‘One cannot understand this’: Why SC set aside order in landlord vs tenant case | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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‘One cannot understand this’: Why SC set aside order in landlord vs tenant case

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By
Apr 18, 2017 07:59 PM IST

A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court has set aside the convoluted judgment authored by a Himachal Pradesh high court judge in a landlord vs tenant case.

“(The)...tenant in the demised premises stands aggrieved by the pronouncement made by the learned Executing Court upon his objections constituted therebefore...wherewithin the apposite unfoldments qua his resistance to the execution of the decree stood discountenanced by the learned Executing Court”.

A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court has set aside the convoluted judgment authored by a Himachal Pradesh high court judge in a landlord vs tenant case.(HT Photo)
A two-judge bench of the Supreme Court has set aside the convoluted judgment authored by a Himachal Pradesh high court judge in a landlord vs tenant case.(HT Photo)

Does not make any sense? Well, you are not alone. Even the Supreme Court thinks so. Why, even the contesting lawyers agreed that this is English as bad it can get.

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Not surprisingly, a two-judge bench of the top court has set aside the convoluted judgment authored by a Himachal Pradesh high court judge in a landlord vs tenant case.

“We will have to set it aside because one cannot understand this,” a bench of justices MB Lokur and Deepak Gupta said on Friday. Justice Lokur, however, did not record it in the written order sending the judgment back to the HC judge for re-drafting.

The landlord had approached the top court after the HC barred him from evicting his tenant.

The HC verdict is a case study of exactly how English should not be written.

Sample this:

“However, the learned counsel...cannot derive the fullest succour from the aforesaid acquiesence... given its sinew suffering partial dissipation from an imminent display occurring in the impunged pronouncement hereat wherewithin unravelments are held qua the rendition recorded by the learned Rent Controller...”

Aishwarya Bhati, who represented the tenant, told the court in a lighter vein that she would have to hire an English professor to make out what the judge meant. Advocate EC Agrawala, representing the landlord, too complained about the “convoluted” judgment.

Agrawala informed the court that another SC bench had set aside the same HC judge’s order in a different case on the ground that the language used was too confusing.

“We normally prepare an appeal in two days’ time. However, in this case I took more than a week because the facts of the case were unclear. I had to call for the trial court order to understand the entire matter,” he later told HT.

Speaking to HT, Bhati too described it as a “peculiar case where the counsels for both the parties agreed”.

The dispute dates back to November 1999 when the landlord filed an eviction petition against his tenant for alleged non-payment of rent.

After a long struggle, the landlord got a warrant of possession in December 2011. However, the warrant could only be partly executed and the tenant was evicted from the portion of the property where he ran his shop. Since, the HC put a stay on the trial court order, the tenant retained possession of the residential premises.

In December, 2016 the HC allowed the tenant’s case and set aside his eviction on the ground that the landlord had received the rent amount.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    Bhadra is a legal correspondent and reports Supreme Court proceedings, besides writing on legal issues. A law graduate, Bhadra has extensively covered trial of high-profile criminal cases. She has had a short stint as a crime reporter too.

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