Delhi District Court
Rajesh Sharma vs Rajesh Kumar on 22 August, 2025
IN THE COURT OF SH. VIRENDER KUMAR BANSAL
PRINCIPAL DISTRICT & SESSIONS JUDGE
& RENT CONTROL TRIBUNAL (CENTRAL )
TIS HAZARI COURTS, DELHI
RCT No.34/2025
CNR No. DLCT01-003353-2025
Shri Rajesh Sharma
S/o Late Sh. Jagdish Chander Sharma,
R/o B-1536, Main Road,
Shastri Nagar, Delhi-110052.
...........Appellant
Versus
Sh. Rajesh Kumar
S/o Sh. Mukand Lal
Proprietor of Seema Cloth House
At B-1536, Private Shop No.2 & 3
Shastri Nagar, Delhi-110052.
.......Respondent
Date of filing of appeal : 03.03.2025
Date of arguments : 19.08.2025
Date of Judgment : 22.08.2025
JUDGMENT:
1. The appellate jurisdiction of this Court has been invoked under Section 38 of Delhi Rent Control Act (hereinafter referred to as 'DRC Act'), impugning the order dated 03.02.2025 vide which the Ld. ARC has disposed of the application under Section 27 of DRC Act. Digitally signed by VIRENDER VIRENDER KUMAR KUMAR BANSAL BANSAL Date:
2025.08.22 16:39:46 +0530 RCT-34/2025 Rajesh Sharma Vs Rajesh Kumar Page 1 of 8
2. Brief facts giving rise to the present appeal are that Sh.
Rajesh Kumar (hereinafter referred to as 'petitioner/respondent') filed a petition under Section 27 of DRC Act against Sh. Rajesh Sharma (hereinafter referred to as 'respondent/appellant') alleging that he is tenant of Shop No. B-1536, Private Shop No.2, Main Road, Shastri Nagar, Delhi at the monthly rent of Rs.2400/-. The landlord i.e. the respondent/appellant is not receiving the rent and hence, he is depositing the rent for the period from 01.07.2020 to 31.12.2020 through this petition @ Rs.2400/- per month.
3. Ld. ARC sent notice of the petition to the respondent / appellant, who filed the reply taking the objection that the petition is abuse of process of law. The petitioner herein in the previous petition bearing DR No.263/2019, has filed two receipts dated 10.10.2018 and 01.01.2019 categorically mentioning that the rate of rent is Rs. 4800/- per month for shop Nos. 2 & 3 and that there is a single tenancy @ Rs.4800/- per month. Under Section 3 (c) of DRC Act, this court has no jurisdiction to entertain the application as the rate of rent is more than Rs.3500/- per month. It also alleged that petition is bad for non-joinder of necessary party i.e. Sh. Mukesh Kumar, who is co-owner and thus necessary party. It is also alleged that petitioner has also not deposited the rent as provided under Section 26 of DRC Act.
4. It is further alleged that Petitioner and Sh. Mukund Lal, after admitting one tenancy of shop no. 2 & 3 have paid rent from 01.08.1994 as single tenancy of Shop no. 2 & 3, now Digitally signed by VIRENDER VIRENDER KUMAR KUMAR BANSAL BANSAL Date:
2025.08.22 16:39:53 +0530 RCT-34/2025 Rajesh Sharma Vs Rajesh Kumar Page 2 of 8 cannot be permitted to say that there are two tenancies. They have falsely alleged that there are two separate tenancies and rate of rent is Rs.2400/- per month.
5. Ld. ARC after considering the submissions disposed of the petition observing as under:-
"It is trite to state that in proceedings under Section 27 DRC Act, the complex questions cannot be decided. For the purpose of deciding the present petition, summary procedure is to be adopted. By way of the present petition, only permission for depositing rent is being sought and mere deposition of rent before the present tribunal, would neither confer nor take away the jurisdiction of the competent court to decide the complex questions involved qua the rate of rent, termination of tenancy etc. The objection of the respondent that the petitioner/tenant has falsely pleaded that there are two separate tenancy cannot be decided in the present application as scope of Section 27 of DRC Act is very limited. Even if there is no categorical or vague admission regarding landlord-tenant relationship, the same is sufficient. In the present case, it is not disputed that the petitioner was a tenant of the respondent. Further, it is not the case of the respondent that the issue regarding the actual rate of rent has already been adjudicated. Civil suit filed by respondent is pending and it is yet to be determined whether there were two distinct tenancies of shop no. 2 and 3 or whether there was one single composite tenancy @ Rs. 4,800/- per month. Therefore, mere deposition of rent before the present tribunal would neither confer nor take away the jurisdiction of the competent court/authority to determine the actual rate of rent; or the fact whether the rent has been tendered properly or not; or the fact whether there were two separate tenancies or single composite tenancy @ Rs. 4,800/- per month.
