1980 PLP 1071 (CLC)

Date of hearing : 12th November, 1979. The facts giving rise to this second appeal are that the appellants, Khalid Rashid and another, made an application for ejectment of the respondents, Ms. Amin Corporation and two others, from a shop. The Rent Controller, who was seized of the application, directed the respondents, under the first part of subsection (6) of section 13 of the West Pakistan Urban Rent Restriction Ordinance, 1959, hereinafter referred to as the Ordinance, to deposit arrears of rent and also future monthly rent. Some of the rent deposited by the respondents after the making of the aforesaid order was deposited not in the name of the appellants but in the name of their father, Mian Abdur Rashid. Also, rent for certain period was deposited by Ms. S. M. Siddiq Ltd., 44/43, Jinnah Colony, Lyallpur, and not by the respondents or any one of them. The appellants, therefore, made an application for striking off the defence of the respondents, under the second part of subsection (6) of section 13 of the Ordinance. This application was opposed by the respondents. The view taken by the learned Rent Controller, however, was that in the case of the aforesaid deposit his direction had not been complied with and, therefore, he struck off their defence and ordered their eviction.

2. Feeling aggrieved by the order of the learned Rent Controller, the respondents went in appeal before an Additional District Judge. He found that there was no default on the part of the respondents. He, therefore, accepted the appeal, set aside the order of the learned Rent Controller and remanded the case to him for further proceeding.

3. Being dissatisfied with the order of the appellate authority, the appellants have come up in second appeal to this Court.

4. Learned counsel for the appellants contended the rent in the name of their father, the respondents had contravened the direction of the learned Rent Controller regarding the deposit of rent. He also maintained that the deposit of rent made by Messrs S. M. Siddiq Ltd., could not be treated as rent deposited by the respondents because the said firm was a stranger to the ejectment proceedings. He relied on Khalifa Muhammad Ibrahim alias Khalifa Zarlwala v. Mst. Shirin Begum and others (1968 S C M R 941) to support his contention.

5. In reply, learned counsel for the respondents maintained that the respondents had deposited the rent in the name of the father of the appellants because their father had been receiving rent on their behalf. As for the deposits, made by Messrs S. M. Siddiq Ltd., he submitted that the firm Messrs Amin Corporation which figured as respondent No. 1 in the ejectment application, was reconstituted as Messrs S. M. Siddiq Ltd., with respondents Nos. 1 and 2. namely Sh. Muhammad Siddiq and Muhammad Amin as its partners and, therefore, the deposits by Messrs S. M. Siddiq Ltd., would be treated as deposits made by the respondents. In this connection, learned counsel for the respondents placed reliance on Syed Nawab Shah v. Mst. Hamida Khatoon and others (P L D 1979 Lah. 61).

6. In the case of Syed Nawab Shah, decided by me, rent had been deposited by a respondent (tenant) not in the name of the applicants (landlords) but in the name of their predecessor-in-interest who was originally his landlord. This lapse on the part of the tenant was overlooked by me for the reason that before the order of the Rent Controller regarding the deposit of rent he had been depositing rent in the office of the Rent Controller in the name of the predecessor-in interest of the landlords. The deposits involved in that case were surely made by the tenant and not by any stranger. Since in the instant case the deposits were made not by the tenants figuring as respondents in the ejectment application but by another, it is distinguishable from the case of Syed Nawab Shah.

7. As noted above the firm known as Messrs S. M. Siddiq Ltd.,stranger to the present case inasmuch as it is not one of the respondents in the ejectment application. If the appellants had not taken exception to the deposits made by that firm, it would have caused them difficulty in securing possession of the premises in dispute in the event of their success in the ejectment proceedings because on the score of the deposits made by it, the said firm would have come up with the plea that it was occupying the premises in dispute, in its own right, as a tenant under the appellants. It was with a view to guarding against such a mischief that their Lordships of the Supreme Court had ruled in the case of Khaliffa Muhammad Ibrahim, relied upon by the learned counsel for the appellants, that the tender of rent by a stranger cannot be deemed to be a "valid legal tender" because by making such a tender the stranger seeks to impose himself on the landlord as a tenant. The case before me, therefore, clearly attracts the aforesaid rule laid down by their Lordships of the Supreme Court.

8. To sum up, I hold that the deposit of rent by Messrs S. M.' Siddiq Ltd., cannot be treated as deposit on behalf of the respondents and) 4 since the rent which had been deposited by the said firm was no deposited by the respondents also. it would follow that the respondents had failed. to comply with the direction of the learned Rent Controller. In this view of the matter, the learned Rent Controller was justified in striking off their defence.

9. In result, I accept the appeal with costs, set aside the order of the learned Additional District Judge and restore the order of eviction passed by the learned Rent Controller. The respondents are, however allowed a period of four moths to vacate the disputed shop. M, A. K, Appeal accepted.