Tenant's Right to Receive Receipt

In rent litigation the decisive document is rarely the lease - it is the humble receipt the landlord signs each month. The Chhattisgarh Rent Control Act, 2011 elevates that slip from a courtesy to an enforceable statutory entitlement: the tenant's right to receive a receipt against every payment is written into Schedule 1, the landlord's matching obligation into Schedule 3, and a wilful denial of it is made a punishable offence under Section 12. This article maps the provision, the duty it creates, the remedy for its breach, and the way courts treat receipts as proof of payment and of the very tenancy itself.

Where the right is located in the Act

The Chhattisgarh Rent Control Act, 2011 does not scatter landlord and tenant entitlements through dozens of operative sections. Instead it adopts a schedule-driven design: Section 12 is the pivot, and the substantive content sits in four Schedules. Section 12(1) provides that "every tenant shall have rights according to Schedule 1" and directs the Tribunal and the Rent Controller to "act at all times to secure to the tenant these rights." Section 12(3) mirrors this for the landlord's side, providing that "every landlord shall have obligations according to Schedule 3," which the authorities must "enforce upon the landlord."

The tenant's right to receive a receipt is one of the entitlements catalogued in Schedule 1 - the right to receive a receipt against payments made to the landlord, whether by way of security deposit, rent or any other payment. The corresponding entry in Schedule 3 casts the obligation on the landlord to give a proper receipt to the tenant against all payments received. The two provisions are deliberately symmetrical: the tenant's right and the landlord's duty are the same fact viewed from opposite sides of the tenancy. For the structural backbone of this scheme, see our note on the Act's introduction.

What payments the receipt must cover

The drafting is deliberately wide. The Schedule 1 entitlement is not confined to rent in the strict sense; it extends to a security deposit, to rent, and to "any other payment" the tenant makes to the landlord. This breadth matters in practice. Tenancies under the Act frequently involve an advance security deposit refundable on termination, periodic rent, and ad hoc sums for permitted increases, maintenance contributions or utility charges. Each such transfer attracts the receipt obligation; a landlord cannot issue a receipt for the monthly rent while staying silent on the lump-sum deposit that is hardest to recover later.

The receipt requirement therefore tracks the entire money trail of the tenancy. Where the rent itself is in issue, the receipt is the cleanest contemporaneous record of the agreed figure - relevant both to the rent "as may be agreed upon between the landlord and the tenant" under Section 5(1) and to any later dispute over permitted increases in rent or the fixation and revision of standard rent. A correctly worded receipt that recites the period, the amount and the head of payment can pre-empt much of that litigation.

What makes a receipt a 'proper' receipt

Schedule 3 obliges the landlord to give a "proper" receipt - not merely an acknowledgment scribbled without particulars. While the Act does not prescribe a statutory form, the word "proper" carries content. By analogy with the long-settled practice under comparable rent statutes, a proper receipt identifies the payer and the accommodation, states the amount in figures and words, specifies the period or head to which the payment relates (rent for a named month, security deposit, arrears, or other charges), records the date and mode of payment, and bears the signature of the landlord or his authorised agent.

The reference point most familiar to courts is Section 26 of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958, which entitles every tenant who pays rent to obtain "forthwith" a written receipt for the amount, signed by the landlord or his authorised agent, with the receipt to be issued in a prescribed form. The Chhattisgarh scheme reaches the same destination through Schedule 3: the receipt must be contemporaneous, written, signed and accurate. A receipt that misstates the period, omits the head of payment, or is issued months in arrears is not a "proper" receipt and does not discharge the landlord's obligation.

Denial of the right is an offence

The Act gives the receipt right teeth that ordinary tenancy law lacks. Section 12 does not leave breach to a civil claim alone; it criminalises the wilful defeat of a scheduled right. The penalty sub-sections of Section 12 provide that a wilful act or attempt by the landlord to undermine or deny the tenant the rights available under Schedule 1 constitutes an offence under the Act, punishable with a fine not exceeding Rs. 5,000 or simple imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months or both. The same penal structure applies, in mirror image, to a tenant who defeats the landlord's scheduled rights.

Two features of this offence deserve emphasis. First, the mental element: the section punishes a "wilful" denial, so an isolated administrative lapse - a receipt delayed by a few days through oversight - is unlikely to attract criminal liability, whereas a settled refusal to issue receipts despite demand is squarely within it. Second, the criminal sanction does not displace the tenant's other remedies; it sits alongside the Tribunal's and Rent Controller's statutory mandate under Section 12 to "secure" the Schedule 1 rights and "enforce" the Schedule 3 obligations.

The tenant's remedy before the Rent Controller

Because Section 12 directs the Rent Controller and the Tribunal to secure Schedule 1 rights and enforce Schedule 3 obligations, a tenant denied a receipt is not confined to filing a criminal complaint. The tenant may approach the Rent Controller for a direction compelling the landlord to issue the proper receipt against the payments already made, and the authority is bound by the language of Section 12 to act to that end.

The Chhattisgarh model is here more enabling than older statutes that confined the tenant to a damages remedy. Under Section 26 of the Delhi Rent Control Act, 1958, a tenant whose landlord refuses or neglects to deliver a receipt may apply to the Controller within two months and recover, by way of damages, a sum not exceeding double the rent paid, together with costs, plus a certificate of payment. The Chhattisgarh Act's combination of a positive enforcement duty on the authorities and a criminal sanction for wilful denial is designed to achieve the same protective object - ensuring the tenant is never left without documentary proof of what was paid.

