Telangana HC sets aside eviction: signatures matched by eye could not prove a 2004 rent deed
Justice Vakiti Ramakrishna Reddy held that a landlord must first prove the Rs 10 stamp-paper agreement he relied on, and that an appellate court cannot fill the gap by comparing signatures with its own eyes or by treating a denial of tenancy as wilful default. The Rent Controller order dismissing the eviction petition is restored.
A Secunderabad landlord said his tenant owed Rs 56,000 under an 11-month agreement on Rs 10 stamp paper. She said she never signed it, and that the tenant was her mother. After a 19-year fight, the Telangana High Court has found that he never proved the agreement.
Justice Vakiti Ramakrishna Reddy allowed a civil revision petition filed by S. Shashi Rekha under Section 22 of the A.P. Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1960. He set aside an eviction order of the Chief Judge, City Small Causes Court, Hyderabad, and restored the Rent Controller’s dismissal of the landlord’s petition.
A Rs 10 deed and a rival tenant
The landlord, Kothapalli Madhusudhan Rao, filed R.C. No. 151 of 2007 under Section 10(2)(i) of the Act. He sought her eviction from the western portion of the second floor of premises in Sai Ramnagar Colony, West Marredpally, Secunderabad, for wilful default in paying rent.
He said she approached him through her brother-in-law, already his tenant, because an earlier landlord had evicted her. He let her the portion for 11 months at Rs 2,400 a month, under a rental agreement dated 27 October 2004 on Rs 10 stamp paper.
He alleged she paid no rent for 20 months, from January 2006 to August 2007, amounting to Rs 48,000. He added Rs 8,000 for electricity and bore-well charges at Rs 400 a month, for total dues of Rs 56,000.
Shashi Rekha denied everything. She said her mother, Smt. Venkatamma, was the tenant at Rs 600 a month plus Rs 300 for maintenance, and that she had never signed the agreement.
Her mother had also agreed to buy the same property from the landlord and paid Rs 3,00,000, she said. When he did not execute a sale deed, her mother sued for specific performance in O.S. No. 547 of 2007 in the City Civil Court, Secunderabad.
The Rent Controller: execution not proved
The landlord examined himself and marked a rough sketch, the rental agreement as Ex.P2, and orders in interim applications in the specific performance suit. One of the three attesting witnesses to the agreement, P. Dayanand, was examined, but his evidence was eschewed on 25 August 2010.
Shashi Rekha marked her ration card and a marriage invitation. The Additional Rent Controller-cum-XVIII Junior Civil Judge, Secunderabad, held on 14 July 2011 that nothing apart from the landlord’s own word proved the agreement, and that he had not sent it to a handwriting expert or examined another witness.
The Rent Controller also noted the landlord’s admission in cross-examination that he had agreed to sell the property to her mother, who had sued and won. Relying on R. Kanthimathi v. Beatrice Xavier, it held that he proved neither ownership nor a landlord-tenant relationship, and dismissed the petition.
The appeal: signatures that “tallied”
The landlord appealed under Section 20 in R.A. No. 212 of 2011. On 13 June 2017 the Chief Judge, City Small Causes Court, Hyderabad, reversed the order and directed Shashi Rekha to vacate within two months.
The appellate court said the signatures on the agreement tallied without deviation with her signatures on the vakalat and other papers filed in court. It added that she had not explained how her signature appeared on a document she called fabricated.
It read the interim orders in the specific performance suit as contradicting her case, since the court there had found nothing to show her mother was a tenant. It held that the decree for her mother was under appeal, and that her denial of the landlord’s title showed wilful default.
Under the High Court’s interim order of 11 August 2017 in this revision, she deposited Rs 1,00,000. She paid it on 15 September 2017 into the credit of R.C. No. 151 of 2007.
Arguments in the High Court
Sri G. Chandrashekar Reddy appeared for Shashi Rekha. He said the burden of proving a disputed document lies on the party relying on it, and that the appellate court had matched her signature to papers from after 2004 with the naked eye. He relied on Thiruvengadam Pillai v. Navaneethammal.
He also said the pending appeal against the decree did not suspend it, and that a court-executed sale deed, Document No. 1569 of 2024, now stood in her mother’s favour.
Sri Manav Gecil Thomas, for Sri Thomas George, appeared for the landlord. He said producing the agreement discharged the initial burden and the onus then shifted to her to prove forgery.
He added that, having entered possession under the landlord, she was estopped by Section 116 of the Evidence Act from disputing his title. He cited the Delhi High Court’s Naseem Ahmed v. Deepak Singh.
