1981 PLP 179 (SCMR)

MUSHTAQ HUSSSAIN J-Khuda bakhsh is in occupation of a shop in property no.P/771 station road Faisalabadas tenant having been inducted by a previous owner of the property by the name of Abdul haleem this is Abdul haleem. .

2. The new owner Muhammad Yaqub filed an application for ejectment of the petitioner from the shop on the grounds that he had defaulted in payment of rent and that the shop was required by the landlord for his personal need. He alleged that on 25-4-1973 he had sent a notice under sec tion 13-A of the Urban Rent Restriction Ordinance to Khuda Bakksh informing him of the transfer of the property in his favour.

3. Khuda Bakhsh denied the service of notice as well as the default in payment of rent and the personal need of the landlord.

4. On 7-7-1977 the application for ejectment was dismissed.

5. The landlord filed an appeal against this order which was accepted on 10-9-1979 by the Additional District Judge and on S. A. O. filed against it by the present petitioner was dismissed by the Lahore High Court on 20-3-80. Hence this petition for special leave to appeal.

6. It has been argued before us by the learned counsel for the petitioner that his client had not received the notice and that no postal acknowledge ment of the notice had been produced before the Court. The question whether the notice had been served is eminently a question of fact. The District Judge held that a notice under registered post was served. A postal receipt was produced by the landlord which showed that a registered letter had been sent by him. A witness from the postal Department along with the record of the registered letters was summoned. One appeared and stated that such record is destroyed by the postal Department within one and a half year and since that period had elapsed no such record was available. The best evidence in the circumstances that could have been produced by the petitioner has been produced, and we do not find in the law any provision which requires the production of the postal acknowledgement before the Court of law. In fact it is very seldom that such acknowledgement reach the sender and it is a matter of every day occurrence.

7. Be that as it may on page 54 of the paper book we find that their petitioner admits paying rent to the respondent. The reason for a notice under section 13-A is to inform the tenant that the landlord has sold the property to another person so that rent could thereafter be paid by the tenant to the new landlord. In this case knowledge of the transfer admitted by the petitioner and hence even a if a notice had not been served under section 13-A, it would not stand in the way of the Court in granting the relief' that it has granted.

8. So far as the personal need for the shop is concerned the only objec tion to it was that the landlord had obtained possession of two other shops also. It has nowhere been stated by the petitioner that these two shops are in the same locality as one occupied by the petitioners for that was crucial for the case. Furthermore the landlord is on record as saying that he had got these two shops vacated because he wanted to pull them down. We, therefore, find no reason to grant leave to appeal in this case which is hereby refused. Petition dismissed.