has argued that it any letter is sought to be delivered to prisoner it cannot be done without the permission of the Superintendent of the jail and that the envelope Exh. 103 does not contain any endorse--ment of the jail authorities. The objection is baseless because the notice was not accepted by the addressee at all hence there was no need of endorsement by the jail authorities on the envelope there is no rule that a letter addressed to a prisoner if refused by him can not be returned by the postal authorities to the sender without any endorsement of the jail authorities.
15. I, therefore, hold that the learned Rent Controller was justified in deciding the issue regarding service of the statutory notice in favout of the Respondent.
16. Since it was established that the appellants are statutory tenants of the Respondent, that they had refused to accept the statutory notice and that they had never paid rent to the respondent, it was quite appro--priate for the Rent Controller to have passed the ejectment order without giving any further opportunity to the appellants to rebut the allegation of wilful default in payment of rent.
No exception, therefore, can be taken to the course adopted by the learned Rent Controller in passing ejectment order immediately after deciding the preliminary issues. Reliance in this behalf can be placed on the judgment of this Court reported in the case of Sikandar Khan v. Muhammad Amin (PLD 1979 Kar. 59) in which it has been held by a learned Single Judge of this Court as under :- "In the instant case, however, it has been shown that although the Respondent bad made clear his title at the outset, the appellant bad deliberately and frivolously denied the title of the respondent and withheld payment of rent to the respondent. That being so, holding of further enquiry into the matter would have been unnecessary, even on the basis of the observations made in the above Karachi Case."
The Karachi case referred to above is reported in 1978 SCMR 14 1 am in respectful agreement with the observations made in the above case which are fully applicable to the present appeal.
17. In view of the above circumstances, I find that there is no sub--stance in this appeal which is dismissed with costs. The appellants shall vacate the premises forthwith and hand over its possession to the Respondent.