Court gets Rana Gurjit’s son to vacate rented house
Petitioner, a retired brigadier, had moved court claiming the minister’s son was not vacating Jalandhar house he has been living in for 15 years despite notices
JALANDHAR: Days after finding himself in a sand storm, power and irrigation minister Rana Gurjit Singh faced another embarrassment on Wednesday when a court official was sent to get his son Rana Inder Partap Singh and family evicted from a house they had been renting in the posh Defence Colony for the last 15 years.
The civil judge, senior division, Jalandhar, on Wednesday officially gave the possession of the Defence Colony house to its owner, a retired army officer, who had complained that Rana Inder was not vacating the house. Interestingly, Rana Gurjeet also used to work from this house when he was a member of Parliament. He had also addressed press conferences here.
PETITIONER MOVED COURT IN 2015
Brig Ranjit Singh Ghuman (retired), a resident of Panchkula, had filed a case in the court on August 28, 2015, claiming ownership of the house where Rana Inder had been living as a tenant for the last 15 years. On March 10 this year, the court of Aashish Abrol, rent controller, Jalandhar, had directed Rana Inder to vacate the Defence Colony house within two months.
On June 6, the court asked Ghuman to take possession of the property from Rana Inder. The order read, “You are authorised to remove any person bound by decree who may refuse to vacate the same.”
Ghuman had complained that the house was leased out to Rana on a monthly rent of Rs 45,000. On July 20, 2015, he issued him a legal notice, asking him to vacate the house. The complainant said he issued this notice to Rana Inder, for he was to retire from service on September 30, 2015, and wanted to live in his own house. However, Rana Inder did not respond to the notice. Later, Ghuman moved the court seeking possession of the house.
DEFENCE ARGUED PETITIONER NOT BONA FIDE LANDLORD
Rana Inder’s advocate Gurmohan Singh told the court that the petitioner was not a bona fide landlord and had not submitted any relevant certificate of retirement from service indicating the date of retirement. He said the respondent was a tenant in a portion of the house for more than last 15 years, and his rent stood paid up to date.
After hearing the arguments of both the sides, the court ruled, “Simply the fact that the rent agreement has not been registered as per the dictate of Section 4 of The Punjab Rent Act, 1995, the status of tenant still remains that of the tenant. The tenant cannot claim to have become immortal and owner in the absence of registration of rent agreement.”
When contacted, Rana Inder said, “I vacated the house and shifted to my Kapurthala residence last month itself.”