' An application under section 13 of the Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Ordinance, 1959 was filed by respondent No,1 against the petitioners on 25th of May, 1976 seeking their eviction from a part of property No, H-158 Guru Bazar, Mianwali, on the grounds of default in payment of rent and personal use. In the written statement filed by them, the petitioners denied the relationship of landlord and tenant between the parties and instead pleaded that the property in question was evacuee trust vesting in the Evacuee Trust Property Board to whom they were paying rent. It appears that a reference was made by the Rent Controller during the pendency of the proceedings to the Chairman, Evacuee Trust Property Board in order to find out the nature of the property. On 11th June, 1981 the Chairman held that the property was not evacuee trust in nature.
2. The learned Rent Controller on the basis of the evidence led before him and the aforesaid order of Chairman held that the petitioners were tenant under respondent No,1 and had failed to pay the rent to him. Consequently an order of ejectment was passed in favour of respondent and against the petitioners. Aggrieved by this order an appeal was filed by the petitioners which was dismissed by the District Judge, Mianwali on 28th October, 1986. Hence this petition.
3. Mr. Muhammad Rashid Malik, learned counsel representing the petitioners has argued that the denial of the tenancy by the petitioners was not contumacious inasmuch as the property claimed by respondent No,1 was a part of a large building which was Evacuee Trust in nature and it was on account of this fact that the petitioners had been paying the rent to the Evacuee Trust Property Board and not to respondent No,1. This contention of the learned counsel is not well-founded. Even after the Chairman on the reference made by the Rent Controller had found the property to be not Evacuee Trust, no payment on account of rent was made by the petitioners to the respondent, for which there appears to be absolutely no justification. Even today the rent is not being paid to the landlord. No exception can, therefore, be taken to the findings recorded by the two Courts below that the petitioners were defaulter and liable to be ejected.
' The petition has no, force. It is accordingly dismissed leaving the parties to bear their own costs.