Case Title: Jyoti Sharma v. Vishnu Goyal & Anr.
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Citation: 2025 INSC 1099
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Date of Judgment: 11 September 2025
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Bench: Justice J.K. Maheshwari & Justice K. Vinod Chandran
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Appeal From: SLP (C) No. 29500 of 2024
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Nature: Civil Appeal – landlord-tenant eviction dispute
Facts
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The dispute concerns a shop rented in 1953 by Ramji Das (landlord, father-in-law of the plaintiff) to Kishan Lal (father of defendants/tenants).
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After Kishan Lal’s death, defendants (sons) continued the grocery business.
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Ramji Das executed a Will dated 12.05.1999, bequeathing the shop to his daughter-in-law (plaintiff Jyoti Sharma).
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Ramji Das died on 07.08.1999. Plaintiff claimed eviction for:
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Default in rent from Jan 2000, and
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Bona fide need (to expand family sweets & savouries business).
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Defendants disputed:
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Ramji Das’s ownership, claiming property originally belonged to his uncle, Sua Lal.
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Validity of the Will (alleging fraud).
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Trial & Appellate History
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Trial Court: Dismissed suit – held Will suspicious, ownership not proved, no valid landlord-tenant relationship after Ramji Das’s death.
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First Appeal (initially): Reversed trial court, decreed eviction.
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High Court (second appeal): On consent, remanded for fresh disposal.
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First Appellate Court (post-remand): Dismissed appeal, upheld trial court.
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High Court (second appeal again): Affirmed dismissal, rejected production of probate order under Order 41 Rule 27 CPC.
Supreme Court’s Findings
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Ownership & Title:
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Sua Lal executed relinquishment deed in 1953 → Ramji Das became owner.
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Defendants, having paid rent to Ramji Das for decades, cannot now dispute his ownership.
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Tenants estopped from denying landlord’s title once tenancy admitted.
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Will of Ramji Das:
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Will probated by order dated 09.02.2018 (Probate Case No.8/2013).
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Probate order gives legal sanctity; High Court erred in ignoring it.
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Trial court’s suspicion (that testator didn’t provide for wife) not valid ground.
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Attornment & Rent:
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Defendants admitted paying rent to plaintiff’s husband after Ramji Das’s death.
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Plaintiff issued registered notice asserting ownership (Exh. P-9 to P-11).
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Hence, tenancy stood validly attorned to plaintiff.
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Bona fide Need:
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Plaintiff’s family already in business next door.
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Sons joined business, plaintiff wished to expand → bona fide requirement proved.
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Concurrent Findings Below:
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Though three courts ruled against plaintiff, their findings were perverse, based on conjecture, and ignoring material evidence.
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Decision
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Supreme Court allowed the appeal.
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Decreed suit for:
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Recovery of arrears of rent from Jan 2000 till delivery of possession.
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Eviction on grounds of rent default & bona fide need.
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Relief to tenants:
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May remain for 6 months, subject to:
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Filing undertaking before trial court within 2 weeks.
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Paying all arrears within 1 month.
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Vacating within 6 months.
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If no undertaking filed → summary eviction permitted.
Ratio Decidendi
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Tenant cannot dispute landlord’s ownership/title
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Where a tenant (or their successors) enters possession under a rent deed executed by the landlord and continues paying rent for decades, they are estopped from disputing the landlord’s title or challenging his ownership (even if they allege that the landlord himself derived title from another person).
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Will probated later confers legal sanctity on landlord’s claim
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Once a Will bequeathing the tenanted premises is probated, it attains legal sanctity, and the landlord’s right to claim eviction through such a Will cannot be brushed aside by courts in an eviction suit.
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Proof of ownership in eviction suits is not akin to proof in a title suit
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In eviction proceedings, strict proof of ownership is not required in the same manner as in a title declaration suit. It is sufficient if the landlord establishes a better title than the tenant and the existence of landlord-tenant relationship.
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Suspicion over Will must be based on valid legal grounds
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Mere conjectures (e.g., that the testator did not provide for his wife in the Will) cannot form the basis to disbelieve a duly executed Will, especially when probated.
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Bona fide requirement established when landlord seeks expansion of existing family business
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Where the landlord (and family members) are already engaged in business in an adjacent shop, and the landlord seeks expansion into the tenanted premises, the requirement qualifies as bona fide need under rent control law.
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Concurrent findings can be interfered with if perverse
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Even where there are concurrent findings of fact by lower courts, the Supreme Court can interfere if such findings are based on conjectures, surmises, or by ignoring material evidence2025 INSC 1099
Page 1 of 10
CA @ SLP (C) No.29500 of 2024
Non-Reportable
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
Civil Appeal No………….of 2025
(@ Special Leave Petition (C) No.29500 of 2024)
Jyoti Sharma
…Appellant
Versus
Vishnu Goyal & Anr.