Hence, in view of the above mentioned reasons, objections raised in the present case, need not be decided. No prejudice shall be caused to the respondent if permission is granted to the petitioner for deposit of rent. As regards the contention that the other co-owner has not been impleaded, it is trite to state that petition against even one of the co-owner is maintainable. Accordingly, objections are dismissed. However, it is clarified that Digitally signed VIRENDER by VIRENDER KUMAR KUMAR BANSAL BANSAL Date: 2025.08.22 RCT-34/2025 Rajesh Sharma Vs Rajesh Kumar Page 3 of 8 16:40:00 +0530 parties are at liberty to get issues qua the rate of rent; whether the tenancy is single composite tenancy or two separate tenancies, etc. decided by the competent court/authority."
6. Aggrieved by the order, the present appeal has been preferred. Notice of the appeal was given to the respondent. TCR was requisitioned. I have heard Ld. Counsels for the parties and perused the record.
7. Ld. Counsel for the appellant submitted that it is abuse of process of law. There was a single tenancy with respect to the premises no. B-1536, Main Road, Shastri Nagar, Delhi with respect to a shop having two private numbers i.e. shop no. 2 & 3. Petitioner / respondent himself has placed on record two receipt dated 10.10.2018 and 01.01.2019 showing monthly rent as Rs.4800/-. Now they cannot be permitted to say that there are two separate tenancies, each having monthly rent of Rs.2400/-. Ld. Counsel submitted that it is settled law that if separate lease deeds are registered for one unit still it is to be considered as single tenancy. Ld. Counsel in support of his submissions has relied upon following judgments:-
1. Mercury Travels (India) Ltd. v. Mahabir Prasad:
2001 (89) DLT 440, wherein Hon'ble High Court of Delhi has observed in para no.24 as under:-
"24. Admittedly, two lease deeds were executed and got registered in respect of two portions of the premises in question. First question which needs to be determined is as to whether the execution of two lease deeds would lead to inevitable and necessary conclusion that two tenancies were created? Further discussion on this aspect would Digitally signed by VIRENDER VIRENDER KUMAR KUMAR BANSAL BANSAL Date:
2025.08.22 RCT-34/2025 Rajesh Sharma Vs Rajesh Kumar Page 4 of 8 16:40:07 +0530 depend on the outcome of this question. For answering this question one may refer to Section 107 of the Transfer of Property Act, 1882 which stipulates as to how leases are made. The operative portion of this Section reads as under.
"Section 107. Leases how made - Where a lease of immovable property is made by a registered instrument, such instrument or, where there are more instruments than one each such instrument shall be executed by both the lessor and the lessee...."
2. S. N. Sheopuri v. Fab India Overseas Pvt. Ltd.:
2011 (181) DLT 255, wherein Hon'ble High Court of Delhi has observed in para 38 as under:-
"38. The evidence, in this case, in the form of Ex. PW 1/6, Ex. DW7/1 to DW-7/33 shows that common rent amounts were consistently paid by the defendant, with a single tax deduction at source, disclosed by it. The defendant has not produced separate rent receipts in respect of the six different portions of the premises, for any period, or even one month. It has also not placed on record any documentary evidence, in the form of ledger extracts or books of its accounts, showing that though a common amount was paid, in its books the amounts were maintained as rents for separate premises, so as to establish its case for separate tenancies, to take the case out of the purview of the civil court. The legal position in this regard appears to be that even if a property or "accommodation" is let out for two different purposes (i.e. residential and commercial) the courts would not be justified in splitting the tenancy and creating separate transactions, unless permitted by law. In Hiralal Kapur (supra) the Supreme Court went so far as to say that if portions of the premises are occupied by separate individuals with the approval of the landlord, who receives amounts separately from each of them, as long as the original tenancy was created by one of them, for the whole premises, and a portion was later occupied by another person, at the recommendation of the original tenant, the law would recognise one tenancy between the landlord and the original tenant, and the court cannot split the tenancy. Having regard to these decisions, and upon an analysis of the facts of this case, it is held that regardless of the fact that originally, one premise was let out in Digitally signed by VIRENDER VIRENDER KUMAR KUMAR BANSAL BANSAL Date:
2025.08.22 RCT-34/2025 Rajesh Sharma Vs Rajesh Kumar Page 5 of 8 16:40:13 +0530 favour of the defendant, who was given possession of different portions later, the conduct and intention of the parties (whose relationship in respect of all the premises, was common, and all the premises being part of the same suit property) was to create a single indivisible tenancy, the rent for which was Rs. 20,000/-."
