Non-payment of rent is the single most litigated ground of eviction under the Haryana Urban (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1973. Yet the statute is unusually merciful: the very provision that allows a landlord to seek ejectment, Section 13(2)(i), carries a proviso that lets a defaulting tenant wipe the slate clean by tendering the arrears, statutory interest and costs within fifteen days of the first hearing. The result is a ground that is easy to invoke but hard to win, because the law is structured to give a willing tenant one clear chance to redeem the default before possession passes to the landlord.
The statutory source: Section 13(2)(i)
Eviction under the Act is governed entirely by Section 13. Section 13(1) opens with the protective rule that "a tenant in possession of a building or a rented land shall not be evicted therefrom except in accordance with the provisions of this section." The grounds then follow in Section 13(2), and non-payment of rent is the first of them. Under Section 13(2)(i), a landlord may apply to the Controller for eviction where the tenant has not paid or tendered the rent due within fifteen days after the expiry of the time fixed in the tenancy agreement, or, where no such time is fixed, by the last day of the month following that for which the rent is payable. This is the only default-based ground, and it must be read together with the related grounds of eviction that the Act lays out in the rest of Section 13(2). The architecture is deliberate: the legislature paired a strict trigger with a generous escape hatch.
The proviso: a fifteen-day window to cure the default
The heart of the section is its first proviso. It provides that if the tenant, on the first hearing of the application for ejectment after due service, pays or tenders the arrears of rent and interest at eight per centum per annum on such arrears, together with such costs of the application as may be assessed by the Controller, within a period of fifteen days, the tenant shall be deemed to have duly paid or tendered the rent within the time. In plain terms, a tenant who clears the entire dues, interest and costs within fifteen days of the first hearing cannot be evicted on this ground. This is what distinguishes default-eviction litigation in Haryana from a simple debt suit: the landlord's real objective, recovery of arrears, is usually satisfied, and the eviction petition is then liable to be dismissed. The proviso converts the ground from a punitive one into a coercive recovery mechanism.
The three-year cap on arrears
The section also limits how far back a landlord may reach. The proviso bars the landlord from claiming, and the Controller from assessing for the purpose of the cure, arrears of rent for a period exceeding three years immediately preceding the date of the application. This is a substantive ceiling, not merely a limitation defence: even if rent has been unpaid for longer, the tenant's obligation to deposit under the cure proviso is confined to three years' arrears plus interest and costs. The cap protects tenants from being saddled with stale demands while still allowing the landlord a meaningful recovery for the recent period of default. It is one of several places where the 1973 Act tilts the balance toward continuity of tenancy over forfeiture.
When the rent is disputed: provisional assessment
The proviso assumes the parties agree on what is due. They frequently do not, the tenant disputing the rate of rent or claiming part-payment. The Supreme Court resolved this in Rakesh Wadhawan v. Jagdamba Industrial Corporation, (2002) 5 SCC 440 (AIR 2002 SC 2004). Although that case arose under the cognate East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949, its reasoning on the identically worded proviso governs the Haryana Act. The Court held that where the tenant disputes the quantum, the Controller must make a provisional assessment of the arrears, interest and costs and afford the tenant an opportunity to deposit that tentative amount; this interim order "shall have to give way to a final order" after full inquiry. If the final adjudication shows the tenant underpaid, the Controller must grant reasonable further time to pay the deficit before ordering eviction, and if the tenant overpaid, a refund follows. The decision prevents a landlord from inflating the demand to make the cure impossible, and equally prevents a tenant from defeating recovery by under-tendering on a self-serving view of the rent. The Court located the words "assessed by the Controller" as governing the entire preceding part of the proviso, so that arrears and interest, and not merely costs, fall within the Controller's assessment power. The provisional figure is therefore a working number that crystallises only at the end of the inquiry, and a tenant who honestly complies with the interim order is not treated as a defaulter for the gap between the provisional and final sums.
