1991 (10) TMI 313

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....h Requisition and Acquisition of Immovable Property Act, 1972 (for brevity 'Requisition Act') is vacation of premises without sufficient cause within second proviso to sub-section (3) of Section 14 of Himachal Pradesh Urban Rent Control Act, 1987 deemed to have come into force with effect from 17th November 1971 (hereinafter referred to as the Act'). Sub-section (3) of Section 14 is extracted below: "(3) A landlord may apply to the Controller for an order directing the tenant to put the landlord in possession (a) in the case of a residential building, if - (i) he requires it for his own occupation: Provided that he is not occupying another residential building owned by him, in the urban area concerned:....

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....strued liberally in keeping with its ordinary dictionary meaning of adequate or enough. That is any justifiable reason resulting in vacation has to be under- stood as sufficient. cause. For instance economic difficulty in financial stringency or family reasons may compel a land- lord to let out building in his occupation. So long it is found to be genuine and bona fide and would amount to vacating a building for sufficient cause. And the bar of second proviso stands lifted. In other words if the vacation of the building was not a pretence or pretext the proviso could not frustrate the right of landlord to approach the controller for necessary direction to tenant to hand over possession to him. Vacation of a building by landlord in pursua....

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....was not accepted. Validity or invalidity of an order under Requisition Act could not adversely reflect on sufficiency of cause under Rent Control Act. Reason for either arises in different circumstances. Vacating a building, even under an incorrect order passed by a competent authority under Requistion Act would be for sufficient reason. The Rent Control authorities could not examine merit of the order under Requisition Act. Therefore it could not be a valid consideration for holding that the building was vacated without sufficient cause. The courts below thus committed an error of law in applying second proviso to reject the application filed on behalf of the appellant. Even the finding on requirement of the appellant to occupy the b....