1979 PLP 661 (CLC)

This second appeal has been preferred by Muhammad Shafique and two others who have been ordered to vacate a house owned by the respondent, Syed Basharat Hussain.

2. It was alleged by the respondent in his application for ejectment of the appellants that he had leased out the house in dispute to appellant No. I. Muhammad Shafique but he had sublet the same to appellants Nos. 2 and 3, namely, Mst. Rashid Begum and Karamat alias Kulli. The other grounds pressed by him were that the first appellant was bound to pay electric and water charges, but he had not done so, that he (respondent) needed the house for his own occupation and that the appellants had caused damage to the house.

3. During the pendency of the application. on 19th June, 1976, the Rent Controller, who was sized of it, made an order directing the appellants to pay 1 /4th of the water charges for the house in dispute to the local authority concerned failing which their defence would be struck off. They, however, did not comply with the said order of the learned Rent Controller with the result that their defence was struck off and an order for their. ejectment was passed against them. Their appeal to an Additional District Judge has also failed.

4. Learned counsel for the parties are unanimous that the order relating to the payment of water charges was made by the learned Rent Controller under subsection (6) of section 13 of the West Pakistan Urban Rent Restriction Ordinance, 1959, hereinafter referred to as the Ordinance. Learned counsel for the appellants, however, urged that the water charges could not be treated as rent for the purpose of subsection (6) of section 13 and, therefore, the learned Rent Controller could not make the aforesaid order in regard to the deposit of water charges. In reply, learned counsel for the respondent maintained that according to the explanation appearing at the end of subsection (2) of section 13 the water charges shall also be deemed to be rent and as such the Rent Controller could make an order in regard to the deposit of those charges under subsection (6) of section 13.

5. I am unable to agree with the learned counsel for the respondent. It is clear from the explanation appended to subsection (2) of section 13. that the said explanation has been added for the purpose of clause (i) of subsection (2) only and not for any other provision of the Ordinance. The explanation cant not, therefore, be made use of by a Rent Controller for depositing of water charges under subsection (6) of section 13.

6. Even if the water charges are treated as rent for the purpose of sub section (6) also, the Earned Rent Controller had no jurisdiction to order, under the said provisions of the Ordinance, the payment of those charges to the local authority concerned. Under subsection (6), a Rent Controller can order deposit of the arrears of rent, if any,. and the future rent. The deposit of rent contemplated by subsection (6) is the deposit of rent in the office of the Rent Controller and not to the landlord or anybody else. The object behind securing deposit of rent under subsection (6) is to ensure that after final determination of rent payable to the landlord he gets, the amount of rent to which he is fund entitled from the amount of rent deposited by the tenant with the Rent Controller. The balance, if any, is to be refunded to the tenant. This objective cannot, however, be achieved if while making an order under subsection (6) the tenant is asked to pay the rent to the landlord or anybody else. In this view of the matter, the order of the Rent Controller that the appellants shall pay the water charges to the. local authority concerned offended against the letter and spirit of subsection (6).

7. The upshot of the whole discussion is that the order of the learned Rent Controller directing the appellants to pay water charges as aforesaid was not warranted by the relevant provisions of the law, namely, subsection (6) of section 13 of the Ordinance and, therefore, the appellant's defence could not be struck off due to his failure to comply with the said order of the learned Rent Controller.

8. I, therefore, accept the appeal, set aside the order of ejectment passed against the appellant and remand the case for fresh decision in accordance with law.

9. I am informed by the learned counsel for the parties that the learned Rent Controller who had passed the impugned order has since been transferred without a substitute. I, therefore, direct that this case shall be heard and decided by Ch. Riaz Ahmad, Rent Controller, Lahore. The parties shall appear before him on 28th May, 1979. Appeal accepted.