Delhi HC refuses to let tenants add subsequent events to leave-to-defend plea through Section 151 CPC

Justice Ajay Digpaul refused to interfere with a Rent Controller order that declined to take on record withdrawn eviction petitions and disputed shop-for-rent banner photos, holding that other shops in the same premises are not the same property under the 2010 disclosure direction and that the material did not eclipse the landlords bona fide need.

Tenants of a shop in Katra Sat Narayan, Chandni Chowk, who tried to put withdrawn eviction petitions and photographs of “SHOP AVAILABLE FOR RENT” banners before the Rent Controller a year after filing their leave-to-defend application have lost in the Delhi High Court. Justice Ajay Digpaul, dismissing their Article 227 petition on 27 October 2026, held that Section 151 of the Code of Civil Procedure cannot be used to give a tenant successive opportunities to supplement a defence in the summary procedure under Section 25-B of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958, and that the material fell well short of the Supreme Court's threshold for subsequent events in rent litigation.

A year into the eviction case, an application on the day of arguments

Kalpana Jain and another landlord sued Ram Roop Jain and another tenant under Section 14(1)(e) read with Section 25-B of the Act for Shop No. 1219/07 on the ground floor of Municipal No. 1217-1221, Katra Sat Narayan, on the ground of bona fide requirement. Summons were served on 23 September 2025 and the tenants filed their application for leave to defend on 6 October 2025, within the 15-day window. The landlords replied; the tenants filed a rejoinder.

The matter was listed for arguments on leave to defend on 5 October 2026. That day the tenants moved an application under Section 151 CPC to place on record what they called subsequent events, with a list of documents and an affidavit under Section 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023. The Additional Rent Controller (ARC-02, Central, Tis Hazari) dismissed it the next day, recording that the case had been fixed for arguments since 4 August 2026, that the tenants had taken extra time for their rejoinder and an adjournment on 29 August, that a final opportunity had been given for 21 September, and that 5 October had been fixed with a clear direction that no adjournment would be granted. The tenants had still come up with the application, without even an advance copy.

Two sets of documents and a 2010 direction

Mr P.K. Rawal, with Mr Tarun Agarwal and Mr Akhil Singh, for the tenants, made three points. First, the landlords had not complied with Direction 2 in Chapter 22 of the High Court Rules and Orders, inserted by Notification No. 99/Rules/DHC of 15 March 2010, which requires a landlord filing a petition under the Act to disclose pending litigation between the same parties, or between different parties over the same property. Second, the landlords had filed numerous eviction petitions against occupants of other shops in the same premises, many since withdrawn or disposed of, and those withdrawals could not have been pleaded in October 2025. Third, banners reading “SHOP AVAILABLE FOR RENT” with the names Kalpana Jain and Kamal Jain had since gone up on other shops, showing the landlords wanted vacant possession for commercial letting. They relied on Rajiv Puri v. Jagdish Kumar, 2020 SCC OnLine Del 311, Qamruddin v. Ziauddin, 2020 SCC OnLine Del 2575, Gulab Singh v. Sher Singh, 2015 SCC OnLine Del 9295, and Punjab Stainless Steel House v. Sangeeta Kedia, 2014 SCC OnLine Del 7692.

Mr Anil Soni, Senior Advocate, for the landlords, answered that paragraph 31 of the eviction petition and paragraph 15 of the reply to the leave-to-defend application already disclosed the other eviction petitions and the landlords' wish to use the entire premises. The banner photographs were fabricated and staged by the tenants or their agents when the market was closed; five of the eight shops carrying banners were still with their tenants and in litigation. He relied on Gaya Prasad v. Pradeep Srivastava, (2001) 2 SCC 604, where the Supreme Court cautioned against routine cognizance of subsequent events unless they genuinely eclipse the relief sought.

Vague explanations, no proof of re-letting, and a remedy that already exists

Justice Digpaul framed the question narrowly: could the tenants be allowed, at the stage when leave to defend was listed for arguments, to introduce the material in their Section 151 application? The tenants' explanations for the delay, that the other petitions were discovered only during an online inspection of judicial records and that the banners came to light only after the landlords got vacant possession of those shops, were in the court's view vague and not maintainable. Paragraph 31 of the petition and paragraph 15 of the reply already said the landlords wanted the whole premises and had filed other eviction petitions. The withdrawals and disposals were readily accessible on the e-courts portal. The claim that these records surfaced belatedly did not inspire confidence.

The photographs fared no better. The tenants had produced not one shred of proof, such as correspondence with prospective tenants, that the landlords intended to or had let out the other shops. Even assuming they had, the evicted tenants would be protected by the statutory remedy under Section 19 of the Act, and the petitioners themselves could invoke it if the subject shop were ever let out commercially. The judge quoted Abid-Ul-Islam v. Inder Sain Dua, (2022) 6 SCC 30, on Section 19 as the dispossessed tenant's right to repossession where the landlord does not put the premises to the intended use. In the absence of any evidence of violation, the developments the tenants described were baseless and had not even occurred, and the authenticity of the photographs remained heavily disputed.

The 2010 notification did not help either. Direction 2 requires a landlord to disclose litigation with the same parties, or with different parties over the same property. The other shops are in the same premises, but they are clearly not the “same property” as the shop in this case, so reliance on the direction was misplaced.

Gaya Prasad sets the bar, and these facts do not clear it

The judge then turned to the Supreme Court's test. In Gaya Prasad, subsequent events can overshadow the genuineness of a landlord's need only if they are of such a nature and dimension that the need is completely eclipsed; the court there recalled Pasupuleti Venkateswarlu and Hasmat Rai v. Raghunath Prasad, which require the landlord's need to subsist till the eviction order and allow later events to be weighed only cautiously and where the need has been wholly satisfied. The tenants' own authorities showed what that looks like. In Gulab Singh, the landlord wanted the shop for his daughter's physiotherapy clinic; she married and moved to another state while other shops fell vacant and were re-let. In Punjab Stainless Steel House, seven shops became available to the landlady through other eviction orders, satisfying the projected need. Nothing comparable had happened here. Subsequent events can be considered after leave to defend is sought, the judge accepted, but these did not meet the threshold.

Two further strands closed the matter. Prithipal Singh v. Satpal Singh, (2010) 2 SCC 15, holds that the 15-day period for seeking leave to defend cannot be extended, and the court found the application a dilatory tactic by tenants who had continually tried to delay the proceedings. A court is not powerless under Section 151 to take subsequent events on record, but they must be satisfactorily explained and shown to bear materially on the core controversy; the inherent power cannot be invoked routinely to give a tenant successive chances to supplement grounds already disclosed. The court had said the same weeks earlier in Manpreet Singh v. Parmod Kumar Gupta, 2026 SCC OnLine Del 7086: the summary procedure under Section 25-B does not contemplate successive opportunities to improve the defence, and Section 151 cannot be used to circumvent it. That the landlords would suffer no prejudice was not determinative, because absence of prejudice cannot circumvent the statutory procedure. And under Article 227 the court does not sit in appeal or substitute its view for a plausible one taken below; the Rent Controller's view was plausible and well-reasoned, with no perversity or patent illegality.

Order

The petition, CM(M) 2311/2026, was dismissed along with the pending applications. The court found no infirmity in the Rent Controller's order of 6 October 2026, held that the withdrawal or disposal of other eviction petitions had no material bearing on the landlords' bona fide requirement, and that the disputed photographs could not be allowed to derail the proceedings when Section 19 provides an adequate safeguard against re-letting. The observations were confined to the petition and express no opinion on the merits of the eviction case. The judgment was reserved on 16 October 2026 and delivered on 27 October 2026.