1. ' This appeal under section 21 of the Sind Rented Premises Ordinance, 1979 is filed against the order of Rent Controller directing eviction of the appellant from the premises occupied by him on the ground of personal and bona fide requirement of respondents 1 and 2.
2. ' Respondents Nos. 1 and 2 instituted rent application for eviction of appellant alongwith respondents 3 and 4 on the sole ground that the premises is required by them for their personal and bona fide needs. Only appellant and respondent No. 3 filed their written statement before the Rent Controller while respondent No. 4 did not file any written statement. Appellant disputed the personal and bona fide requirement of the respondents Nos. 1 and 2 while respondent No. 3 admitted the claim of respondents 1 and 2 in his written statement. The Rent Controller after recording the evidence of the parties and hearing them came to the conclusion that the respondents Nos. 1 and 2 have succeeded in proving other case for personal and bona fide requirement and accordingly directed the appellant to put respondents Nos. 1 and 2 in possession of the premises. I have heard the learned counsel for the appellant and respondents 1 and 2 at length.
3. ' Mr. A.M. Mobeen Khan the learned counsel for the appellant firstly contended that the respondents Nos. 1 and 2 failed to prove their personal and bona fide requirement for the house as in the rent application the personal and bona fide requirements were urged in respect of both the respondents but only one of them namely Habibullah appeared in the witness-box to support the case and as such the requirement pleaded by the other landlord was not at all proved. The learned counsel next submitted that the case set up by the applicants in their application for eviction of the appellant was that the premises were required for their personal and bona fide needs whereas in the evidence before the Rent Controller respondent No. 1 stated that he needed the premises for his occupation as well as for occupation of his wife, unmarried sons and a daughter. He also stated that one of his sons could not get married because of paucity of accommodation. This variation in the statement of Habibullah according to learned counsel contradicted the case set up by the landlords in the ejectment application. The last contention of the learned counsel for the appellant is that the application filed by respondents 1 and 2 was mala fide as these respondents had been making continuous efforts for the last about 14 years to evict the appellant by hook or crook and in this connection the learned counsel referred to earlier litigation between the parties. The contention of the learned counsel did not impress me.
4. ' I have gone through the evidence of respondent No. 1 in the case and the witnesses produced by him and I do not find any contradic tion in the evidence and the ground of eviction mentioned in the application. In his evidence before the Rent Controller respondent No. 1 stated in paragraph 11 c, affidavit as follows:-- "11. That the applicant No. 1 has got four sons named Hizbullah, Fazalullah, Ahmed, Nasrullah and one daughter out of which Hizbullah and Fazlullah are married and residing separately with their children whereas Ahmed and Nasrullah who are major aged about 30 and 22 years respectively are residing with their father applicant No.1 alongwith their mother."
5. ' The above statement of respondent No. 1 in my opinion does not conflict in any manner with the requirement pleaded in paragraph 3 of the application, wherein he stated that the premises is required for his personal and bona fide need. Expression "for his own occupation" used in section 15 of the Ordinance cannot be interpreted in a restricted manner so as to mean only personal occupation of the premises by the landlord. The above expression will legitimately include all genuine requirements of landlord as well as his other family member who may be living with him (see Muhammad Hanif v. Mst. Sara PLD 1982 Kar.
182. In the present case respondent No. 1 in his statement before the Court stated that he has got four sons out of whom two are married and they are residing separately whereas the two other sons who are aged about 30 and 22 years are unmarried and are residing with him and he is residing alongwith his wife and one unmarried daughter. The above requirement expressed by the landlord. was not disputed and on the contrary the appellant in his cross-examination admitted the above facts. In these circumstances it cannot be said that there was any conflict in the evidence of the respondent No. 1 with the requirement pleaded in the rent application. The next contention of the learned counsel for the appellant is that the property which was originally owned by the respondents Nos. 1 and 2 was bifurcated and sold away to their respective sons with a mala fide intention to create a ground for eviction of the appellant. It is also contended by the learned counsel that the mala fides on the part of respondents Nos. 1 and 2 were obvious from the fact that prior to the filing of the present rent application there had been long drawn litigation between the parties in which the respondents Nos. 1 and 2 made several attempts to evict the appellant from the premises in question. None of the grounds urged by the learned counsel for the appellant is sufficient to hold that the application filed by the respondents Nos. 1 and 2 was mala fide. The property was sold by respondents 1 and 2 to their sons in the year 1976 whereas the present application for eviction of appellant was filed in 1982. The appellant in his cross-examination specifically admitted that Survey number 2335/90 was in the name of the respondents 1 and 2 which was transferred in the names of the sons of the respondents as late as in the year 1976. He also admitted that this survey number was bifurcated into 3 portions out of which the first portion is a street while the other two parts are used for residential purpose by the two sons of respondent who are residing separately from respondents 1 and 2. The names of these two sons are also disclosed as Sanaullah and Hizbullah by the appellant in his cross-examination. It is an undisputed position on record that respondents 1 and 2 are not residing in any property owned by them but they are putting up alongwith their sons.
6. In these circumstances the desire expressed by the respondents 1 and 2 to live in the premises owned by them can neither be termed as unreasonable nor male fide. The learned counsel for the appellant relied on the case of M.S. Khan v. S.M. Sirajuddin 1985 CLC 562; Ikramullah Khan v.
7. Muhammad Umar 1984 CLC 2418 and Mian Abdul Hafeez v. Faridun-Nisa 1984 CLC 1917 in support of the contention that the application filed by the respondent was male fide. The above-cited cases are quite distinguishable on facts and have no application to the facts of the present case.
8. Apart from it in view of the insertion of section 15-A in the Ordinance No. XVII of 1979 a tenant is not fully protected against any mala fide application by a landlord. Section 15-A provides that if a landlord obtains possession of the premises from a tenant on the ground of personal and bona fide requirement and relets the same to a person other than the original within one year he is not only liable to conviction upon the complaint of the tenant in that regard but the tenant so evicted from the premises can also get back the possession of such 'premises from the landlord besides compensation which may be equivalent to twelve months rent of the premises prevalent at the time of passing of the eviction order. The provision of law fully protects a tenant against a male fide action of the landlord. The last contention of the learned counsel for the appellant is that the absence of examination of the other landlords in the case was fatal to the case. There is equally no force in this contention. One of the landlords appeared in the case as a witness and he also examined other witnesses in support of the case. The evidence produced on behalf of landlords fully established the case of personal and bona fide requirement pleaded by them before the Rent Controller. There is no rule of law that if there are more than one landlord of premises all of them must be examined in the case. If out of several joint landlords of a premises only one of them appears and deposes in support of the case and his evidence is found sufficient to prove the case of personal and bona fide requirement of the landlords then the application cannot be refused on the ground that other landlords have not come in the witness-box in support of the case. The learned counsel for the respondents Nos. 1 and 2 rightly relied on the case of Zahoorul Haq and another v. Syed Hazoor Shah and others 1980 CLC 1054 to support his contention that in so far respondents 1 and 2 succeeded before the Controller to convince him that their requirement was bona fide on the basis of evidence produced in the case, it was quite immaterial that all the landlords of the premises were examined or not. In the case before me the requirement pleaded by Habibullah one of the landlord was specific with regard to himself and his family members and he produced convincing evidence before the Controller in respect of his case. In these circum stances non-production of other landlord Hameedullah was immaterial.
9. ' As result of above discussion the order of Rent Controller is upheld and the appeal is dismissed.
10. The appellant is however, granted four months time to vacate the premises on the condition that he shall continue to pay the rent regularly for this period to respondents 1 and 2. There will be no order as to costs.