' This Revision arises primarily from a rent case. The petitioner Messrs Service Sales Corporation Limited, Gulberg, Lahore, was sought to be evicted from the disputed shop in execution of an ex parte ejectment order dated 22-51967. The petitioner objected to the execution on the ground that they being tenants of the respondent-landlord, were not impleaded in the proceedings before the Rent Controller, and that, therefore, they were not bound by the same. The objection petition was contested by the respondent-landlord maintaining that the objector had no independent right and that being sub-lessee under the original tenant Messrs Service Pakistan Registered, Lahore, had no locus standi to object to execution of the order.
2. After taking evidence, the Rent Controller accepted the objection petition and dismissed the execution application. He ordered restoration of possession to the objector, as meanwhile they had been thrown out. The respondent-landlord preferred the appeal which was accepted holding that the objector had no locus and that being a sub-lessee they were bound by it. Consequently they filed the present revision petition.
3. Reliance was placed upon Muhammad Yasin v. Sheikh Ghulam Murtaza and another (PLD 1988 SC 163) in support of the revision petition urging that the whole gamut of rules comprised in Order XXI, C.P.C. Applied even to execution of ejectment orders passed by the Rent Controller and that a third person could not be left without a right to object to execution of such an order. According to learned counsel, denying such a remedy to a third person would amount to stopping short at execution of the order and making him boggle.
4. On the other hand, Ch. Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, Advocate for the respondent relied upon the said authority itself to spell out that Order XXI, C.P.C. May be applied with impunity to execution proceedings conducted by Rent Controller, but the orders which may be passed by him in the course of those proceedings, could not be further assailed through a revision petition. According to his interpretation, for availing a right of Revision which lately was held in Karamat Hussain and others v. Muhammad Zaman and others (PLD 1987 SC 139) to be a vested right, there had to be specific provision in the special statute itself. His view was that boggling had to be avoided vis-a- vis a third person, but then the right was limited only to the extent of preferring objections to the execution and no more. He submitted that a similar view was taken in Zahurul Hassan v. Mst.
Ruqqia Begum and 4 others (PLD 1981 SC 112), Haji Abdul Wali Khan v. Muhammad Hanif (1985 CLC 827 at 831) and Haji Hayat Gul v. Azizul Haq and another (PLD 1966 Pesh. 118). Next he argued that there was no privity of contract between the petitioners and the respondent and that assuming Revision against the impugned order lay, the finding of fact could not be disturbed. He cited Khawaja Muhammad Yaqub and another v. Sh. Abdur Rahim and others (1968 SCMR 734), Mst.
Khurshid Begum and others v. Mst. Ghulam Kubra and others (1982 SCMR 90) and Muhammad Amir v. Ghulam Yasin and 15 others (PLD 1987 Pesh. 28) laying down the rule that privity of contract between the landlord and the objector had to be established before the latter could have locus standi to invoke the right of objection to the execution proceedings. Still further it was claimed that mere payment of rent by a third person would not establish relationship of landlord and tenant.
Support was sought in this behalf from Abdul Hamid and others v. Ch. Allah Bukhsh and others (1986 MLD 541). Explaining away the letter marked OWR.3/1 counsel claimed that it was written on an impression that the objector and the real tenant being sister concerns, had settled between themselves to pay rent through them. Lastly, it was shown that possession was taken by the respondent twenty years ago and that the discretionary jurisdiction attaching to a revision may not be exercised as the same would be against the equities of the case. Messrs Ghulam Farid Muhammad Latif and others v. The Central Bank of India Limited, Lahore (PLD 1954 Lah. 575) was quoted indicating that the equities of the case may be kept in view especially when possession was taken by none else than the true owner, he may not be deprived of it, say twenty years thereafter.
5. In reply it was emphasized that the Rent Controller decided against the respondent because he had himself agreed by an endorsement on the rent note Exh.P.1 that the objector shall be the tenant and that subsequently the endorsement having been chopped off by the respondent from the document, an inference was drawn against him. Counsel continued to argue that it had never been the respondent's case that the objector was a trespasser or that he had been asking them to pay only for use and occupation of the premises and that conversely all along his attitude towards them had been as if he had conceptually agreed to treat them as their tenant. Further, he assailed the impugned judgment as having not advanced reasons for differing with that of the Court of the first instance and even by ignoring material evidence like a number of receipts issued by the respondent acknowledging payment of rent from them. If all those receipts were considered in right earnest, according to his contention, decision by the lower Appellate Court would have been different. On account of non-reading of such material evidence, he emphasized, the High Court could interfere in Revision.
6. As regards equities of the case arising out of taking possession by the owner twenty years ago, counsel maintained that it was a circumstance for which the petitioners were not responsible and that the time taken by the Court in deciding the revision petition could not cause prejudice to the merits of their claim.
7. A careful perusal of the Muhammad Yasin's case relied upon by both the sides, would reveal that Order XXI, C.P.C. May be applicable to execution proceedings in a rent case, but the remedy of Revision was not attracted. This was also the ratio of the cases of Zahurul Hassan and Haji Abdul Wali Khan. In fact on a stricter construction of the provisions of the Rent Restriction Ordinance, 1959, Order XXI, C.P.C. Was held sometime in a few judgments to be inapplicable, but subsequently the Supreme Court adopting their liberal interpretation held that a third person like an objector cannot be left without the remedy of raising objection to execution of an order which adversely affected him. Probably the philosophy was that such a third person may not be left to boggle, without a remedy to show that an order of the Rent Controller passed behind his back would be of no consequence against his interest. But this extended interpretation of the right to raise objection to the execution proceedings, did not cover the further right of a Revision which had to be conferred by the Statute specifically. The added reason for stopping short at allowing only the right of objection to a third person may be that after all possession is intended to be given to the landlord who is invariably the owner and, therefore, it was not permissible for a third person to insist that he would keep on occupying the premises which he did not own. In order to avail this remedy, an objector has to show under rule 99 that he possesses on his own account. It will entail a detailed inquiry under rule 100 ibid meaning thereby that it should suffice to enable the objector to establish veracity of his claim of not being bound by the order of eviction:' If the evidence produced by him does not help him in establishing genuineness of his contention, there had to be an end so that on the other side the landlord may not be harassed by every Tom, Dick and Harry by bolstering up false assertions.
8. Much stress was laid on the fact that the letter marked OWR.3/1 was really a document wherein the respondent had admitted the objector to be the true tenant of the premises. It was alleged to have contained an endorsement to that effect, but the same was stated to have been chopped off dishonestly. The evidence indicated that the objector and the original tenant were sister concerns which somehow created an impression that payment of rent by one for the other would do. In order to make a third person a tenant, there had to be private of contract between him and the landlord. This is what was culled out in the cases of Khawaja Muhammad Yaqub Khan, Mst.
Khurshid Begum and Muhammad C Amir. Further, it was held in the Abdul Hamid's case that payment of rent by a third person would not necessarily establish relationship of landlord and tenant. The essence of the rule was that the third person may be doing so on behalf of the original tenant by virtue of an understanding, but that would not establish direct private of contract between him and the landlord. Conversely liability to pay for use and occupation by such a third person could not be obviated and hence payment of compensation by him would not in all events make it rent for the purposes of the Ordinance.
9. Last but not the least was the circumstances that the respondent took possession of the premises in execution some twenty years go. He is undeniably D the owner thereof, and if the owner once got possession long time ago, it may not be in accord with the equities that he may be made to lose in favour of a person who admittedly had no claim of title to the property.
10. As a result the revision petition is dismissed leaving the parties to bear their own costs.