Sale deeds that do not add up: Delhi HC lets a Shahdara shop tenant contest his eviction
Justice Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar upheld a Rent Controller's order granting leave to defend, because the landlord's own title documents, pleaded rent and disclosures left the existence of a tenancy open for evidence.
A landlord who sought a Shahdara shop for his daughter-in-law’s garment and interior design business had a problem with his own papers. A recital in one deed said a co-owner had already sold his share in 2004. Six years later that co-owner appears as a seller to the landlord’s son.
On 6 November 2026 the Delhi High Court refused to disturb an order letting the tenant defend the eviction. Justice Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar dismissed the landlord’s revision petition and left every contested question for trial.
A shop for a daughter-in-law’s business
Jitender Kochar filed an eviction petition under Section 14(1)(e) of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958 for Shop No. 1 in Shambhu Nath Building, Main Road, Gandhi Nagar, Shahdara. He said his daughter-in-law wanted to start a business in ladies’ readymade garments and interior designing there.
The tenant, Jagdish Chand Jain, has since died, and his son and legal heir Yogesh Jain defends the case. The Additional Rent Controller at the Karkardooma Courts heard it as RC ARC No. 153/2020.
Where the landlord traced his title
Mr Kochar said his son, Arjun Kochar, bought the property by a sale deed of 18 February 2010. That deed recorded the municipal number as IX/1393 instead of IX/1392.
The error was corrected, he said, by an order of 25 October 2019 in rectification proceedings and a registered rectification deed of 8 January 2020. The property then passed to one Sunita and, on 14 September 2010, to him.
What the tenant said
Mr Jain denied that Mr Kochar was his landlord. He said he had paid rent first to Amrik Singh Bhatia and then, after his death, to Amrik Singh’s brother Avtar Singh Bhatia, and never to Mr Kochar.
He pointed to the mismatch in property numbers, a prior transfer of a share, and the way the rectification deed was obtained. He also said the landlord had not fully disclosed criminal proceedings over the transactions and had pleaded different rents in different cases.
Mr Kochar answered that the number had been rectified, that other properties were unavailable or unsuitable, and that his need was genuine.
What the Rent Controller decided
On 20 August 2024 the Additional Rent Controller rejected the tenant’s objections on bona fide requirement and alternative accommodation. Mr Kochar did not challenge that finding in the High Court.
The tenant’s objection on the tenancy, however, was found credible and was enough to grant leave to defend. The Controller’s reasons come down to five gaps.
Five gaps the Controller found
First, a document of 16 June 2008 recited that Surender Singh Bhatia had already sold his share to Avtar Singh by a deed of 9 June 2004. Yet Surender Singh Bhatia and Jagjeet Singh Bhatia then sold the shop to Arjun Kochar on 18 February 2010. The landlord’s counter affidavit did not address this.
Second, the rectification deed changed the number of shops from one to two, but the area stayed at 29 and one-third square yards, not the 29 the landlord had sought.
Third, an earlier suit for possession was dismissed when the plaint was rejected, largely over the 1393 and 1392 mismatch. There the landlord had claimed a rent far above the Rs 200 a month he now pleads.
Fourth, he blamed wrong legal advice. The Controller said that could explain a wrong remedy, but not a change in facts he must have known.
Fifth, two FIRs for cheating and forgery were pending against him, and the Controller found he had not fully disclosed them.
The landlord’s four grounds in revision
Mr P.S. Bindra, Senior Advocate, argued for Mr Kochar that the Controller had gone beyond Section 14(1)(e) by examining his title documents. He said the rectification deed had not been challenged in this case, and that the challenge noticed by the Controller was a separate eviction case by another tenant, Om Prakash, for a different shop.
He added that rent receipts and the tenant’s earlier stand were ignored, and that leave could not be granted once the Controller had accepted the daughter-in-law’s need and the lack of alternative premises.
Mr Pravesh Thakur, Advocate, for the tenant, said the order was reasoned, the revision only repeated old grounds, and the tenant need only disclose facts that could defeat eviction, not prove them.
A supervisory jurisdiction, not an appeal
Justice Shankar began with the limits of his own power under the proviso to Section 25B(8). He relied on *Sarla Ahuja*, *Hindustan Petroleum Corporation v. Dilbahar Singh* and *Abid-Ul-Islam v. Inder Sain Dua* (2022) 6 SCC 30. These hold that the jurisdiction is supervisory, not appellate.
He said the court may not re-appreciate evidence or substitute its view because another is possible. It may step in for a jurisdictional error, manifest illegality, material irregularity or perversity, or where a material plea went unconsidered.
For leave to defend he applied *Precision Steel and Engineering Works v. Prem Deva Niranjan Deva Tayal*. The tenant need not prove his defence at this stage, but a sham or illusory one will not do.
Title is not tried; tenancy must be shown
The landlord’s first point failed. The Controller, the judge noted, had expressly accepted that in such cases a landlord must show only a better title than the tenant’s, not prove ownership as in a title suit. It had returned no final finding on title.
The judge then separated two things. A summary procedure does not decide ownership, but the court held:
“remains an essential ingredient of an eviction petition under Section 14(1)(e)” (para 41)
That is the landlord-tenant relationship. Where the tenant denies it and points to flaws in the landlord’s own papers, the Controller may ask whether a triable issue arises.
The Om Prakash point falls short
On the Om Prakash proceedings, the High Court assumed the landlord was right. Even then, it said, the order did not fall. The Controller’s conclusion did not rest on that alone, and the tenant had questioned the rectification deed’s circumstances independently.
The rectification order of 25 October 2019 was made in a suit between the landlord and the erstwhile owners. The tenant was not a party, so the order cannot be presumed to settle every issue in the eviction case.
The deed gap and the changing rent
The judge held that the inconsistency in the chain of title came from documents the landlord himself relied upon. The Controller was therefore within jurisdiction to consider it. The question was not whether his explanation would finally succeed, but whether the tenant deserved a chance to test it.
On rent, a variation in pleaded amount would not by itself justify leave. But where the inconsistency concerns a material fact asserted in court, the Controller could weigh the explanation. Which version is true is for evidence.
The court also treated the rent receipts and the tenant’s earlier stand as matters for trial. Given his specific denial, their effect could not be judged in isolation.
Criminal cases and the conjunctive test
An FIR or pending prosecution, the judge said, cannot alone make a title invalid or an eviction petition mala fide. The Controller had weighed them with the deed discrepancies and the rent inconsistency, and its remarks were not a finding on the criminal allegations.
The judge rejected the argument that finding need and lack of alternative premises ends the case. The ingredients of Section 14(1)(e) are conjunctive, he held, and a triable issue on the landlord-tenant relationship can justify leave:
“The requirements of the provision are conjunctive” (para 59)
Order
The revision petition and pending applications are dismissed. The court said the Controller’s order showed due consideration, that no error in the decision-making process had been shown, and that the petition sought a reappreciation of the material.
The observations are confined to the limited revisional scope and are not an opinion on the merits of either side’s claims. The Additional Rent Controller is to decide the eviction petition uninfluenced by them. There is no order as to costs.