' Appellant Abid Hassain Qureshi has sought the ejectment of the respondent under section 14 of the Ordinance in respect of a shop rented out to the respondent vide rent agreement dated 7-12- 1974 at the rate of Rs,375 per month. The appellant/landlord claimed that he had attained the age of 60 years on Ist September, 1984 and had duly served notice upon the respondent as contemplated under section 14 (1) of the Sindh Rented Premises Ordinance, 1979, but the respondent did not heed to it and hence the ejectment application which was filed on 24-7-1985. In his written statement, the respondent/tenant admitted the service of notice but claimed that it was illegal. He also denied that the appellant had attained the age of 60 years on 1st September, 1984.
An objection was also raised to the maintainability of ejectment application under section 14 of the Ordinance. Learned trial Court framed the following issues on these pleadings.
(1) Whether the present application is maintainable?
(2) Whether the applicant is entitled for the relief claimed under section 14 of the Ordinance?
(3) What should the order be?
All these issues were decided against the appellant and the ejectment application was accordingly dismissed vide impugned judgment dated 22-9-1986. Hence this appeal.
2. The appellant had also stated in his ejectment application that the respondent had made additions and alterations in the demised premises without his permission and had converted the demised premises, which was originally a room, into a shop and was using it for business purposes, and the objection of the respondents was that this ground could not be taken in an application under section 14 of the Sindh Rented Premises Ordinance, 1979, and therefore the application was not maintainable. The objection is patently frivolous because if any irrelevant averment is also made in the ejectment application, it does not make the application non-maintainable. If the application is based on the grounds available under section 14, it is maintainable notwithstanding any irrelevant averments which can be ignored. A perusal of the written statement shows that the following objections were raised by the respondent. First that the grounds on which ejectment is sought are not within the "limit of under section 14.; second, that the application was mala fide because it was second ejectment application, the first being RC No,848/82; third that the landlord cannot recover any rent and cannot do any business without permission of State Bank of Pakistan because he is non-resident and he and his family are settled in USA; fourth, that the landlord cannot file ejectment application without the permission of the State Bank of Pakistan. All these objections are patently frivolous and without any basis. The ground on which ejectment is sought is that the appellant has attained the age of 60 years. This ground is available under section 14. If the appellant had filed RC No, 848/82 on any other ground, it has no bearing on fresh application under section 14 of the Ordinance and there is no question of the new ejectment application being mala fide merely on this ground. It is none of the business of the Rent Controller to go into the question as to whether a landlord is a nonresident and he and his family arc settled in USA or anywhere else. If a landlord can prove to the satisfaction of the Rent Controller that he is entitled to evict his tenant on any of the grounds mentioned in section 14, the Rent Controller has jurisdiction to pass an order accordingly and it is irrelevant in this connection whether the landlord requires permission of the State Bank of Pakistan before seeking ejectment application. As for the last objection that the appellant could not file ejectment application without the permission of the State Bank of Pakistan, I do not find any provision under the Sindh Rented Premises Ordinance, 1979, that permission of the State Bank of Pakistan is necessary for filing an ejectment application under the said Ordinance. All the objections are accordingly rejected and the findings of the learned Rent Controller is maintained in this regard.
3. The next point at issue between the parties is as to whether the appellant attained the age of 60 years on 1st September, 1984. The appellant relies on his High School Certificate, his National Identity Card and his Passport. While reliance may not be placed on the entries in the National Identity Card and in the Passport on the ground that they were issued as recently as 15th January, 1984 and 26th May, 1985, on the basis of the declaration made by the appellant himself, the same cannot be stated in respect of the matriculation certificate.
