Mehar Singh, J.

1. The landlord, Pritam Kumari, made an application under section 13 of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949 (East Punjab Act No. 3 of 1949), for eviction of the tenant, Krishan Lal Seth, from her house rented to him on the grounds (1) of non-payment of arrears of rent, (2) of the tenant having himself purchased residential property in the very Model Town of Sonepat where the house in dispute is situate, and (3) of requirement of the house for her own use and residence.

2. The first two grounds are no longer material. The tenant paid the arrears according to law and the authorities below have found that the second ground is not a ground for eviction under the Act. On the third ground the Rent Controller threw out the application of the landlord on the simple ground that she has not in her application pleaded that on the date of the application she was not occupying another residential building in the urban area concerned and she had not vacated such a building without sufficient cause after the commencement of the Act, in the said urban area. On appeal the appellate authority has characterised the order of the Rent Controller as perverse and illogical saying that the application of the landlord could not be thrown out on the technical ground on which it has been dismissed in so far as the third ground is concerned because for such omission her application could not possibly be dismissed. The appellate authority has further pointed out that the parties were not at issue on the point and this thus could not be the basis of the dismissal of the application of the landlord. It has set aside the order of the Rent Controller and remanded the case for retrial on the question whether the landlord needs the premises for her own occupation The order of the appellate authority is of November 4, 1960. This is a revision application against that order by the tenant.

3. The learned counsel for the tenant has urged two arguments in this application. The first argument is that there is no power of remand with the appellate authority under the Act and on this ground the order of the appellate authority cannot be maintained. In this respect reference is made to section 15 of the Act. Sub-section (3) of that section reads:

“The appellate authority shall decide the appeal after sending for the records of the case from the Controller and after giving the parties an opportunity of being heard and, if necessary, after making such further inquiry as it thinks fit either personally or through the Controller.”

4. The learned counsel for the applicant very correctly points out that when the appellate authority is somehow or other dissatisfied with the trial of an application for eviction, it can make a further enquiry as it thinks fit either personally or through the Controller, but its power being such, it is obvious that it has no power to remand the application for redecision by the Rent Controller. On plain reading of the sub-section the argument is unanswerable and it is obvious that the appellate authority must proceed according to this sub-section and it has no power to set aside an order of the Rent Controller and remand such an application to him for retrial and redecision. Similar view has been taken by Grover, J., in Civil Revision No. 641 of 1957, decided on April 29, 1958. So the order of the appellate authority cannot be maintained.

5. The second argument of the learned counsel for the applicant is the one that prevailed with the Rent Controller and that argument is that in the application under section 13 of the Act for eviction on the ground of requirement of the residential building for personal occupation the applicant must further allege according to section 13(3)(a)(i)(b) and (c) that he is not occupying another residential building in the urban area concerned; and he has not vacated such a building without sufficient cause after the commencement of the Act, in the said urban area. In this respect the learned counsel refers to the decision of Bishan Narain, J., in Civil Revision No. 372 of 1956, decided on April 28, 1958, and Basant Ram-Ralla Ram v. Gurcharan Singh and others (1), but in the first case the learned Judge did not take the view as has been done by the Rent Controller in this case and as has been urged by the learned counsel for the applicant, and the second case of facts has really no bearing on the present case. In the first case the learned Judge merely settled issues in regard to the matters referred to in paras (b) and (c) of sub-clause (i) of clause (a) of sub-section (3) of section 13 and then remanded the case to the Rent Controller to take evidence on the new issues and decide the case according to law. It is obvious that in that case the matters referred to in those paras were not pleaded, but even so the learned Judge did not dismiss the application of the landlord. No such question was involved in the second case, but the learned counsel has drawn our attention to the observation of the learned Judges that “the scope of enquiry by the judicial and quasi-judicial tribunals is normally confined to the disputes set out by the contesting parties in their respective pleadings; in other words the rights and liabilities of the parties as they exist on the date of the initiation of the proceedings alone fall within the scope of the investigation of which the tribunal is seized, and it is generally incompetent for a tribunal to adjudicate upon any controversial matter which does not find place in the pleadings of the parties”. As a general statement of law this is unexceptional. However, the ground for eviction under section 13(3)(a)(i) from a residential building is the requirement by the landlord of the building for his own occupation and the sub-clause adds two statutory conditions to this ground before it can be successfully urged to obtain eviction. Such statutory conditions obviously must be established by the landlord, but as the conditions are provided by the statute it is not necessary to repeat them in the pleadings. The object of requiring the parties to be confined to their pleadings is to avoid surprise to the opposite party, and in regard to a prayer for eviction on the ground of requirement of residential building by a landlord for his own occupation, there can possibly be no surprise if paras (b) and (c) of sub-clause (i) of clause (a) of section 13(3) are not repeated in the application, for such conditions are provided by the statute and are available for the knowledge of the tenant from the perusal of the statute. Thus it was not necessary for the landlord to restate in the application those statutory conditions and for her omission to refer to those conditions her application could not possibly be dismissed. There could not be any ground for surprise to the tenant and there is no justification for dismissal of the application for the mere omission to reproduce the statutory conditions in the application. This argument is without substance and is discarded.

6. In consequence this application is accepted and the appellate order of the appellate authority is set aside with the direction that it will recall the appeal of the landlord to its file and proceed with it according to section 15 of the Act, and, if it feels necessity for further enquiry, according to sub-section (3) of that section, and then dispose of the appeal on merits. In the circumstances of this application, there is no order as to costs. The parties are, through their counsel, directed to appear before the appellate authority on October 4, 1961.