3. Constellate Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and Ors. v. Shammi Jain: 77 (1999) DLT 65, wherein Hon'ble High Court has observed in para no. 7 as under:-
"7. We have considered both the points and we find no merit in either of them. As noticed in the earlier part of this judgment, the tenant admitted that the rent of the entire premises was Rs. 4,000/- per month with effect from the year 1986. This admission is contained in the reply to the notice sent on behalf of the tenant which is dated 28th March, 1988 and is Ex PW-1/40. Besides this, in the notice dated 6th June, 1988 Ex. PW-1/41 sent by the tenant through his Advocate, the appellants set up a definite plea that the rate of rent was Rs. 4,000/- per month. The Trial Court is right in observing that it was only in September 1988 that the applicants sensed that amendment of the Delhi Rent Control Act was in the offing which would take tenancies where rent was above Rs. 3,500/- per month out of the purview of the Act, which led the tenant to start splitting the rent in order to keep the rent within the limits of the Delhi Rent Control Act, i.e., Rs. 3,500/- per month and Rs. 500/- per month. This the landlady rightly re-fused to accept. Therefore, it is not open to the appellants to say that the rent of the premises was Rs.3,500/- per month and there were two tenancies- one for Rs.3,500/- per month and the other for Rs.500/- per month. It is a case of one tenancy @ Rs.4,000/- per month."
8. Ld. Counsel submitted that herein this case documents itself show that there was a single tenancy, rate of rent as Rs.4800/-. Therefore, as per Section 3 (c) of DRC Act, ARC has no jurisdiction to entertain the petition. Ld. ARC should have Digitally signed by VIRENDER VIRENDER KUMAR KUMAR BANSAL BANSAL Date:
2025.08.22 16:40:19 RCT-34/2025 Rajesh Sharma Vs Rajesh Kumar Page 6 of 8 +0530 dismissed the petition instead of allowing the same and submitted that order of Ld. ARC be set aside.
9. Ld. Counsel for respondent submitted that he has deposited the rent at the rate of Rs.2400/- as there are two separate tenancies. In the proceedings under Section 27 DRC Act the complex question of rate of rent or the entitlement cannot be decided. The tenant has only sought permission to deposit the rent and hence, the Trial Court has rightly decided the petition without prejudice to the rights of the parties. It is submitted that there is no merit in the appeal, same be dismissed.
10. After hearing the arguments and going through the record, I found that so far as the relationship of landlord and tenant is concerned, that is not disputed. The dispute is only with respect to the rate of rent and whether there is single tenancy or two tenancies. It is important to note here that depositing the rent under Section 27 of DRC Act does not create tenancy by itself, as held in case of Fayyazuddin and Anr. v. Delhi Waqf Board and Anr: 2014 (1) AD (Delhi) 183. Therefore, merely by depositing rent at the rate of Rs.2400/- alleging that there is separate tenancy for private shop no. 2 in premises no. B-1536, Main Road, Shastri Nagar, Delhi does not create the tenancy in favour of respondent.
11. It is settled law that in the proceedings under Section 27 of DRC Act, complex question of rate of rent or the entitlement cannot be decided. That has to be decided in appropriate proceedings when the same are initiated. Therefore in my Digitally signed by VIRENDER VIRENDER KUMAR KUMAR BANSAL RCT-34/2025 Rajesh Sharma Vs Rajesh Kumar Page 7 of 8BANSAL Date:
2025.08.22 16:40:26 +0530 opinion, that question could not have been gone into by Ld. ARC while disposing of the petition.
12. So far as the contention with respect to the single tenancy, as argued by Ld. Counsel for the appellant that there is a single tenancy with respect to Private shop no. 2 & 3 forming part of premises bearing No. B-1536, Main Road, Shastri Nagar, Delhi, that can be decided only in appropriate proceedings and not under Section 27 of DRC Act.
13. Keeping in view all these facts, it is made clear that the petition under Section 27 of DRC Act permitting respondent herein to deposit the rent does not affect rights of either of the party with respect to the rate of rent or whether there are two tenancies or single tenancy. That has to be considered by the court concerned where the issue is raised and having jurisdiction to decide the same. With these observations, there is no merit in the appeal. The appeal is disposed of.
14. TCR be sent back with copy of this order.
15. Appeal file be consigned to Record Room.
Digitally signed by VIRENDERVIRENDER KUMAR Announced in the open Court KUMAR BANSAL Date:
BANSAL on 22nd day of August, 2025 2025.08.22 16:40:31 +0530 (Virender Kumar Bansal) Principal District & Sessions Judge Central District, Tis Hazari Courts, Delhi(D) RCT-34/2025 Rajesh Sharma Vs Rajesh Kumar Page 8 of 8