Rent law eviction turns on pleaded tenancy, not unpleaded grounds or denial of landlord's title.

In eviction proceedings under the rent law, the court must decide the case on the pleaded facts and issues, and an appellate court cannot sustain a result on an unpleaded ground absent a proper foundation. The leasehold character of the underlying land does not by itself take a building outside the U.P. rent statute where the disputed building is let by the landlord and the tenancy relation is otherwise established. Once tenancy and landlordship are admitted, the tenant is estopped from denying the landlord's title during the subsistence of the tenancy. The appellate judgment was therefore unsustainable, and the release and eviction decree was restored.

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Issues: (i) whether the appellate court could sustain a decision on a ground not pleaded or raised in the memorandum of appeal; (ii) whether a building standing on leasehold land of the Cantonment Board falls outside the U.P. Act XIII of 1972 when the disputed building itself is let by the petitioner as landlord; (iii) whether the tenant could deny the landlord's title in view of the admitted tenancy and the rule of estoppel.

Issue (i): whether the appellate court could sustain a decision on a ground not pleaded or raised in the memorandum of appeal.

Analysis: Pleadings must contain the material facts on which a party relies, and a case cannot be made out on evidence without a foundational plea. A court is to decide the case on the basis of the pleadings and issues, and parties cannot be taken by surprise by a new legal or factual ground unless the exceptional conditions for departure from pleadings are satisfied. No such foundation existed in the written statement or the appeal grounds for disputing applicability of the rent statute.

Conclusion: The appellate court could not lawfully allow the appeal on a ground beyond the pleadings.

Issue (ii): whether a building standing on leasehold land of the Cantonment Board falls outside the U.P. Act XIII of 1972 when the disputed building itself is let by the petitioner as landlord.

Analysis: The eviction remedy under the rent statute turns on the existence of a building and a landlord-tenant relationship, not on whether the underlying land is freehold or leasehold. The statutory definition of building is of a roofed structure, and neither the substantive provision for release nor the definition requires ownership of the land in the manner assumed by the appellate court. The jurisdictional inquiry is therefore confined to the pleaded tenancy and the building in question.

Conclusion: The rent statute remained applicable and the appellate court's contrary view was erroneous.

Issue (iii): whether the tenant could deny the landlord's title in view of the admitted tenancy and the rule of estoppel.

Analysis: Once the tenancy and landlordship were admitted, the tenant was barred from denying the landlord's title during the continuance of the tenancy. In an eviction proceeding, the landlord need not prove title as in a title suit, and the tenant cannot resist eviction by disputing the landlord's title while the jural relationship subsists. The tenant had not shown any legally recognised basis to avoid this estoppel.

Conclusion: The tenant was estopped from denying the petitioner's landlordship.

Final Conclusion: The impugned appellate judgment was unsustainable because it travelled beyond the pleadings and wrongly treated the leasehold character of the land as defeating the landlord's rent-law remedy; the trial authority's decree for release and eviction was restored.

Ratio Decidendi: In an eviction proceeding under the rent law, jurisdiction and relief are determined by the pleaded landlord-tenant relationship and the statutory requirements for release, and a tenant in admitted tenancy cannot defeat the landlord's claim by raising an unpleaded objection or by denying the landlord's title.

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