Receipts as proof that rent was paid

The practical value of the right is evidentiary. In any dispute about arrears, the receipt is the tenant's primary defence. This matters acutely under the Act because a tenant who fails on three or more occasions within twelve months to pay rent and dues on the due date becomes a "habitual defaulter," exposing the tenancy to termination - a ground examined in our note on the grounds of eviction. A tenant who holds a complete run of monthly receipts can rebut an allegation of default outright; a tenant denied receipts is left vulnerable to a contrived eviction petition.

The Supreme Court has, however, been careful about how receipts prove their contents. In Narbada Devi Gupta v. Birendra Kumar Jaiswal, (2003) 8 SCC 745, the Court held that "mere production and marking of a document as exhibit by the court cannot be held to be due proof of its contents" - execution must be proved by admissible evidence, unless the document is admitted by the opposite party, in which case it may be read as an admitted document without further proof. The Court added that where a party's signature appears on the document, the burden lies on that party to explain the circumstances of the signature. A tenant relying on receipts must therefore be ready to prove them, but a landlord who has signed cannot lightly disown his own acknowledgment.

Receipts as proof of the tenancy itself

A receipt does more than record payment; it can establish the very existence of the landlord-tenant relationship. This is decisive when a landlord denies that the occupant is a tenant at all, or when the tenancy is oral. The Supreme Court addressed precisely this in H.S. Puttashankara v. Yashodamma, 2025 INSC 1087, arising under the Karnataka Rent Act, 1999. The Court held that where the jural relationship between the parties is disputed, the court should look to the lease agreement or, in its absence, to "receipts acknowledging payment of rent signed by the landlord as prima facie proof of such relationship."

Crucially, the Court added that once the initial burden is discharged by production of rent receipts signed by the landlord, the Rent Controller is justified in proceeding to decide the matter, without insisting on proof of the landlord's title - provided the genuineness of the receipts is not seriously impugned. If the receipts' authenticity is genuinely in question, or the relationship is denied on an oral tenancy, the parties may be relegated to a civil court. The principle reinforces why the Schedule 1 right matters: a tenant armed with signed receipts can establish his status under the Act and invoke its protections, including the definitional and protective provisions discussed in our notes on definitions.

Interaction with the duty to pay rent

The receipt right does not stand alone; it is the counterpart of the tenant's own obligation to pay. Section 5(2) provides that, unless otherwise agreed, every tenant shall pay the rent by the fifteenth day of the month next following the month for which it is payable, while Section 5(1) leaves the quantum of rent to agreement between the parties, subject to the Act. Schedule 4 places the corresponding obligation to pay rent and dues squarely on the tenant.

The receipt is the hinge between these reciprocal duties. When the tenant tenders rent within the Section 5(2) window, the landlord's Schedule 3 duty to issue a proper receipt is triggered, and the receipt fixes both the fact and the date of payment - which is exactly the fact that determines whether the tenant has slipped into "habitual defaulter" territory. A landlord who refuses receipts cannot later be heard to manufacture a default he himself made unprovable; the statutory scheme, read with Section 12, prevents the obligation to issue receipts from becoming a trap for the paying tenant.

Receipts for security deposit and refund

The express inclusion of "security deposit" within the Schedule 1 right is significant because the deposit is usually the single largest sum the tenant parts with, and the one most contested at the end of the tenancy. On termination, the landlord is obliged to refund the security deposit; the tenant's leverage to enforce that refund depends almost entirely on being able to prove how much was deposited and when. A landlord who issued a proper receipt for the deposit at the outset cannot credibly dispute the figure years later.

The receipt for the deposit therefore performs a protective function distinct from the monthly rent receipt. It anchors the refund claim, and where the deposit was adjusted against rent or damages, the running account is reconstructed from the deposit receipt read with the rent receipts. Tenants in accommodation governed by the Act - and the question of which premises are governed is itself answered in our note on application, areas covered and exemptions - should insist on a written deposit receipt at the time of handing over possession, not afterwards.

Practical and examination takeaways

For judiciary and CLAT-PG candidates, the provision rewards precise recall of the schedule architecture rather than a single section number. The examinable points are: the right to receive a receipt is a Schedule 1 tenant right; the matching duty to give a "proper" receipt is a Schedule 3 landlord obligation; both are anchored to and enforced through Section 12; the receipt covers security deposit, rent and "any other payment"; and a wilful denial is an offence punishable with a fine up to Rs. 5,000 or simple imprisonment up to three months or both.

On the case law, remember two propositions that travel across all rent statutes: under H.S. Puttashankara v. Yashodamma (2025 INSC 1087), signed rent receipts are prima facie proof of the landlord-tenant relationship and shift the burden once produced; and under Narbada Devi Gupta v. Birendra Kumar Jaiswal ((2003) 8 SCC 745), a receipt is not proved merely by being exhibited - its execution must be proved unless admitted, though a signatory who disowns his signature bears the onus of explanation. Together they show why the seemingly minor receipt right is, in litigation, frequently outcome-determinative. For the broader contractual setting, return to the Act's notes hub.