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Ram Pratap v. Anand Kanwar & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2018 INSC 729Decided 21 Aug 2018
Civil Appeal No. 8504 of 2018
Justice N.V. Ramana · Justice S. Abdul Nazeer

Background

A landlord sued his tenant for eviction in 1984 under the Rajasthan Premises (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1950, alleging non-payment of rent. The trial court decreed eviction in the landlord's favour without ever provisionally determining the rent payable, as required by Section 13(3) of the Act, apparently because the tenant had been proceeded against ex parte. The first appellate court upheld the eviction, reasoning that determining rent would be a mere formality given the tenant's absence, but the Rajasthan High Court in second appeal set this aside and remanded the case to the trial court, holding that Section 13(3)'s rent-determination requirement is mandatory. The landlord appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court dismissed the landlord's appeal and upheld the High Court's ruling. It held that the word "shall" in Section 13(3) imposes a mandatory duty on the trial court to provisionally determine the rent due, within three months of the written statement and before framing issues, regardless of whether either party applies for it, and irrespective of whether the tenant has been proceeded against ex parte. Because an eviction decree for default under Section 13(1)(a) can only be validly passed after the tenant has had the opportunity under Section 13(4) to deposit the court-determined rent and thereby claim protection under Section 13(6), skipping the rent-determination step deprives the tenant of a valuable statutory right. The matter was therefore correctly sent back to the trial court to first determine the provisional rent before any fresh eviction decision.

Lesson Learnt

In an eviction suit based on non-payment of rent under rent-control legislation containing a mandatory rent-determination step, courts cannot skip that step merely because the tenant was absent or ex parte, doing so improperly forfeits the tenant's statutory chance to pay up and save the tenancy.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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