Satya Bagga and Ors. vs. Sudha Sodhi and Ors.
Background
An elderly landlady sought eviction of tenants from a shop on the mezzanine floor of a Vasant Vihar shopping centre, to open a boutique, listing several other properties she owned and explaining why each was unsuitable (mostly due to being upstairs with no lift, while the tenanted shop needed only 8-9 steps). The tenants argued that after the case was filed, the landlady quietly sold one of those alternate shops (which required climbing over 30 steps) without informing the Rent Controller, and also alleged she had a history of evicting tenants and then re-letting the same premises at higher rent.
Decision Breakdown
The High Court held that the later sale of the alternate shop did not undermine the Rent Controller's decision, because that shop had already been found unsuitable (too many stairs, no lift) regardless of who owned it: the sale did not change those physical facts. On the bad-faith allegation, the Court found the tenants had raised it only vaguely before the Rent Controller without supporting documents, and even the additional material later relied on did not show any real connection to the present case. The revision petition was accordingly dismissed.
Lesson Learnt
When arguing that a landlord has other suitable premises instead of evicting you, what matters is whether that other property is actually suitable for the landlord's stated need: a later, unrelated sale of that property generally won't reopen an eviction case once its unsuitability has already been properly established.