S. A. NUSRAT, J.--This appeal by special leave of this Court is from the judgment passed by a learned Single Judge of the High Court dated 6-5-1981 whereby the first rent appeal of the respondent-landlady was allowed and the order of the Civil Judge and Vth Rent Controller, Karachi, dismissing the respondent's application for eviction of the appellant was set aside.
2. The application for ejectment was filed by the respondent on 22-5-1975 under section 13 of the West Pakistan Urban Rent Restriction Ordinance, 1959 (hereinafter called the Ordinance), on the ground of default in payment of rent, conversion of the premises from residential to commercial, damage to the property, default and nuisance: The said application was dismissed by the learned Rent Controller on 15-1-1980 whereupon the respondent filed first rent appeal in the High Court of Sind which was allowed as per. Judgment under appeal and the appellant was directed to vacate the premises within six months' time.
3. Leave to appeal was granted by this Court on 2-2-1982 for consideration of the following two questions : - "Firstly, whether the acts alleged amount to "nuisance", and, secondly, whether the nuisance caused to the landlady would mean "nuisance" to the neighbourhood brining such acts within the fold of the term as used and followed is the Ordinance."
4. The facts constituting nuisance were specified by the respondent as under: "(a) That ever since the opponent has married a Police Inspector in about the year 1972, she is indulging in acts of lawlessness by abusing, ill treating and using violence against the applicant taking advantage of the facts that the applicant has unfortunately also lost her four children after the death of her husband who was a Section Officer in the Central Government of Pakistan and the applicant is now residing in the first floor of the said house with her only surviving daughter who is a student of Economics College, Karachi and as a result of the said acts of lawlessness on the part of the opponent, the applicant is suffering from Tacheardia and she becomes breathless very often;
(b) That the opponent has intentionally caused damage to the premises m dispute, and keeps the water supply to the applicant's premises on the first floor stopped by keeping the water tape on the ground floor constantly open resulting in complete stoppage of the supply of water to the first floor of the house;
(c) That the opponent also intentionally tampers with the flow of electricity, due to which the electricity supply to the first floor was cut off and the applicant had to run for restoration of the electric connection at the huge cost and in convenience;
(d) That the opponent also made attempt to get the electric motor changed in her name but without success as the applicant somehow came to know in time about the said attempt made by the opponent;
(e) That finding the applicant helpless and surrounded by calamities of life, the opponent in collusion with her husband is also threatening to deprive the applicant of our property somehow."
5. In support of his twin contentions noticed in the leave granting order, the learned counsel for appellant sought support from the language used in clause (iv) of subsection (2) of section 13 of the Ordinance which reads as under :- "The tenant has been guilty of such acts and conduct as are a nuisance to the occupants of buildings in the neighbourhood;"
It was first contended that in order to bring the case within the mischief of the above clause of the Ordinance it should be proved that the tenant had committed series of `acts' as would constitute nuisance and one single instance would not be sufficient for the purpose of ordering his ejectment.
In this connection, it was contended that only one report was lodged by the respondent with the police on 15-7-1972 as per Exh, 3, referred to in the judgment of the High Court, and, therefore, this was all but one instance regarding the allegation of giving a beating to the respondent by the appellant, her son and her husband Siraj. This contention, however, overlooks the fact that the respondent had also stated that the appellant's friends and friends of her son used to throw rubbish at her instance and this cannot be regarded as a solitary instance but would constitute continuous nuisance. The respondent bad further stated that the appellant, her son and husband used to take delivery of her postal letters which compelled her to get the same on different addresses. The respondent produced four envelops in support of the said assertion. The allegation of the respondent with regard to throwing of rubbish and diversion of mail to different addresses because of interception on the part of the respondent had gone unchallenged before the learned Rent Controller and was thus proved, The above contention of the learned counsel, in the circumstances, is not tenable on facts leave alone the law.
6. It was next contended that according to the provisions contained in clause under consideration the `nuisance' must be shown to have been caused to the occupants of buildings in the neighbourhood which envisaged the existence of more than one occupant and more than one building in the neighbourhood. In the instant case according to the learned counsel, since the appellant and the respondent were residents of the ground and the first floor respectively of the same building the case in hand was not covered by the relevant provision. It was held by the learned High Court that the respondent who is residing on first floor of the building would be an occupant in the neighbourhood within the meaning of the law in relation to the occupant of the ground floor. It was further held that according to the General Clauses Act, the words in the singular also include the plural and vice versa and, therefore, the `nuisance' to an occupant of a building would also fall within the mischief of clause (iv) of section 13 (2) of the Ordinance.
7. Applying the provisions of section 13 (2) of the General Clauses Act, as noticed by the learned High Court, the word `buildings' would also include one single building comprising of more than one tenement which are capable of independent occupancy no matter whether one of the same is in the occupa--petition of the landlord because the words used in the clause are `occupants' and not `tenants'. However, no further discussion of the points in issue is necessary because the questions raised herein are covered by the late pronouncement of this Court in the case of Mst. Nasreen Rashid v. Mst. Asghari Begum Qureshi and others (PLD 1982 SC 453).
8. For the reasons mentioned above, the judgment under appeal calls for no interference. The appeal thus fails and is dismissed with costs.