This appeal is directed against the order of the Additional Controller of Rents, Peshawar Cantonment dated 12-4-1995, whereby Sabz A.I Khan, appellant and Dr. Muhammad Hashim Wajaah, respondent No.2, were ejected from the suit premises and directed to put Bismillah Khan, respondent No. 1 into vacant possession of the shop in question within 60 days from the date of order, failing which the order should be executed in accordance with law.
2. Succinctly stated, the facts of the case as stated in the petition are, that respondent No.1 was the owner/landlord of Shop No.58, -Khyber Medical Centre, Dabgari Gardens, Peshawar, on the basis of its purchase vide registered sale-deed dated 11-5-1992 from Saminullah; that the appellant was the tenant of Saminullah on the payment of monthly rent of Rs.1,550 who became his tenant after the purchase of shop by him; that the petitioner was verbally informed about the transfer of shop in his favour and was asked to pay the monthly rent to him but it was not acceded to; the ejectment of the petitioner was sought on the grounds of default of payment of rent, subletting the shop to respondent No.2, bona fide personal need and impairing the value, look and unitility of the shop.
3. The application for ejectment was contested by the petitioner on legal and factual premises, asserting that Samiullah has executed an agreement to sell with him and has received Rs.7,00,000 and the balance of Rs.3,00,000 was payable at the time of registration of sale-deed. He denied relationship of landlord and tenant as no notice of transfer of ownership was given to him and claimed Rs.50,00,000 as goodwill in case of ejectment. In view of the pleadings of the parties, the following preliminary issues were framed on 27-1-1993:--
(1) Whether relationship of landlord and tenant exists between the parties?
(2) Relief. and respondent No.1 was directed to produce his evidence on 8-2-1993. Thereafter the case was thrice adjourned on the request of the parties and adjourned for 14 times on the oral/written request of the petitioner or his counsel. On 20-3-1994 statement of P.W.l was recorded and again the petitioner got the case adjourned for 10 times whereafter P-.W.2 was examined. The respondent concluded his evidence on 6-12-1994. On 12-2-1995 after the dismissal of the miscellaneous application of the petitioner he was directed to produce his evidence on 8-3-1995 but the same could not be produced on three adjourned dates and ultimately ejectment order was passed against him on 12-4-1995, which is impugned herein this appeal.
4. Learned counsel for the petitioner argued that the suit shop belonged to Saminullah who had entered into agreement to sell the shop to the petitioner and the alleged transfer in favour of respondent No. l was sham and imposture, hence he did not qualify to be the landlord within the meaning as contained in clause (g) of section 2 of the Cantonments Rent Restriction Act, 1963, and there being no relationship of landlord and tenant between the parties, the Additional Rent Controller had no jurisdiction to adjudicate and pass the ejectment order. He urged that no written notice of transfer of ownership of the shop in dispute was given to the petitioner, hence on this ground too, the relationship of landlord and tenant did not come into existence and as such he cannot be deemed to have defaulted in payment of rent to the new owner. He contended that the petitioner had promissory title to the property as he had paid huge amount for the purchase of the property, therefore the title being in dispute, the Rent Controller should have waited for the decision of the civil suit pending between the parties regarding the ownership of the shop. He urged that the petitioner was not given reasonable opportunity to defend his case and the decision against him was taken in precipitance with prejudice mind by the Additional Rent Controller who was not competent as no proper notification for his appointment had been issued.
5. On the other hand, learned counsel for the respondent No. l opposing the aforesaid contentions and defending the impugned order, submitted that the appellant was duly apprised by respondent No. l about the transfer of ownership of the shop in dispute in his favour and asked him to pay the rent to him. He argued that no written notice under the Act ibid was required to be served on the tenant and he being aware of the transfer in favour of respondent No.1 was bound to pay the rent to him, and his refusal to pay the rent to him rendered him disentitled to any relief. He contended that the Additional Rent Controller who was competent being duly notified, has rightly held on the basis of evidence on the record that relationship of landlord and tenant exist between the parties and its denial by the tenant rendered him to eviction. He evinced that conduct of the appellant throughout the trial has been evasive and elusive, as he despite getting 24 adjournments failed to bring anything on record in rebuttal. He contended that the appellant awfully failed to substantiate his claim on the property in dispute through any evidence. He asserted that stance taken in the written statement and that taken in the suit filed in the Civil Court are quite different to each other and no credence can be attached to it, and the civil suit has only been filed as a device to prolong the ejectment proceeding so as to gain time. Admittedly no rent was paid by the tenant-appellant to landlord respondent, hence he has rightly been ejected.
