The respondent's application for ejectment of the appellants on ground of default, damage to the property and requirement of the premises for reconstruction was allowed by the Rent Controller, on the last mentioned ground only on the 3rd July, 1975. It was contended on behalf of the appellants that a notice as required by section 30 of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act of 1958 had not been served upon the appellants. Issue No. 1 was framed to cover this point. This issue was answered by the Rent Controller against the appellants. The appellants' appeal against the order of their ejectment was dismissed by the learned Additional District Judge, Lahore, on the 31st January 1976.
2. It is established on record that a notice as required by section 30 was served on the appellants on the 3rd August 1972, Section 30 provided that except in case of default in the payment of rent or subletting of the property by the tenant, the latter could not be ejected from his tenanted premises for a period of six years from the date of service of notice on him nor could the relationship of landlord and tenant be governed by the ordinary law governing such relationship during this period of protection. In view of this provision the Rent Controller could have jurisdiction over the dispute between the parties only if any default subsequent to service of notice under section 30 had been established against the appellants. But that issue was decided against the respondent landlord. In these circumstances, the appellants' possession remained guaranteed for a period of six years from the date of service of notice and the relationship of landlord and tenant could not be governed by the West Pakistan Urban Rent Restriction Ordinance. As such the application for ejectment on ground of bona fide personal requirement of the premises for reconstruction was not competent.
3. This argument of the learned counsel for the appellants could not be controverted by the learned counsel for the respondent. He however, submitted that this protection had come to an end primarily on the date of repeal of the Act 1958 and in any case on the 3rd of August 1978, during the pendency of the appeal before this Court, He relied upon Mst. Amina Begum and others v. Mehr Ghulam Dastgir (PLD 1978 SC 220) and Manzoor Ahmad Khan -v. Maqsood Ali (PLD 1975 Lah. 1521) ,for the proposition that even if the application was premature as initially filed it matured during the pendency of the proceedings under the West Pakistan Urban Rent Restriction Ordinance, 1959, and consequently the order of the learned Rent Controller should be upheld.
4. After hearing the learned counsel for the parties I am of the view that the question raised by the learned counsel for the respondent is not relevant.
5. Clause (vi) of subsection (2) of section 13 provides that the landlord should prove that he requires the rented premises in good faith for reconstruction. Good faith is a condition precedent for requirement for reconstruction in section 13 (2) of the West Pakistan Urban Rent Restriction Ordinance. Faith exemplifies a mental attitude or mental fact embodying the object of an intended act. Honesty of purpose makes an act, an act of good faith ; pretence turns it into an act of bad faith. An intention to force a tenant through a Rent Controller to vacate the tenanted premises merely on pretence of its requirement for reconstruction is proof of bad faith. The tenant may defend the proceedings of his ejectment on this ground by proving an ulterior motive on the part of the landlord and by thus establishing a case of invasion by. The landlord of his legal rights in the garb of purported exercise of his own legal right.
6. There may be cases where the landlord has no instantaneous legal right to eject on this ground and yet he gambles on a mere chance, however remote or even impossible, of succeeding in his design to evict his tenant. No contrivance would make it an act of good faith as bona fides cannot be claimed in the infringement of legal rights of others. An action initiated mala fide to encroach upon legal rights of tenant cannot turn into a bona, fide action, save in exceptional cases of change of circumstances of the landlord or the property in possession of the tenant after the landlord secures a legal right to eject the tenant provided the exercise of such a right be subject to condition of good faith. There may be cases in which there may be proof of change of other circumstances, e.g. Deterioration in the structural condition of the property necessitating its demolition which would justify an inference of good faith. The case of Amina Begum was one such case in which there was evidence of the property being dangerous and fit for demolition and for this reason the Court considered it a fit case for avoiding multiplicity of proceedings. In the present case, there is no evidence of any such change. The principle underlying these authorities cannot apply to the facts of the present case.
7. The submission of a plan for re-construction to the Municipal Committee at a time when the landlord has no right to eject a tenant nor the Rent Controller has any jurisdiction over the premises rented by the tenant, is circumstance from which the landlord's intention to attempt to eject the tenant by fair means or foul, may be inferred. Similarly, initiation of proceedings before the Rent Controller without caring for the statutory and legal rights of the tenant at a time when the Rent Controller has no jurisdiction is a circumstance which may justify a conclusion of bad faith. In the circumstances of this case, therefore, it is not possible to give effect to the argument of the learned counsel and to order ejectment of the tenant on an assumption that cause of action had matured during the pendency of the application for ejectment.
8. It is at best within the discretion of the Court to pass an order in favour of the landlord in an application which was initially premature and matured during its pendency. Such discretion cannot be exercised in the present case since the landlord did not come with clean hands. One example of his unclean hands has already been given. In the present case, it is further clear that he levelled false allegations against the appellant about default in payment of rent or damage to the property. The Court cannot be allowed to become a party to such tactics of the landlord. The appeal must succeed in these circumstances.
9. I, therefore, allow this appeal without any order as to costs, set aside the orders of the learned Additional District Judge and the Rent Controller and dismiss the application of the respondent.