1. ' WAJIHUDDIN AHMED, J.--Each of these petitions assails the concurrent findings of the High Court and the Controller, Quetta, whereby eviction applications brought by the petitioners-landlords were dismissed.
2. The above were proceedings pertaining to two different tenements, either of which was filed against the tenant concerned on the exclusive ground of default. In each case the tenant, upon appearance, obtained adjournment and on the following date put in a written reply, admitting default and expressing willingness to pay up. Nothing turns on the said adjournment because the Legislature, as would be manifest below, has designedly allowed such willingness to be expressed on "the first date of hearing" and not on the first date of appearance. Be that as it may, the Controller directed due deposits and, that being done, rejected the eviction cases. The following amended provision (specific to Baluchistan and N.-W.F.P.) in section 13(2)(i) of the Urban Rent Restriction Ordinance, 1959 was involved: "Provided further that where the application made by the landlord is on the ground mentioned in clause (i) and the tenant on the first date of hearing admits his liability to pay the rent due from him, the Controller shall, if he is satisfied that the tenant has not made such default on any previous occasion, direct the tenant to deposit all the rent due from him on or before a date to be fixed for the purpose, and upon such deposit being made he shall make an order rejecting the application."
3. ' Before us and before the High Court the landlords-petitioners have maintained that there should have been a conscious application of mind by the Controller that the tenants in these cases were not previous defaulters. It is pointed out that in each case the landlords had expressly pleaded that the tenants were "troublesome and bad pay masters". This, according to the counsel, indicated that the tenants had continuously been committing defaults. It is added that before the High Court such defaults were also identified but bypassed.
4. We are of the view that the above-quoted provision in the Rent Ordinance is calculated to stifle litigation and to summarily dispose of controversies pertaining to delayed or defaulted payments of rent, on the one hand, and, on the other, to provide reprieve to otherwise able and willing tenants against an otherwise clean past as to payments of rent. The provision being clearly and manifestly on the statute book, all parties, including landlords and tenants, are fixed with notice thereof. In such a statutory background if a rent case is brought also on the ground of default, it seems to be obligatory for the landlord to expressly and specifically plead a previous default, if any, so that a tenant cannot wriggle out behind the shelter of the statutory provision. Alternatively and additionally, in case a tenant admits default and offers to make amends, the landlord on the opposite side is obliged forthwith to plead a previous default, if such already has not been pleaded.
5. In either of these situations it would be incumbent on the Controller to identify the earlier default so pleaded and if coming to a positive conclusion decline the statutory reprieve.
6. As seen, the tenant in either of these cases expressly admitted in writing the factum of the default together with a willingness to make amends with promptitude. The landlord with no specifics pleaded, suffered the order of deposit and remained unmoved even at the time when, after the deposits had been made, the Controller proceeded to upturn the eviction applications. It took the emergence of the proceedings in the High Court for the landlords to plead what they have urged now.
7. ' We are of the view that, irrespective of the merits of the cases, the petitioners-landlords have been too slow to agitate their rights. The very object of the above proviso would be defeated if such controversies are allowed to proceed as far as they did for the landlords to raise a plea of such a character. The delay was fatal.
8. For these reasons, we have found no justification to interfere with the1 c orders of the Controller and the High Court passed concurrently.