' The respondent has sought the ejectment of the appellant on the ground of default in the payment of rent from April, 1987 till the filing of the ejectment case on 25-7-1987 and on the ground of personal requirements and vide impugned Judgment dated 11-12-1989 learned Rent Controller upheld both the pleas of the landlord and ordered the ejectment of the appellant who has now come in appeal. Learned counsel for the parties have been heard and record perused.
2. So far as the personal requirements of the respondent are concerned, the respondent in para.6 of ejectment application had stated that he required "the said premises for his own bona fide use".
No details of bona fide use were given. However, in para.9 of his affidavit, the respondent/landlord had stated that he required the case premises for his own personal bona fide use as he had to extend his business. Even here the respondent did not give any details of his business not indicated as to how the business was to be extended and the demised premises required for the purpose. He did not indicate how much accommodation was in his possession and how it was not to prove sufficient for his business after its expansion. Witnesses of the respondent also do not throw any light on his personal requirements as they restrict themselves to saying that the case premises was required by the respondent for his personal bona fide requirement as he was extending his business, as would appear from para.7 of the affidavit-in-evidence of A.W.2 Muhammad Zaman. It was pointed out by the learned counsel for the appellant that vide clause 6 of the rent agreement the landlord was under obligation to give one month's advance notice if he wanted to get the premises vacated but no such notice had been given by the respondent. Learned counsel for the respondent met his objection by saying that clause 6 merely referred to a notice and not to a written notice and that the respondent had fulfilled this condition by giving oral notice. I am not impressed with the view of learned counsel for the respondent. Even though the word "written notice" has not been mentioned in clause 6 of the rent agreement, the clear implication is that such notice shall be in writting. I, however, agree with the learned counsel for - respondent that absence of such notice is no bar to the filing of the ejectment application on the ground of personal requirements. It was also pointed out by the learned counsel for the appellant that in para-11 of his affidavit in evidence, the appellant had stated that the area of the shop in possession of the respondent was more than the area of the demised shop and that the respondent had extended it by eight feet by constructing a Waranda and covering it with a grill and the total area in his possession was sufficient for his requirements for his business of "Polish Work" and that this averment of the appellant was not challenged in his cross-examination. As for the default in the payment of rent, learned counsel for the appellant pointed out that the default on the basis of which eviction was ordered was only in respect of one month, that of April, 1987, and that there was sufficient evidence on record to show that rent for this month had been paid but the landlord had not issued receipt and he further argued that, at any rate, rent of this month had also been deposited by the appellant, by way of abandoned caution, when the rent for the subsequent two months, for May and June, 1987, had been sent by money order but had been refused by the respondent. Learned counsel for the appellant has also relied on a number of Judgments in support of his contention that the evidence on record was not sufficient to come to the conclusion that the respondent bona fidely required the demised shop for his own use. A perusal of the evidence brought on record by the respondent shows that he had not given details of his business or the manner in which he was extending it nor he had given the area in his possession and the area sought to be required for expansion of business. The respondent had made rather very vague assertion in this regard. Learned counsel for the appellant had referred to the following Judgments in support of his argument that the evidence on record did not prove that the respondent required the demised shop bona fidely for the expansion of his business.
(1) Akhlaqun Nabi v. Nawab Ahmed Shamsi (1986 CLC 1100)
(2) Mst. Safia Hassan v. Ishrat Hussain (1986 CLC 1751).
(3) Major Jamshed Khudadad Irani v. Abdur Rehman. (1987 CLC 1988).
(4) Muhammad Aslam v. Muhammad Aslam (1986 CLC 686).
(5) Walumal v. Muhammad Moosa (1986 CLC 1831).
' The overall effect of the above-noted Judgment is that mere assertion by a landlord that he wants non-residential accommodation for his own use would not be enough to establish his requirements and that he should show it to the satisfaction of the Court that his requirements are bona fide and not merely an excuse to throw out a tenant for some other ulterior motives. The observations in the Judgment reported as 1986 CLC 686 are more pronounced in this regard in which it is held that mere word of the landlord is not enough. I have gone through the Judgment referred to above and I am of the view that the evidence on record and the circumstances of the case do not prove that the respondent requires the demised premises for his bona fide requirements. It is significant to note that the rent agreement was executed on 1st April, 1986 and from this date the tenancy had commenced. As per terms of the rent agreement the tenancy was to come to an end after a period of 11 months, that is, by the end of February, 1987 and the emphasis of the respondent has been that the appellant was bound to hand over the vacant possession of the said shop on 28-2-1987 after the expiry of eleven months' period of tenancy. He had said so in para-3 of the ejectment application as well as in his affidavit in evidence, I am convinced that the real bone of contention between the parties is that the appellant neither vacated the premises on 28th February, 1987 nor he executed fresh rent agreement and it was immediately after this that the respondent came forward with the plea of personal requirements and default in the payment of rent for the month of April, 1987. I am of the considered view that loose assertions of the respondent that he B required the premises for expanding his business have not proved the bona fides of his claim. No hard and fast rule can be said as to what evidence should a tenant bring to prove the bona fides of his personal requirements on the ground that he wanted to expand his business but in the present context, where the business of the respondent is that of Posish work on sofas, it can be stated that such evidence might have been on the record in respect of the business in hand which would have shown how much work was being handled by the respondent in the past and how much additional work had been obtained by him and how many additional hands he was now employing to conduct his business at the present stage.
3. As for the default in the payment of rent, the case of the appellant/tenant is that he had in fact paid the rent for the month of April, 1987 but the respondent had not given the receipt on the ground that it would be given after fresh rent agreement had been executed and when the rent for the months of May and June was tendered by him by money order it was refused by the respondent. In this respect, the appellant had tendered the money order coupon which is on record and the respondent had also admitted the refusal of the money order. Since it is very clearly mentioned in the money order coupon that the rent' for April, had been paid whose receipt had not been given and therefore the rent of May and June was being sent by money order. It became incumbent upon the respondent to rebut this assertion in the money order coupon by sending a letter or notice to the appellant controverting the averment made in the money order coupon. This the respondent did not do and it lends some credence to the claim of the appellant that he had paid the rent for the month of April, 1987. The appellant had examined two witnesses who had stated that the respondent had admitted the receipt of rent for the month of April. Even if this oral evidence is discarded, the circumstances of the case show that the rent for the month of April had been paid by the appellant. At any rate, when the rent of May and June sent by the money order had been returned by the respondent, the appellant deposited the entire rent in Miscellaneous Rent Case No,982 of 1987, including the rent of disputed month of April, 1987. This shows the bona fides of the appellant. Otherwise, he would not have cared to deposit the rent for the month of April, 1987. It may also be noted that the rent from April, 1987 onward was deposited in Court on 14-7-1987 and on that date rent for the month of April,1987 had become over due by one month and four days, since it could have been validly paid upto 10th June, 1987, and under the circumstances of the case the appellant appears to be entitled to have this delay condoned.
4. In view of what has been stated above, I am of the view that the ' respondent was not entitled to seek ejectment of the appellant either on the ground of default in the payment of rent or on the ground of personal requirement. Learned Rent Controller does not appear to have properly appreciated the evidence on record. I would therefore accept this appeal and set aside the impugned Judgment with the result that the ejectment application stands dismissed.