Title Dispute Cannot Be Smuggled Into Rent Eviction Proceedings Through Impleadment: Allahabad High Court

The Allahabad High Court dismissed a challenge to a Rent Tribunal order that barred a third party from joining eviction proceedings to contest the landlord's title under the UP Tenancy Act, 2021.

The Allahabad High Court, in a petition filed under Article 227 of the Constitution, has dismissed a challenge brought by a third party — a religious institution in Jhansi — against an order of the Rent Tribunal that reversed the Rent Authority's decision permitting its impleadment in eviction proceedings. Justice Dr. Yogendra Kumar Srivastava, sitting singly, held that proceedings under Section 21 of the U.P. Regulation of Urban Premises Tenancy Act, 2021 are confined strictly to the landlord-tenant relationship and cannot be enlarged to accommodate title disputes introduced by strangers to the tenancy. The Rent Tribunal's order dated 13 March 2026, which set aside the impleadment, was found to suffer from no jurisdictional error, manifest illegality, or perversity warranting the Court's supervisory intervention.

The Dispute Before the High Court

The respondent-landlord, Smt. Jyoti Gangwani, had instituted Rent Case No. 110 of 2024 before the Rent Authority seeking eviction under Section 21(2) of the Act of 2021. The petitioner, Murti Markandeshwar Ji Maharaj Gopal Ki Bagiya City Jhansi, moved an application under Order I Rule 10 of the Code of Civil Procedure seeking to be impleaded in those proceedings. The Rent Authority allowed the application on 14 August 2025.

The landlord challenged that order before the Rent Tribunal in Rent Appeal No. 05 of 2026. The Tribunal, by order dated 13 March 2026, allowed the appeal and set aside the impleadment. The petitioner then approached the High Court under Article 227, contending that the Tribunal's order was erroneous.

The Legal Question

The central question was whether a person claiming an independent title or proprietary right over premises — adverse to the landlord — could insist on being impleaded under Order I Rule 10 in eviction proceedings initiated under Section 21 of the Act of 2021, solely for the purpose of disputing the landlord's ownership.

This raised a second, linked question: whether the Rent Authority has the statutory jurisdiction to adjudicate complicated questions of title between a landlord and a stranger to the tenancy, and whether the supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227 could be invoked to interfere with a Tribunal order that correctly declined such an exercise.

How the Bench Reasoned

Justice Srivastava began with the statutory scheme. The Act of 2021, the Court held, creates a limited and specific forum for adjudicating disputes arising from the jural relationship of landlord and tenant. Proceedings under Section 21 are directed at determining rights and obligations flowing from that relationship and the grounds pleaded in support of the prayer for eviction. They are not designed to resolve ownership disputes between the landlord and third parties who are strangers to the tenancy.

The Tribunal had found, and the High Court agreed, that the petitioner sought impleadment solely to dispute the title and ownership of the landlord over the premises. Such a dispute, the Court observed, falls “wholly outside the scope of the proceedings contemplated under the Act of 2021.” Introducing it through an impleadment application would convert what is a summary statutory remedy into a forum for complex civil litigation — an outcome neither contemplated by the Act nor permissible under it.

The Court drew a clear line: a third party asserting an independent proprietary right qualifies neither as a necessary party nor as a proper party to proceedings under Section 21. A necessary party is one whose presence is indispensable to determine the dispute before the forum; a proper party is one whose presence would assist in a more complete adjudication. A person whose claim is entirely foreign to the landlord-tenant dispute fits neither description.

Significantly, counsel for the petitioner did not contest the settled legal position that Section 21(2)(b) proceedings do not permit adjudication of complicated questions of title. He also did not dispute that a rival ownership claim must be agitated before a competent civil court in appropriately instituted proceedings. In fact, counsel fairly conceded before the Court that the impugned order did not suffer from any patent jurisdictional error, manifest illegality, or perversity that would attract the Court's supervisory jurisdiction under Article 227.

The Court recorded that this concession was in accord with the settled legal position. The scope of Article 227 supervision is itself confined: interference is warranted only where the subordinate court or tribunal has acted outside the bounds of its jurisdiction, or where the order is shown to suffer from manifest perversity or an error apparent resulting in a grave miscarriage of justice. No such infirmity had been demonstrated.

Justice Srivastava also clarified the practical remedy available to the petitioner. A person asserting an independent proprietary right over the premises has an efficacious remedy before the competent civil court. The pendency of eviction proceedings under the Act does not extinguish that remedy, and does not give such a person the right to intervene in the rent forum.

Outcome

The High Court dismissed the petition dated 15 July 2026 as devoid of merit. The Rent Tribunal's order dated 13 March 2026 in Rent Appeal No. 05 of 2026, setting aside the Rent Authority's order permitting impleadment, was upheld. The petitioner's only avenue to agitate its title claim remains a proceeding before the competent civil court.