…Respondents
J U D G E M E N T
K. VINOD CHANDRAN, J.
Leave granted.
2. The successors of the landlord and tenant, which
relationship commenced in the year 1953, are the parties to this
litigation, the former claiming eviction and possession on bona
fide need and the latter, seeking retention on the ground of the
alleged successor to the landlord having no title over the shop.
The suit was dismissed but in first appeal, the judgment of the
trial court was reversed, and the suit was remanded for fresh
consideration with specific findings on certain issues. In the
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CA @ SLP (C) No.29500 of 2024
second appeal before the High Court, the first appellate court
order was set aside, on consent for fresh disposal on all issues.
The first appellate court then dismissed the appeal which
dismissal was affirmed by the High Court in second appeal.
3. We have heard Mr. Puneet Jain, learned Senior Counsel
for the plaintiff/landlord and Mr.N.K. Mody, learned Senior
Counsel for the respondents/tenants.
4. For the sake of convenience, the parties are referred to as
the plaintiff and the defendants.
5. Admittedly, the shop room, which is the bone of
contention was rented out to the father of the defendants by one
Ramji Das, the father-in-law of the plaintiff. The father of the
defendants Kishan Lal was carrying on a grocery business,
which after his death, the defendants, his sons, continued. The
husband of the plaintiff carries on a sweets and savouries shop
in a part of the building adjacent to the shop room and their
family resides on the first floor of the building. The father-inlaw of the plaintiff died on 07.08.1999 before which he executed
a Will dated 12.05.1999, bequeathing the shop room to his
daughter-in-law, the plaintiff. The plaintiff filed the suit for
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CA @ SLP (C) No.29500 of 2024
recovery of rent defaulted, from January 2000, and eviction on
the ground of bona fide need. The bona fide need projected was
of joining her husband’s business, to expand it to the room
rented out. The plaintiff also asserted that the adjacent shop
room in which her husband was carrying on business was
bequeathed by her father-in-law to her children, who have also
joined the business.
6. The defendants disputed the very title of Ramji Das and
assailed the Will as a fraudulent one. It was asserted that Ramji
Das never had title since the premises belonged to one Sua Lal,
the paternal uncle of Ramji Das who died in 1984. The
defendants, however admitted that the rent deed was executed
by Ramji Das and he was receiving rent from the tenants
through his son, the plaintiff’s husband, which, the plaintiff
asserted was continued for a few months after his death too.
7. The trial court found that after the death of the father-inlaw, there was no attornment of tenancy, and the defendants
were never informed of the bequest. The trial court expressed
suspicion over the Will, based on the comparison of the
signatures of the Will with the rent receipt, allegedly issued by
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CA @ SLP (C) No.29500 of 2024
Ramji Das. It was also found that the husband of the plaintiff
received the rent after the death of Ramji Das. On these
grounds, it was held that the plaintiff failed to prove the
ownership of the disputed shop and the landlord-tenant
relationship, disentitling the plaintiff from recovery of rent, and
eviction on grounds of bona fide need. The first appellate court
first remanded certain issues but on remand by the High Court,
affirmed the findings of the trial court which was affirmed by the
High Court in a further second appeal.
8. Before the High Court, the plaintiff produced an order
dated 09.02.2018 of the Additional District Judge, probating the
Will in Probate Case No.8 of 2013. Though, the said document
was sought to be produced under Order 41 Rule 27 of the Code
of Civil Procedure, 19081
, the application was rejected. The
High Court found that there was no cause to entertain an
application for production of an order, which the applicant did
not obtain at any time when the proceedings were pending
before the trial court and the appellate court.
1
for short, ‘the CPC’
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CA @ SLP (C) No.29500 of 2024
9. True, the proceedings for probate was itself initiated in
the year 2015 after the appeal was decided on remand by order
dated 13.10.2009. The order in probate was issued when the
matter was pending before the High Court. It is pertinent, as
seen from the order of the trial court that the deceased Ramji
Das had left behind other legal heirs also, his wife, three
daughters and the wife and children of a deceased son. None
of them had challenged the Will when the matter was pending
before the trial court. One of the grounds taken by the trial
court to suspect the Will was that though it is mentioned in the
Will that the daughters of the testator were married of with their
shares and even the wife and children of the deceased son had
no interest in the property, nothing was kept aside for the wife.
The finding of the trial court that it is not natural that a person
would not keep in mind the interest of his own wife, according
to us, is not a valid ground to suspect the intentions of the
testator or the probity of the bequest made. In any event, when
an order of probate was produced, which is not mandatory, the
claim of the plaintiff through a Will attains a legal sanctity which
could not have been brushed aside by the High Court. It is trite
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CA @ SLP (C) No.29500 of 2024
that in a suit for eviction, the proof of ownership of the tenanted
premises is not to be strictly looked at as in a suit for declaration
of title.
