' This is an appeal filed by a tenant, from an order of Ch. Bashir Ahmad, District Judge, Lyallpur dated 10th April, 1971 whereby he reversed an order of Mian Abdul Qayyum, Rent Controller, Lyallpur, dated 17th June, 1969 dismissing the respondent's application for ejectment filed against the appellant.
' The respondent had filed this ejectment application in respect of a one-room house on the ground of default in the payment of rent from 1st June, 1963 to 28th February, 1969. The appellant resisted the application and raised a number of preliminary objections. He submitted that the property was evacuee, and that he had been in possession thereof from a period prior to the date of transfer to the respondent and, therefore, he was entitled to be given a notice under section 30 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act. He also submitted that there was no relationship of landlord and tenant between the parties for the reason of non-service of the said notice. It was also submitted that one Abdur Rashid son of Sher Muhammad had been transferred the property with the respondent, and as such he was a necessary party to the application, in whose absence it could not be decided. On the basis of these objections, the following four issues were framed :-
(1) Whether Abdur Rashid is a necessary party to the petition. "
(2) Whether the relationship of landlord and tenant exists between the parties.
(3) Whether the respondent has been served with a valid notice under section 30 of Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act.
(4) Relief.
3. The respondent produced two witnesses in support of his application, and he also appeared as a witness himself. A. W. 1 Abdur Rashid son of Sher Muhammad who is a co-transferee of the disputed plot and the adjoining land, stated that as a result of a mutually agreed partition, the respondent has become the exclusive owner of the plot in dispute, on which the disputed room stands. He also stated that the appellant had come into possession about 6 months after the plot was transferred to the respondent. The statement of Hakim Ali, A. W. 2 is also to the same effect.
The respondent appearing as A. W. 3 stated the 'tame facts and also added that the rate of rent for the property was fixed at Rs, 15 p. m. Which the appellant paid only for about 5 or 6 months, and that the parties being mutually related, no rent deed was executed. It may be mentioned here that the appellant also produced a P. T.
0. (Exh. A. 1) in respect of their property, a plan showing demarcation of respondent's separate share (Exh. A. 2) and the site plan (Exh. A. 3). The appellant produced only one witness, who stated that the appellant had filed a form before the Settlement authorities for the transfer of this property. The appellant himself appeared as R W.
2. He asserted that he had come into possession 14/15 years earlier, and had constructed the room himself, and had filed a form for the transfer of the plot which was rejected by the settlement authorities. He also asserted that he had never taken the property on rent, nor was any rent ever demanded from him.
4. The Rent Controller decided Issues Nos. 1 and 3 in favour of the respondent and Issue No, 2 against him. Issue No, 2 was decided in favour of the appellant primarily on the ground that the respondent's solitary statement that the appellant was his tenant was not enough to prove that relationship of landlord and tenant existed between them. He, therefore, dismissed the respondent's ejectment application.
5. Findings on Issue No, 2 only were challenged before the District Judge who concluded from the evidence on record that a relationship of landlord and tenant did exist between the parties. It is true that the only direct evidence that the parties had, they had made as witnesses before the Rent Controller. No other witness on either side has deposed anything on the question whether the appellant was a tenant of the respondent. The decision of this issue, therefore, depended on believing the statement of one of the parties as against the other. Learned District Judge preferred to accept the statement of the landlord as against that of the tenant and decided the issue as well as the appeal in his favour.
6r Normally findings of fact arrived at by the first appellate Court are conclusive and they cannot be challenged in second appeal on the ground that the Court did not appreciate the evidence properly. However learned counsel for the appellant has relied on Madan Gopal and 4 others v.
Maran Bepari and 3 others to submit that where the findings of the two Courts below are not concurrent and the appellate Court's judgment does not reveal a logical basis for differing from the finding of the trial Court, it should be rejected. It is observed in the cited authority that where findings of the two Courts are at variance, the two will come in for a comparison for their comparative merits in the light of the facts of the case and the reasons on which the two different findings have respectively proceeded.
7. The Rent Controller had arrived at its findings on the ground that mere statement of the petitioner (denied by the respondent) is not enough to treat a relationship of landlord and tenant between the parties. The lower appellate Court on the other hand decided the issue in favour of the landlord because he has held that tenant's statement made as witness, was proved to be partly wrong and, therefore, his assertion that he was not tenant, was not believable as against the respondent's statement to the contrary. The portion of the appellant's statement which has been proved wrong was his assertion that he came into possession of the property a long time earlier than it was transferred to the landlord by the Settlement Department, and as such he was entitled1 to be given a notice under section 30 of the Displaced Persons Act, before his ejectment could be ordered. On this point the landlord having produced two reliable witnesses to contradict the appellant's stand, the Rent Controller decided that it was established that the appellant was not in possession from a date prior to the transfer of the property to the respondent. On the basis of this finding issue No, 3 was decided against the appellant, who did not challenge the finding of the Rent Controller during the appeal. In my view it cannot therefore be said, that the judgment in appeal does not reveal a logical basis for differing from the findings of the Rent Controller. Learned counsel for the respondent has also taken me through the written statement that was filed in this case, and I find that the tenant stand was primarily based on the objection that he had not been given a' notice under section 30 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act. His case was that he had been in possession of the property long before it was transferred to the respondent by the Settlement Department. His primary claim, therefore, was that he was a statutory tenant and not an ordinary tenant. To disprove this assertion the respondent lead ample evidence, on the basis of which the Rent Controller positively found that the appellant was wrong.
Under these circumstances, the respondent's statement that the appellant was his tenant was rightly considered sufficient to establish tenancy, as it explained how the latter came into possession, the alternative explanation of the appellant that he was in possession in his own right having been disbelieved. I find that no grounds have been made out for upsetting the finding of fact arrived at by the lower appellate Court that the appellant was a tenant of the respondent as it is based on evidence, and the judgment reveals a logical basis for differing from the findings of the Rent Controller.
8. It is not asserted in appeal that the appellant had regularly paid the rent. The learned District Judge was, therefore, quite correct in B holding that further enquiry about non-payment of rent was not necessary and in ordering ejectment of the appellant on the ground of default.
9. There is, therefore, no merit in this second appeal which is dismissed. PLD 1969 SC 627