Learned Rent Controller has disbelieved the matriculation certificate on the ground that the respondent had alleged that it was forged. Now, the respondent may allege anything but it does not mean that if an allegation to that effect is made in respect of any document, then such a document loses its evidentiary value and must be discarded. The appellant had produced a document and if the respondent claimed that it was forged, it was upto the respondent to prove his D claim. In the absence of any proof to that effect such a claim must be rejected. Another observation of the learned Rent Controller on the point is that the original certificate had not been produced and photocopy in itself could not be relied upon. If the learned Rent Controller was not satisfied to the genuineness of the photostat copy, he should have called upon the appellant to produce the original but the learned Rent Controller did not do this and summarily rejected the matriculation certificate as being unreliable. I have examined the said photocopy of the matriculation certificate and I am satisfied that it is a genuine copy. Learned counsel for the appellant forgot to note that proceedings under the Sindh Rented Premises Ordinance, 1979, are quasi-judicial proceedings to which the Civil Procedure Code and the Evidence Act or the Qanoon- e-Shandat E (as it is now called) are not applicable with all their vigour. Only their general principles are to be followed. As such photocopy of the matriculation certificate duly verified and attested, is quite sufficient and if the respondent or the Rent Controller was not satisfied with it, the appellant could have been asked to produce the original for comparison. The matriculation certificate is in respect of High School Examination 1941 of Board of High School and Intermediate Education, United Provinces of India, and there is no reason to suspect that the appellant could obtain a forged certificate from there merely for the purposes of filing an ejectment application. I, therefore, reject the observations of the learned Rent Controller in respect of the certificate and hold it genuine. It gives 1st September, 1924, as the date of birth of the appellant which proves his contention that he has attained the age of 60 years on 1st September, 1984. The findings and observations of the learned Rent Controller to the contrary are set aside.
4. It was, however, vehemently contended by the learned counsel for the respondent that notwithstanding as to whether appellant has attained the age of 60 years or not, he is not entitled to maintain an application under section 14 because he admittedly is in occupation of a building owned by him and therefore ejectment application is barred under clause 2 of section 14 of the Ordinance. In this respect I was referred to first agreement of lease dated 20th May, 1971, whereby the appellant had leased out the entire ground floor of the building and this ground floor consisted of four rooms, two bath rooms, one kitchen, two verandahs, one basement room and two courtyards (one in front and one at the back). Only the garage was excluded from this tenancy.
This agreement of lease was replaced by a second agreement of lease dated 17th December, 1974.
This is the latest agreement of lease between the parties which is referred to in para-1 of the ejectment application and at the time of the execution of this agreement of lease, the respondent had surrendered all the portions in his possession under the previous lease agreement of 1971, with the exception of one room only which is the demised premises in this ejectment application. I was then referred to the cross-examination of the appellant in which he admitted that he was in possession of three rooms on ground floor and these three rooms faced the road, that he was also in possession of first floor and second floor of the building. It is an admitted fact that the appellant is the owner of House No,124-L, Tariq Road, PECHS, Karachi, that this house consists of one ground floor and two upper storeys and the respondent is in possession of one room on the ground floor and the remaining three rooms on the ground floor and one room in the basement, alongwith all other amenities like two courtyards, two bath room and one kitchen and the entire first and second floors are in possession of the appellant. The appellant had not disclosed this vital information in his ejectment application. He has also not explained as to how all this accommodation is not sufficient for him and he still requires the demised' one room in possession of the respondent.
Learned counsel for the respon ent has in this respect relied upon the judgment in Bakhsh Ellahi v.
Kazi Wasif li (1985 SCMR 291); Mst. Shamsa Khatoon v. Syed Anwar Ali(1984 CLC 22 1); and Mohammad Habib v. Mohammad Afzal Farooqui (1986 CLC 905). Arned counsel for the appellant could not rebut this objection.
5. I am of the considered view that even though the appellant has successfully proved that he has attained the age of 60 years on 1st September, 1984, he cannot seek ejectment of the respondent under section 14 (1) of the Ordinance because he is admittedly in possession of the whole of the house consisting of ground floor, first floor, and second floor with the exception of one room in possession of the respondent and as such sub-clause (2) of section 14 is ' attracted which clearly lays down that a landlord shall not be entitled to avail the benefit of subsection (1) of section 14 if he is in occupation of a building owned by him in any locality. Here in the present case, the appellant is not only in occupation of a building owned by him but he is in fact occupying the entire F building except one room which is in possession of the respondent. As such, I find no force in the appeal and the same is dismissed. However, the parties are left to bear their own costs.