Co-owner landlord standing and one-time immediate recovery remedy under rent control law limit repeated eviction use

A co-owner heir who receives rent and represents the estate may maintain eviction proceedings as landlord, because a person entitled to receive rent falls within the statutory landlord concept under rent control law. The special immediate-recovery remedy for government servants is, however, a one-time statutory right: where possession of one dwelling house has already been recovered on that ground, the entitlement is exhausted and cannot be invoked again against another tenant under the same landlord. On that footing, the landlord's general capacity to sue remained intact, but the second eviction under the special provision was not maintainable.

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Issues: (i) Whether a co-owner heir who was receiving rent and representing the estate could maintain eviction proceedings as landlord under the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958. (ii) Whether the special right of immediate recovery under section 14A could be invoked again to evict another tenant after one dwelling house had already been recovered on the same ground.

Issue (i): Whether a co-owner heir who was receiving rent and representing the estate could maintain eviction proceedings as landlord under the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958.

Analysis: The relevant statutory scheme treated a person entitled to receive rent as a landlord. In the setting of rent control legislation, the relationship of landlord and tenant was to be understood in a practical sense, and a co-owner was not excluded merely because other heirs were also entitled to the property. Since rent had in fact been paid to the respondent and he functioned as the representative of the estate and the receiving landlord, he fell within the statutory definition.

Conclusion: The respondent was competent to sue as landlord, and the objection based on co-ownership failed.

Issue (ii): Whether the special right of immediate recovery under section 14A could be invoked again to evict another tenant after one dwelling house had already been recovered on the same ground.

Analysis: Section 14A was construed as an emergency and accelerated remedy intended to restore a government servant to one residential accommodation owned by him. The proviso showed that where several dwelling houses were owned, the landlord could indicate and recover possession of only one. Once that right was exercised and one dwelling house had been recovered, the statutory entitlement was exhausted and could not be repeated against other tenants holding under the same landlord on the same ground.

Conclusion: The second eviction under section 14A was not maintainable, and the appeal succeeded on that ground.

Final Conclusion: The eviction order could not stand because the special statutory remedy had already been used once, and the appellant was therefore entitled to relief notwithstanding the landlord's general capacity to sue as a co-owner.

Ratio Decidendi: Under section 14A of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958, the right to immediate recovery of possession is a one-time statutory remedy that cannot be used repeatedly to evict multiple tenants from different dwelling houses once possession of one dwelling house has already been recovered.

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