6. I have given due consideration to the submissions of the learned counsel for the parties and gone through the record of the case.
7. To prove Issue No. l regarding relationship of landlord and tenant between the parties, Bismillah Khan appeared as P.W.1 who produced the copies of registered sale-deed Exh.PW.1/1 and the mutation letter Exh.PW.1/2 whereby he purchased the suit shop and got it mutated in his name in the Cantonment Board record respectively. He stated that after the purchase of the shop, he asked the petitioner to pay him the rent, but he did not pay any rent to him. Haji Khatam Gul P.W.2 stated that he as attorney of Saminullah owner, sold the shop through registered deed to Bismillah Khan, who since its purchase was the owner of the shop. Both the witnesses were subjected to lengthy cross---examination which was not relevant to the issue in dispute and thus could not make out that respondent No. l was not the owner of the property and as such entitled to receive the rent of the shop in dispute. The term 'landlord' has been defined in clause (g) of section 2 of the Act ibid, (XI of 1963) which reds as under:-- "Landlord means any person for the time being entitled to receive rent in respect of any building whether on his own account or on behalf or for the benefit of any other persons, or as trustee, guardian or receiver and includes a tenant who, being authorized under the terms of his lease so to do, sublets the building and every other person for the time being deriving title from the landlord."
The definition manifests that landlord is a person who is entitled to receive rent, meaning thereby an owner of the premises or the transferee who has derived title from the original landlord and became entitled to receive rent and also included those who are authorised by him to receive rent on his behalf. A tenant holding property under the previous owner ipso facto becomes tenant of the subsequent owner, who has purchased the property. The relationship of landlord and tenant as such comes into existence when the right, title and interest of the previous owner has been transferred to the subsequent transferee.
'So far as the contention of agreement to sell in favour of the petitioner is concerned, the petitioner failed to bring on record any document in support of his defence. The plea taken in the written statement that he had paid Rs.7,00,000 (seven lacs) through a deed dated 22-4-1986 to Saminullah, the original owner and ks.3,00,000 (three lacs) were to be paid at the time of registration of sale deed, is not supported from the unproved document copy whereby is available on the trial Court fire at page 57, which discloses that a loan of Rs.10,00,000 (ten lacs) was allegedly given to Saminullah which was to be returned by 15th January, 1993 failing which the lender (Sabz A.I Khan) would be deemed to become the owner of the property in lieu of loan. The petitioner failed to prove the alleged document, hence no credibility can be attached to it. The petitioner has filed a suit in Civil Court wherein declaration has been sought in terms of the alleged deed dated 22-4-1986 which again is in contradiction to the stand taken in the written statement to the ejectment application. In such state of affairs the tenant cannot escape his liability to pay the rent to his landlord especially when the so-called deed dated 22-4-1986 specifically mentions that the tenant would remain a tenant and be liable to pay the monthly rent till at least the loan is not repaid by the debtor. The filing of the civil suit would not exonerate the tenant from payment of rent or provide him a cause to deny the relationship of landlord and tenant and thus would not divest jurisdiction of the Controller of Rents to determine the question of relationship of landlord and tenant during the pendency of such a suit. In absence of any rebuttal evidence for which sufficient opportunities were given to the petitioner, the presumption would be that the relationship of landlord and tenant exists between the parties, specially when the landlord has established his status of landlord both by oral and documentary evidence. The petitioner's contention that the rent proceedings should have been stayed by the Controller of Rents after the institution of civil suit, has no force in view of the authority of the Supreme Court laid down in case of Muhammad Ihsan v.
Muhammad Hafeez (1995 SCM R 1380), which reads as under:-- "As regards the other contention, the mere pendency of the suit filed by the petitioner against the respondent, relatable to the property in dispute, would be of no significance unless it raised serious doubt about respondent's title to the property in question. Neither the Rent Controller nor for that matter any other authority or Court in that hierarchy would automatically stay ejectment proceedings."
