A receipt is a tenant's only durable defence against a manufactured charge of non-payment. Under the Haryana Urban (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1973, the right to a receipt is not framed as an isolated penal duty on the landlord; it is woven into Section 6A, which lets a tenant deposit rent with the Controller the moment a landlord refuses to receive, or grant a receipt for, the rent tendered. The deposit is then deemed payment to the landlord, neutralising the very default the landlord hoped to engineer. This note explains the statutory mechanism, the strict proof of tender it demands, and the case law that governs whether a deposit actually saves a tenant from eviction.
Why the receipt is the tenant's keystone defence
Rent-control litigation in Haryana turns overwhelmingly on a single question: did the tenant pay? Under Section 13(2)(i), the first and commonest ground of eviction is that the tenant "has not paid or tendered the rent due" within fifteen days after the time fixed in the tenancy or, absent agreement, by the last day of the month following that for which rent is payable. In that contest the burden of showing payment falls in practice on the tenant, and oral assertions of cash handed over rarely survive cross-examination. A written receipt, or a Controller's record of deposit, converts a swearing match into documentary proof.
The Act therefore does not leave the receipt to private bargaining alone. It supplies a public, statutory route to manufacture proof when the landlord turns obstructive. That route is Section 6A, inserted by Haryana Act 16 of 1978, and it is the operative source of the so-called "tenant's right to receipt" in this State. Understanding it requires first locating who owes the receipt, and what the Act does — and does not — say about receipts as such.
Who must receive rent and grant the receipt
The duty to receive rent and acknowledge it attaches to the "landlord". Under Section 2(c), a landlord is "any person for the time being entitled to receive rent" in respect of a building or rented land, whether on his own account or for another, and includes a trustee, guardian, receiver, executor or administrator, a tenant who lawfully sublets, and every person deriving title under a landlord. The phrase "entitled to receive rent" is significant: the person to whom a valid tender must be made, and from whom a receipt is owed, is whoever currently holds that entitlement, not necessarily the original lessor.
Correspondingly, Section 2(h) defines a tenant as any person by or on whose account rent is payable, including a statutory tenant continuing after termination of the contractual tenancy and the specified heirs ordinarily residing with a deceased tenant. The right asserted in Section 6A is thus a tenant's right, exercisable by the very class of persons against whom eviction may be sought for non-payment.
What the Act actually says about receipts
A careful reading of the statute is essential here, because the popular gloss is frequently wrong. The Haryana Act contains no free-standing section creating a penal duty to issue a rent receipt within a fixed period on pain of damages of twice the rent — a provision that exists in some other tenancy statutes but not in this one. The Haryana scheme instead embeds the receipt obligation inside the deposit machinery of Section 6A.
Section 6 itself is concerned with a different mischief: once the Controller has fixed fair rent under Section 4, the landlord "shall not claim or receive any premium or other like sum in addition to fair rent or any rent in excess of such fair rent", though he may stipulate for and receive in advance an amount not exceeding one month's rent; any agreement to the contrary is null and void. The receipt right proper lives in Section 6A, to which we now turn.
Section 6A: the deposit triggered by refusal of a receipt
Section 6A(1) provides that, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any other law, "if a landlord refuses to receive, or grant a receipt for, any rent payable in respect of the building or rented land when tendered to him by a tenant, the tenant may apply to the Controller for leave to deposit the rent in his office". The Controller "shall receive the deposit" if, after examining the applicant, he is satisfied that there is sufficient ground for the application and the applicant pays any fee chargeable for the notice.
Two distinct refusals trigger the provision: refusal to receive the rent, and refusal to grant a receipt for rent tendered. The second limb is the heart of the receipt right. A landlord who pockets the cash but withholds acknowledgment is doing precisely what Section 6A guards against, and the tenant need not tolerate it; he may instead route payment through the Controller and obtain an official record. The provision thus converts the landlord's stonewalling into the tenant's documentary shield.
Deposit deemed payment — and the Controller's duties
The legal force of the section comes from sub-section (2): "When a deposit has been received under sub-section (1), it shall be deemed to be a payment made by the tenant to his landlord in respect of the rent due." This deeming provision is decisive. A valid Section 6A deposit is not a neutral parking of money; it is, in the eye of the law, payment to the landlord himself. A landlord who later pleads non-payment under Section 13 confronts a statutory fiction that the rent was paid to him on the date of deposit.
