Nawab Syed MOHIUDDIN ALI KHAN vs Haji JALALUDDIN

ORDER

1. MUHAMMAD YAQUB ALI, J.-This petition for leave to appeal is barred by 34 days. On the cause shown, we condoned the delay, but on merits found no adequate reason to interfere with the impugned order of the High Court.

2. The petitioner is the transferee of a big mansion under the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, 1958. The respondent who was in possession of one of the tenements became a statutory tenant by virtue of subsection (1) of section 30(1) of the aforesaid Act under the petitioner, but disputes soon arose between them as to the amount of rent which the petitioner was in law entitled to charge from the tenant. The municipal assessment of the tenement was increased at the instance of the petitioner from Rs. 20 to Rs.

65. He, accordingly, demanded rent at the enhanced rate from the respondent from the date of the transfer in his favour. The respondent preferred an appeal from the enhancement of the assessment to the Chairman, but in the meantime the petitioner filed the present application for his ejectment inter alia on the ground of default in the payment of rent. The appeal preferred by the respondent to the Chairman was subsequently allowed and the rent of the tenement in his possession was reduced to Rs. 20 p.m.

3. Since the petitioner had already charged rent from the respondent at a higher rate, it was found that the respondent had committed no default in payment of the rent. Consequent upon it the applica--tion for eviction of the respondent was rejected. The decision was maintained up to the High Court with which the petitioner feels aggrieved.

4. The petitioner appeared in person and argued firstly that as `big mansion' was excluded from the definition of a `house' under section 2(4) of the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act, the respondent was not a protected tenant within section 30(1) ; secondly that the Chairman of the Karachi Municipal Corporation had illegally reduced the assessment of the tenement from Rs. 65 to Rs. 20 p.m., and thirdly that the petitioner was in any case entitled to charge rent at Rs. 37 which the respondent admittedly paid to the Custodian of Evacuee Property before the transfer of the property in favour of the petitioner.

5. There is no force in any one of the grounds. A big mansion is no doubt excluded from the definition of a `house' for the purposes of its transfer under the Displaced Persons (Compensa--tion and Rehabilitation) Act, but it does not cease to be a house or a shop within the purview of section 30. A person in possession of a tenement in the big mansion, therefore, becomes a statutory tenant under the transferee and is entitled to the benefits provided therein. The second ground that the Chairman had illegally reduced the assessment from Rs. 65 to Rs. 20 p.m. Did not properly arise for the determination in the present proceedings. The third ground was not even raised in the petition for ejectment and consequently no inquiry was held on this point.

6. The petition is thus without any force and is dismissed hereby.