What "first hearing" means in Haryana
The trigger for the fifteen-day clock is the "first hearing," and Haryana courts read this with care. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has clarified that where a provisional assessment is made, the fifteen-day window runs from the date of that assessment by the Rent Controller, not from some later adjourned date, because that is the hearing at which the tenant is told precisely what to pay. The tenant must therefore be vigilant: appearance plus a vague offer to pay is not enough; an actual tender or deposit of the assessed sum within the window is required. This is also where the Haryana scheme diverges from the East Punjab Act, under which the proviso historically required tendering on the "first date of hearing" itself, the Haryana legislature having expressly built in a defined fifteen-day grace period after the hearing.
No genuine dispute, no second chance
The provisional-assessment machinery is not an automatic entitlement; it is triggered only by a genuine dispute about quantum. Where the landlord-tenant relationship and the rate of rent are admitted, the Controller may proceed on the admitted rate and the tenant gets no extra opportunity beyond the statutory cure. In Bikram Singh v. Mohinder Pal, 2025 SCC OnLine P&H 7882, the High Court upheld an eviction computed on the admitted rate of rent, declining to order a fresh provisional assessment once the relationship was proved and arrears established, and rejecting reliance on an escalation clause in an unregistered rent document. The lesson for tenants is that manufacturing a sham dispute will not buy time; the cure proviso, not endless assessment litigation, is the real protection.
Tender, deposit and the role of Section 11
The section speaks of paying "or tendering" rent, and a tenant who has genuinely tried to pay should not be treated as a defaulter merely because the landlord refused to accept. The Act provides a safety valve: where a landlord refuses to receive rent or to grant a receipt, the tenant may apply to the Controller under Section 11 for leave to deposit the rent in the Controller's office, and a deposit so received is deemed to be payment to the landlord. A tenant who regularly deposits rent under Section 11 in the face of a recalcitrant landlord is on strong ground to resist a Section 13(2)(i) petition, because there is no unpaid or untendered rent in the eye of the law. Contravention of Section 11 by a landlord is itself penal. The deposit route is the disciplined tenant's best insurance against a contrived default petition. A genuine tender, even if not followed by a Section 11 deposit, may also negate default where it is proved that the rent was offered unconditionally and refused; but oral assertions of an offer rarely persuade, and the deposit mechanism converts a contestable fact into a documented one. Tenants should also note that depositing rent does not by itself create or extend a tenancy, nor does it cure other grounds of eviction; it answers only the charge of non-payment.
Interest at eight per cent and costs
The cure is not satisfied by depositing bare arrears. The proviso requires the tenant to add interest at eight per centum per annum on the arrears and the costs of the application as assessed by the Controller. A tender that omits interest or costs is incomplete and does not attract the protection, so a careful tenant computes all three heads or, where there is uncertainty, asks the Controller to quantify them and deposits the assessed figure. Conversely, a landlord cannot defeat the cure by demanding amounts outside these heads, such as future rent not yet due or sums beyond the three-year cap. The statutory interest rate is fixed and modest, reflecting that the proviso is meant to facilitate redemption rather than to penalise. In practice the safest course for a tenant who is uncertain of the exact figure is to appear on the first hearing, invite the Controller to assess the arrears, interest and costs, and then deposit the assessed amount within the fifteen-day window; a tenant who instead guesses low and tenders a short amount risks losing the protection altogether. The interest runs on the arrears alone, not on costs, and is computed up to the date of tender, so a tenant who delays the deposit within the window must account for the additional interest that accrues in the interim.
