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Shanti Prasad (D) Thr. LRs vs Thakur Dass (D) Thr. LRs & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2023 INSC 185Decided 1 Mar 2023
Civil Appeal No. 5981 of 2014
Manoj Misra · Aravind Kumar

Background

A tenant (the appellant) was sued by his landlord for eviction and recovery of rent arrears, and the trial court decreed eviction, a decision upheld by the Allahabad High Court. The tenant argued that he had deposited the disputed rent, interest, and costs before the first hearing date, which under Section 20(4) of the U.P. Urban Buildings (Regulation of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972, should have protected him from eviction. The lower courts had refused him this protection solely because, in his written statement, he had claimed the monthly rent was Rs. 45 when it was later found to actually be Rs. 150, reasoning that this made his deposit "conditional" and hence insufficient.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the lower courts had misapplied the law. Relying on its own earlier three-judge bench ruling in Vijay Laxmi Gangal vs Mahendra Pratap Garg, the Court reiterated that the protective, tenant-friendly Section 20(4) benefit cannot be denied merely because the tenant was mistaken about the exact rent rate, so long as it is undisputed that he deposited the rent actually demanded by the landlord (along with interest and costs) before the first hearing. Since there was no dispute that the tenant had, in fact, deposited the correct amount in time, the Court held he was wrongly denied the statutory protection. It set aside the eviction order while leaving the rest of the decree (for arrears etc.) intact.

Lesson Learnt

Under rent-control-type laws designed to protect tenants, a tenant is not automatically disentitled to statutory protection merely for making an honest mistake about the rate of rent in his pleadings: what matters is whether he actually deposited the correct amount demanded, on time.

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

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