7. So far as the question of non-issuance of notice regarding purchase of the premises by respondent No. l is concerned, the same was not required under the law to be served on the tenant by the new transferee as there is no provision in the Act alike section 13-A of the Urban Rent Restriction Ordinance, 1959. The property was purchased through registered sale-deed (Exh. PW.1/1) by respondent No. l which in itself was a public notice to all. Reliance in this regard can be placed on 1989 SCM R 511 and 1991 SCM R 224. The question whether the petitioner was afforded reasonable opportunity to defend his position, would find answer from the order sheets of the file of the trial Court. The ejectment petition was filed on 28-10-1992, in response to process the petitioner appeared on 19-11-1992 and sought adjournment for the submission of written statement which was repeated on six dates and finally on 18-1-1993 the written statement was filed. On 27-1-1993 preliminary issues were framed and respondent No.1 was directed to produce evidence on the next date. On three occasions the case was adjourned on the joint request of the learned counsel for the parties whereas it was adjourned for 14 times on the oral/written request of the petitioner. After about over a year the statement of respondent No.1 was recorded and on the request of the, petitioner's counsel remaining evidence was postponed. Thereafter case was got adjourned for 10 times by the petitioner or his counsel and on 22-11-1994 the Rent Controller after rejecting application of the petitioner's counsel recorded partial statement of P.W.2 and adjourned the case on his request to 6-12-1994 on which date respondent No.1 concluded his evidence. On three subsequent dates, the Presiding Officer .Was on leave. On 12-2-1995 after the rejection of Miscellaneous application of the petitioner he was directed to produce evidence on 8-3-1995 but he failed and thereafter two more opportunities were given to him yet he did not produce any evidence and on 12-4-1995 ejectment orders were passed. The above resume would show the conduct of the petitioner that he did his best to prolong the case as long as possible and to gain time as much as possible. The objection that the case was decided in haste seems to be funny and comical. The other objection that the Presiding Officer was prejudiced towards the petitioner is also baseless as two Presiding Officers dealt with the ejectment petition and both of them censured the conduct of the petitioner that he was using all sorts of delaying tactics to delay the case, which is evident from the record. Since sufficient opportunities were given to the petitioner for production of his evidence but he failed, hence the Rent Controller was justified to close his evidence and decide the case. The learned Supreme Court in case of Col. (Rtd.) Sadiq Hussain Sheikh v. Lt.-Col. Farooq Ahmad (1987 SCM R 1887) in almost similar facts held as under:-- The finding that the petitioner was occupying the house as tenant under the respondent is on a question of fact. The learned counsel for the petitioner has not been able to show that this finding is not sustainable on the evidence on record. He has contended that the petitioner was not given sufficient opportunity to lead his evidence. This contention is without any substance. As already mentioned the respondent concluded his evidence on 15-10-1986. The order closing the evidence of the petitioner was made on 18-12-1986. In-between these two dates the proceedings were adjourned on three occasions to enable -the petitioner to produce his evidence. It was only when the learned Additional Rent Controller was satisfied that the petitioner was purposely prolonging the proceedings that he made the order closing his evidence. We can find no infirmity in the order of the learned Additional Rent Controller in this regard. "
8. The last contention that the Additional Rent Controller being not notified was not competent to adjudicate the case is also without any substance and thus repelled. Clauses (a) and (d) of section 2 read with subsection (2) of sections 6, 6-A and 6-B of the Cantonments Rent Restriction Act, provide that any case could be assigned/transferred to the Additional Controller for disposal by the Controller. The Supreme Court in case of Ghulam Haider v. Farooq Ahmad Bhatti (PLD 1983 SC 238) has held that "notwithstanding any defect in the appointment or qualification of the concerned Additional Executive Officer, they having been validly designated as Additional Controller of Rents could exercise the power and jurisdiction accordingly under the Cantonments Rent Restriction Act, 1963. " After the insertion of sections 6-A and 6-B in the Act, the Controller has been empowered to entrust, assign, transfer, withdraw and retransfer the case to the Additional Controller of Rents, for hearing and disposal of the same. As such the Additional Rent Controller did not suffer from any jurisdictional infirmity and was competent and possessed the jurisdiction to adjudicate and decide the ejectment matter. The objection regarding jurisdiction was even otherwise not maintainable, as it was never raised before the Additional Rent Controller, to whose jurisdiction the petitioner had submitted, and for the first time challenged his jurisdiction at appellate stage for the apparent reason that his order went against him.
9. The tenant under Article 115 of the Qanoon-e-Shahadat was estopped to deny the relationship of landlord and tenant, as his tenancy continued but with the change of landlord, who had stepped into the shoes of the former one.
10. In view of the aforesaid reasons, there is no merit in the appeal. The impugned order cannot be said to be against the provision of law, which rather is based on the correct appreciation of evidence on the record, well reasoned and well founded to which no exception can be taken.
Consequently this appeal is dismissed with no order as to costs.