Pleading and proof in a default petition
The landlord's petition must plead the period of default, the rate of rent and the amount due; the existence of the landlord-tenant relationship and the agreed or admitted rent are foundational facts. Once arrears within the three-year window are shown and the tenant fails to cure within the fifteen-day window, eviction follows almost as a matter of course, because the ground is essentially objective. The tenant's defences are correspondingly narrow: that nothing is in arrears, that the rate claimed is wrong (inviting provisional assessment), that valid tenders or Section 11 deposits were made, or that the relationship itself is denied. Denial of the landlord's title, without more, is generally no answer to a properly proved default. The understanding of how rent is fixed in the first place, covered under fair rent determination, often feeds directly into the quantum dispute at this stage, because a tenant who contends that only the fair rent and not a higher contractual figure is payable is in substance disputing the quantum and inviting a provisional assessment. The Controller must also keep distinct two questions that tenants frequently conflate: whether rent is in arrears at all, and whether the rate claimed is correct. A bald plea that "all rent stands paid" without particulars of dates and amounts is not a genuine dispute and will not trigger the assessment machinery; the tenant must put the alleged payments to proof. Where the tenant neither pleads payment with particulars nor offers to deposit the admitted rent, the Controller is entitled to proceed on the landlord's case.
Appeal, revision and the limits of interference
An order of eviction is not the end of the road. The Act provides for an appeal to the appellate authority and a revision to the High Court. In revision, however, the High Court does not reappreciate evidence at large; it interferes with concurrent findings on default and rate of rent only where the reasoning is perverse or there is a jurisdictional error, a principle reaffirmed in Bikram Singh v. Mohinder Pal (2025). A tenant who has lost on the facts before the Controller and the appellate authority should not expect the revisional court to reopen the arithmetic of arrears. The practical consequence is that the contest over default is usually won or lost at the Controller's stage, which is precisely why the fifteen-day cure window is so valuable and so easily forfeited.
Practical takeaways for landlords and tenants
For landlords, Section 13(2)(i) is most useful as a lever to recover arrears; an eviction on this ground alone is hard to secure against a tenant who is willing and able to cure. For tenants, the rules are simple but unforgiving: pay rent within the contractual or statutory time; if the landlord refuses, deposit under Section 11; and if a petition is filed, tender the full arrears, eight-per-cent interest and assessed costs within fifteen days of the first hearing, asking for a provisional assessment if the quantum is genuinely disputed. This ground sits within the broader eviction framework introduced in the introduction to the Act and the wider scheme set out on the Haryana Urban Rent Control Act hub. Mastery of the cure proviso, more than any case-law nuance, is what decides these disputes.
Frequently asked questions
Which provision allows eviction for non-payment of rent in Haryana?
Section 13(2)(i) of the Haryana Urban (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1973. It is the first ground listed in Section 13(2), and Section 13(1) makes clear that no tenant may be evicted except in accordance with Section 13.
Can a tenant avoid eviction after defaulting on rent?
Yes. The proviso to Section 13(2)(i) lets the tenant escape eviction by paying or tendering the arrears, interest at eight per cent per annum and the assessed costs within fifteen days of the first hearing. A complete and timely tender defeats the petition.
What happens if the tenant disputes the amount of rent due?
The Controller makes a provisional assessment and gives the tenant a chance to deposit that tentative sum, as held in Rakesh Wadhawan v. Jagdamba Industrial Corporation, (2002) 5 SCC 440. If the final figure differs, the tenant gets reasonable time to pay any deficit, or a refund of any excess.
How far back can a landlord claim arrears?
The proviso caps the claim at arrears for a period not exceeding three years immediately preceding the date of the application. Older arrears cannot be loaded into the cure amount, though they may be recovered separately as a debt.
What can a tenant do if the landlord refuses to accept rent?
The tenant may apply under Section 11 for leave to deposit the rent with the Controller; such a deposit is deemed payment to the landlord. A tenant who regularly deposits in this way is not in default for the purposes of Section 13(2)(i).
Will the High Court reopen the facts in revision?
Generally no. In revision the High Court interferes with concurrent findings on default and rate of rent only for perversity or jurisdictional error, as reaffirmed in Bikram Singh v. Mohinder Pal, 2025 SCC OnLine P&H 7882. The contest is usually decided before the Controller.