' SAAD SAOOD JAN, J.---This appeal by special leave is from the judgment and order of the Lahore High Court whereby the Constitution petition of the appellant was dismissed in limine.
2. The appellant is owner of a shop in Muslim Bazar of Gujrat City. In 1970-71 she rented it out to respondents Nos.3 and 4 after permitting them to raise a partition wall. On 12-1-1981, she filed two separate ejectment petitions against the said respondents under section 13, Urban Rent Restriction Ordinance before the local Rent Controller. In support of her petitions she took up the grounds of non-payment of rent, reconstruction and personal need. The petitions were resisted by the respondents who disputed that any of the grounds upon which their ejectment was being sought was available to her. After a proper trial, the learned Rent Controller upheld all the pleas advanced by the appellant and directed the ejectment of the respondents. From the orders of the learned Rent Controller, the respondents preferred separate appeals before the Additional District Judge.
After a thorough reappraisal of the evidence led by the parties, the learned Additional District Judge reversed the findings of the Rent Controller and set aside the orders of ejectment. The appellant filed a Constitution petition in the High Court to call in question the legality of the order of Additional District Judge but failed. She has now come in appeal to this Court.
3. In support of this appeal, the learned counsel appearing for the appellant has confined his argument to the plea of personal need. It may be mentioned that the appellant is a widow and has only one son. She owns four shops in Sarafa Bazar which is about 100 yards away from the Muslim Bazar where the shop in dispute is located. In addition, her son has recently constructed three more shops in Sarafa Bazar.
4. The case of the appellant with regard to the plea of personal need was that her son after working abroad had returned to Gujrat where he now wanted to set up the business of cloth merchant. The only suitable place where he could carry on this business was Muslim Bazar, for the shops owned by her and her son in Sarafa Bazar were unsuitable for that kind of business. In order to show her bona fides, she offered to rent out one of the shops in Sarafa Bazar to the respondent at the same rate of rent that she was receiving from them in respect of the shop in dispute.
5. While rejecting the plea of personal requirement, the learned Additional District Judge was influenced, mainly, by the following considerations:--
(1) she had rented out one of the shops in Sarafa Bazar to one Abdur Rahman. She initiated proceedings against him for ejectment on the ground of personal need. Immediately after obtainig an order of ejectment, she gave it on lease to one Muhammad Anwar on an enhanced rent of Rs,900 per month.
(2) the shops constructed by her son in Sarafa Bazar were lying vacant.
The question whether the plea of personal need set up by the appellant was bona fide or not was one of fact and the learned Additional District Judge acting as an appellate authority under the Urban Rent Restriction Ordinance, was competent to record a finding thereon. This finding could not be ordinarily interfered with in writ jurisdiction, particularly, when the considerations which prevailed with him in recording his conclusion could not be described either fanciful or arbitrary. It is true that in her statement before the Rent Controller she had offered to accommodate the respondent in one of the shops she owned in Sarafa Bazar but then she had no satisfactory explanation to offer why after having obtained an eviction order against Abdur Rahman on the ground of personal need, she or her son failed to occupy the shop in question and had rented it out to another person. Apart from that, the evidence led by her to show that Sarafa Bazar was less suitable or profitable for running a cloth shop is not convincing.
6. For the reasons stated above, we are unable to find out any legal flaw in the finding of the learned Additional District Judge that her plea of personal need was not bona fide. The High Court was, therefore, justified in not interfering with his order in writ jurisdiction. We would accordingly dismiss this appeal but leave the parties to bear their own costs.