The Court naturally takes statements of fact contained in the petitions at their face value and it would be unfair to betray the confidence of the Court by making statements which are untrue and misleading: The Supreme Court of India.
The Supreme Court of India passed a judgement on 4th March of 1963 in which it emphasized the importance of being honest while making petitions and making ground which are true and backed by evidence. This Judgement was passed in the case of Hari Narain vs Badri Das(Civil Appeal No. 14 of 1963) and the case was presided over by The Honourable Mr. Justice J.C. Shah, The Honourable Mr. Justice M. Hidayatullah and The Honourable Mr. Justice P.B. Gajendragadkar.
FACTS OF THE CASE:
In this case, the appellant was a tenant of the premises in suit which was owned by the respondent and the appellant was permitted to use the said premises for his Oil Mill. The terms of the lease stated that the appellant had to pay to the respondent the agreed rent every month and in case of default for three months, the respondent was entitled to evict the appellant before the expiry of the stipulated period, which was five years, and in that case he was also entitled to claim the rent for the remaining period.
On May 2, 1959, the respondent sued the appellant for ejectment in the Court of Munsif, East Jaipur City and he alleged that he had received the rent from the appellant only up to October 31, 1957, and after that the appellant had defaulted in the payment of rent despite repeated demands. His case was that the appellant’s tenancy had expired on December 1, 1958, but the appellant failed to deliver over possession of the premises to the respondent, however, the appellant deposited a lump sum of Rs. 1053 to cover the rent from November 1, 1957 to November 30, 1958 which was due from him. The respondent in his case pleaded that the appellant had committed more than three defaults and that even at the date of the suit, the rent for 5 months and 2 days remained to be paid. On this basis, a decree for ejectment was claimed by the respondent against the appellant.
The appellant denied the respondent’s claim and alleged that the respondent was not entitled to claim ejectment against him by virtue of the provisions of section 13(1)(a) of the Rajasthan Premises (Control of Rent arid Eviction) Act, 1950 (Act XVII of 1950) and he also pleaded that by virtue of the fact that the respondent had accepted the rent which was paid by the appellant, he had waived his right to evict him.
The trial Court on the concerned issue as well as on the other issues, was in the favour of the appellant and the respondent’s suit was dismissed. The respondent then made an appeal in the Court of the Additional Sessions Judge, Jaipur City. The appellate Court held that on the facts proved by the respondent, the three defaults had been committed by the appellant, and he was entitled to a decree for ejectment. The appellant then challenged this decision by preferring a second appeal before the Rajasthan High Court. This appeal was heard by a learned single judge of the said High Court and was dismissed and the appellant’s request for leave to prefer an appeal under Letters Patent was rejected by the learned Judge.
After this the appellant applied for a special leave to the Supreme Court of India and the main point which the appellant wanted to urge before the Supreme Court was in regard to the construction of section 13 (1) (a) of the Rajasthan Premises (Control of Rent arid Eviction) Act, 1950 (Act XVII of 1950) read with section 13 (4) of the same act.
JUDGEMENT:
The court in its judgement concluded that the material statements made by the appellant in his application for special leave are inaccurate and misleading. The appellant had made a claim that the respondent had claimed eviction in the trial Court on the basis of alleged non-payment of rent from December 2, 1958, and the First Appellate Court and the High Court setup a new case for the landlord by taking into consideration the alleged defaults and had not relied upon the landlord himself. This ground taken by the appellant was presumably taken to support the main argument that the High Court had not correctly interpreted the provisions of section 13 (1) (a) of the Act. The respondent rightly contended that this was a complete misstatement of the true position of the case and in support of his argument he referred to paragraph 3 in the plaint, which specifically refers to the defaults from November 1st 1957 to November 30, 1958 and takes into account the said defaults for the purpose of setting up the respondent’s case that the appellant had committed more than three defaults in the payment of rent of two months each during the period of 18 months. Therefore, the court had no doubt that the unambiguous and categorical statement made in the last ground of the appellant’s petition for special leave is wholly untrue.
The appellant also made another inaccurate statement, and, in this ground, he said that by reason of the payments made by him towards the rent due from him to the respondent he had become a statutory tenant and did not make any default after December 1, 1958. Both these inaccurate statements omit to refer to the material fact that the deposit made in Court was accepted by the respondent without prejudice, and so, the statement in the ground that the appellant admittedly did not make any default after December 1, 1958, is equally untrue.
The court said, “It is of utmost importance that in making material statements and setting forth grounds in applications for special leave, care must be taken not to make any statements which are inaccurate, untrue, or misleading. In dealing with applications for special leave, the Court naturally takes statements of fact and grounds of fact contained in the petitions at their face value and it would be unfair to betray the confidence of the Court by making statements which are untrue and misleading.”
Hence in its judgement the court concluded that in the present case, special leave granted to the appellant ought to be revoked.
“PRIME LEGAL is a full-service law firm that has won a National Award and has more than 20 years of experience in an array of sectors and practice areas. Prime legal fall into a category of best law firm, best lawyer, best family lawyer, best divorce lawyer, best divorce law firm, best criminal lawyer, best criminal law firm, best consumer lawyer, best civil lawyer.”
JUDGEMENT REVIEWED BY TANAV ZACHARIAH.