10. In any event, the grounds on which the Will was
suspected by the trial court cannot be upheld. It was admitted
by the defendants that prior to and after the death of Ramji Das,
rent was paid to the husband of the plaintiff. It is the contention
of the defendants that prior to the landlord’s death, his son
collected the rent from them on his behalf and after his death,
they paid the rent accepting his status as a landlord, being the
son of the original landlord. The dispute raised insofar as the
ownership of Ramji Das cannot at all be accepted since Exhibit
P-18, the relinquishment deed issued by Sua Lal as far back as
in 1953, on the strength of which Ramji Das had given the
disputed shop room on rent to the father of the defendants is
clearly established. The tenant having come into possession of
the tenanted premises by a rent deed executed by the earlier
landlord, cannot turn around and challenge his ownership. It is
also an admitted fact that from 1953, the predecessor of the
defendants and the defendants, after their father’s death had
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CA @ SLP (C) No.29500 of 2024
been paying rent to the said Ramji Das. The dispute regarding
the title of Ramji Das could not have been raised by the tenant
who had come into the premises by virtue of a deed executed
by Ramji Das to whom, for more than half a century, the tenants
were also paying rent.
11. Insofar as the attornment of the tenancy, the plaintiff’s
husband mounted the witness box and asserted that he had
been collecting rent after the death of his father, for and on
behalf of his wife, the plaintiff. The defendants also do not have
a case that any rent was paid from January 2000 onwards. In this
context, though set aside by the High Court, we notice the
findings in the judgment dated 11.08.2008 in the initial first
appeal filed, decreeing the suit. It was found that the Will
executed by Ramji Das was not challenged by any other heir
and the relinquishment deed Exhibit P-18 was emphasized.
Further, on the question of attornment, it was found that Exhibit
P-9 registered notice was sent by the plaintiff to the defendants
in their address and Exhibit P-10 and P-11 receipts of the notice
sent were produced. The trial court disbelieved the same only
on the ground that there was no acknowledgement produced.
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CA @ SLP (C) No.29500 of 2024
The first appellate court, had at the first instance held that since
the registered notice sent in the address of the tenant was
proved, the presumption is that the registered notice sent was
received by the addressee. The registered notice sent clearly
indicated the bequest by Will and the assertion of ownership of
the tenanted shop.
12. It was vehemently argued by the learned senior counsel
appearing for the respondent-tenant that since ownership was
not established and there were concurrent findings of three
courts it cannot be interfered with by this Court. We are
conscious that there are three concurrent findings against the
plaintiff, but though set aside, the findings as coming out from
the judgment in the first appeal, at the first instance, brings
forth a divergent opinion, which is also based on the evidence
led at the trial. The setting aside of the said order in first appeal
was only on consent of the parties, for a remand, to enable a
fresh consideration. We hasten to observe that we are not, for a
moment, restoring the order of the first appellate court at the
first instance, which has been set aside by the High Court.
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CA @ SLP (C) No.29500 of 2024
However, having looked at the same, we find it to have dealt
with the issue in the same manner as we have dealt with it.
13. As for the bona fide need, there is no dispute as to the
business carried on; of sweets and savouries, in the adjacent
shop room. There is also no dispute on the sons of the plaintiff
also having joined the business and the plaintiff’s intention to
participate in the business, thus expanding it to the tenanted
premises. The bona fide need hence stands established.
14. On the above reasoning, we find the concurring decisions
of all the three courts to have not considered the material
evidence and entered into findings in a perverse manner based
on mere surmises and conjectures. We set aside the orders
below and decree the suit, directing the recovery of rent
arrears from January 2000 till the handing over of the
possession and order eviction on the grounds of default in
payment of rent as also for the bona fide need. Only considering
the long period of tenancy, we enable the respondents herein
to continue in possession for six months, subject to their filing
an undertaking before the trial court to pay the arrears of rent
within one month and give vacant possession within six months
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CA @ SLP (C) No.29500 of 2024
from today; which undertaking shall be filed within two weeks
from the date of this judgement. If no undertaking is filed the
plaintiff would be entitled to seek summary eviction of the
tenants from the premises.
15. The appeal stands allowed and the suit stands decreed as
above. With the above reservation, all pending applications
are disposed of.
16. Pending application(s), if any, shall stand disposed of.
………….……………………. J.
(J.K. MAHESHWARI)
………….……………………. J.
(K. VINOD CHANDRAN)
New Delhi;
September 11, 2025.
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