Tanisha Rana
Published on: August 28, 2022 at 20:10 IST
Recently, the Supreme Court observed that the demand of increase of rent to determine “Bonafide Requirement” of the premises of a landlord is wholly irrelevant.
The Supreme Court Bench comprised of Justice Hemant Gupta and Justice JB Pardiwala. In appeal, the Bench observed that, “The demand of increase of rent is wholly irrelevant to determine the bonafide requirement of the premises by the appellant.”
“We find that even if a notice is served upon by a landlord to increase the rent, that notice has nothing to do with the bonafide requirement as the landlord is statutorily prohibited from increasing the rent in respect of the tenanted premises in terms of Section 6 of the Act. The demand of rent beyond the agreed rent is not permissible in terms of Section 6 of the Act.”
The landlord, Surinder Singh had leased two separate premises to the defendant, Vimal Jindal for a period of 10 years. The period of leave was going to expire on April 30, 2010, thus, the landlord had sent a notice to Vimal Jindal to vacate the 2 premises rented to him.
On February 19, 2010, one of the landlords sent another notice to Vimal Jindal calling him to sit and discuss the matter with his fellow partners and discuss whether the offer for the payment of prevailing market rent will be acceptable to the tenant and his fellow partners or not. The landlord filed the eviction petition on May 25, 2010.
An order of eviction was passed by the Rent Controller and the Appellate Authority finding that the Bonafide requirement of the premises of a landlord.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court had set aside this order passed by the Appellate Authority, allowing a revision petition filed under Section 15(5) of the East Punjab Rent Restriction Act, 1949 by the tenant and his partners.
The court, further, directed the Appellate Authority to re-decide the appeal on this matter and consider the effect of the notice served by one of the landlords calling upon the tenant to increase the amount of rent.
While considering the tenant’s contention, the court held that the rent petition was filed by the tenant and his partners only because the tenant did not agree the demand of increase in rent by the landlords and thus, the eviction petition was served to him as a result of his denial to agree with the demands of the landlords.