What the High Court had to decide
The judge first noted the limits of a revision under Section 22. It is supervisory, wider than revision under Section 115 of the Code of Civil Procedure, and does not allow the High Court to re-weigh evidence merely because another view is possible.
He cited Hindustan Petroleum Corporation v. Dilbahar Singh for the rule that findings of fact can be corrected where they are perverse, rest on no evidence, or misread it. The court is bound to interfere where the first appellate authority misplaces the burden of proof.
He framed four points, of which the first was:
“whether the Appellate Court was legally justified in reversing the finding of the Rent Controller that the execution of the Rental Agreement (Ex.P2) was not proved, by comparing the disputed signature with the admitted signatures of the petitioner with the naked eye, without any other evidence?” (para 24)
The burden stays with the deed’s owner
The judge held that the burden of proving a disputed document lies on the party relying on it, under Sections 101 and 102 of the Evidence Act. It is not discharged by producing the document.
Execution must be proved by an attesting witness, an expert opinion under Section 45, or a proper comparison of signatures under Section 73. The onus shifts to the other side only after the first party proves the facts on which his claim rests.
Here the landlord examined only himself. One attesting witness was eschewed, two were never examined, no handwriting expert was engaged, and no local resident spoke to the tenancy. The judge said that apart from the landlord’s own interested testimony, nothing proved Ex.P2.
He added that Ex.P2 had been marked under the High Court’s order of 6 December 2010 in C.R.P. No. 3890 of 2010 only to show the nature of possession. That marking did not prove execution.
Why the signature comparison failed
The judge accepted that Section 73 allows a court to compare signatures, but said a comparison without an expert has always been considered hazardous. He relied on Thiruvengadam Pillai and on the Madras High Court’s Kuppathal v. M. Sivaji, which requires comparison with a contemporaneous document.
The appellate court had analysed no characteristics of the signatures and recorded only that they tallied. The agreement was dated 27 October 2004, while the papers used for comparison were filed in proceedings that began in 2007. The judge held:
“hazardous and cannot support a finding that Ex.P2 was executed by the petitioner” (para 33)
The judge also faulted the appellate court for asking how her signature came to appear on a document she called fabricated. That put on her the burden of disproving a signature the landlord had not proved to be hers.
No rent receipts, no proof of tenancy
With Ex.P2 out, the court looked for other proof of a tenancy. The landlord himself said he issues rent receipts, but none was produced. The sketch showed no tenancy.
The interim orders in the specific performance suit, Ex.P3, were made on a prima facie view in a different proceeding on a different question. The judge said weakness in her mother’s or her own case does not relieve the landlord of proving his.
He also said the appellate court assumed the very fact in dispute when it reasoned that she remained a tenant even if her mother’s decree was upheld.
Tenant estoppel cannot create the tenancy
The judge distinguished Naseem Ahmed. Section 116 presupposes a landlord-tenant relationship, admitted or proved, and stops a tenant from denying the landlord’s title at its start. It cannot substitute for proof of the tenancy.
Shashi Rekha, he noted, had denied from the beginning that she was inducted by the landlord. The agreement of sale and the decree were offered to show she was not his tenant, not to attack his title.
A pending appeal is not a stay
The landlord had asked that the revision be dismissed or kept in abeyance because his appeal, A.S. No. 9 of 2023, was pending against the decree for specific performance. The judge quoted Atma Ram Properties v. Federal Motors for the rule that an appeal does not itself stay the decree.
No stay of the decree was brought to his notice, so it continues to operate. He said the landlord’s admitted agreement to sell, the decree, and the registered sale deed of 2024 lent considerable support to her case that her mother was the tenant.
The judge said the revision did not depend on the appeal, and that he had not examined its merits. He also found it unnecessary to decide whether any tenancy ended when the landlord agreed to sell.
Denial of tenancy is not wilful default
The judge added that even if a tenancy were assumed, eviction under Section 10(2)(i) needs proof that rent was due and unpaid. The appellate court made no finding on the rent rate, the period of default or the amount due.
It inferred wilful default from her denial of the landlord’s title, which was not the ground pleaded. A person who disputes a tenancy in a case where the landlord must first prove it does not commit wilful default by raising that dispute.
Order
The civil revision petition was allowed. The judgment and decree of 13 June 2017 in R.A. No. 212 of 2011 were set aside, and the Rent Controller’s order of 14 July 2011 dismissing R.C. No. 151 of 2007 stands restored.
Shashi Rekha may withdraw the Rs 1,00,000 she deposited under the interim order, with any interest accrued, subject to procedural formalities. There was no order as to costs, and pending miscellaneous applications were closed. Judgment was reserved on 5 August 2026.