Sub-section (3) completes the loop: on receiving the deposit the Controller "shall give notice of the receipt thereof to the landlord and shall pay the amount thereof to him". The landlord therefore loses nothing of the rent — he is notified and paid — but forfeits the tactical advantage of a fabricated default. The notice also fixes the landlord with knowledge, defeating any later claim of ignorance of the tender.
The strict requirement: prove a genuine tender and refusal
The right is conditional, not automatic. Section 6A opens with "if a landlord refuses to receive, or grant a receipt"; the refusal is a jurisdictional fact the tenant must establish. The Controller is to "receive the deposit" only after "examining the applicant" and being satisfied of "sufficient ground". A tenant who simply walks in and deposits money, without ever tendering rent to the landlord or proving a refusal, has not earned the protection of the deeming clause.
This is the settled jurisprudence on deposit-as-tender across the Punjab and Haryana rent regimes. In Shri Vidya Prachar Trust v. Pandit Basant Ram, AIR 1969 SC 1273, the Supreme Court held that a deposit of rent made under Section 31 of the Punjab Relief of Indebtedness Act did not save the tenant from the consequences of default under the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, 1949, because that machinery operated between debtor and creditor and was not a tender of rent to the landlord in the sense the Rent Act required. The lesson carries directly into Section 6A: only a deposit rooted in a real tender and a real refusal counts as payment.
Mangat Rai and the purposive reading of tender
The counter-balance to that strictness is that genuine compliance must not be defeated by technicality. In Mangat Rai v. Kidar Nath, AIR 1980 SC 1709, (1980) 4 SCC 276, the Supreme Court, construing the proviso to Section 13(2)(i) of the East Punjab Urban Rent Restriction Act, held that a deposit under the Relief of Indebtedness Act could in the circumstances answer the tenant's obligation, the entire arrears, interest and costs being available to the landlord on the first hearing. The Court warned that where rent statutes afford real protection to tenants, the protection should not be nullified by a hyper-technical construction that frustrates the object of the Act.
Read together, Vidya Prachar Trust and Mangat Rai set the boundaries of the Haryana receipt right. A tenant cannot conjure protection from a deposit unconnected to any tender; but where the tenant has genuinely tendered and the landlord has genuinely refused, the Controller's deposit under Section 6A must be given full effect as deemed payment, and the tenant kept out of the non-payment trap.
The fallback: tender at the first hearing under Section 13
Even where a tenant has failed to use Section 6A and faces an eviction petition, the Act provides a second chance to cure default and, in effect, secure a judicial record of payment. The first proviso to Section 13(2)(i) deems the tenant to have duly paid if, within fifteen days of the first hearing of the ejectment application after due service, he pays or tenders the arrears together with interest at eight per cent per annum (as calculated by the Controller) and such costs as the Controller allows. A second proviso caps recoverable arrears at three years preceding the application.
The phrase "first hearing" is litigated. In Arjun Dass v. Ram Kishan, (1992) 102 PLR 490, the Punjab and Haryana High Court held that where an ex-parte ejectment order is set aside, the date of setting aside (when interest and costs were assessed) becomes the relevant "first hearing", so that a tenant's deposit within fifteen days of that date was a valid tender protecting him from ejectment despite earlier arrears. The proviso, the Court reiterated, is to be read to advance the protective object of the Act, not to spring a technical trap.
Receipts, fair rent and excess demands
The receipt right interlocks with the Act's rent-fixing scheme. Once fair rent is fixed under Section 4 — or revised under Section 5 or stepped up under the increase provisions — Section 6 forbids the landlord from receiving anything in excess of fair rent (beyond one month's advance). A tenant who, despite this, has overpaid is protected by Section 7: any sum paid which by reason of the Act should not have been paid is recoverable within six months of payment, and may be deducted from rent within that period. Here too, a receipt or deposit record is the evidentiary anchor for any claim of overpayment.
The practical upshot is that the receipt is not merely a defence to eviction; it is the foundation for asserting the tenant's affirmative rights — recovery of excess rent under Section 7, contesting an unjustified fair-rent revision, or resisting demands dressed up as "premium". Documenting every payment, by receipt or Section 6A deposit, is the single most valuable habit a Haryana tenant can adopt.
Practical steps for the obstructed tenant
Where a landlord refuses rent or a receipt, the tenant should: (1) make an actual, provable tender of the exact rent due — ideally by recorded means such as a money order, registered letter enclosing a cheque, or tender before witnesses — so the refusal can be established; (2) promptly apply to the Controller under Section 6A for leave to deposit, setting out the tender and refusal; (3) deposit the rent as permitted and obtain the Controller's record; and (4) preserve the Controller's notice to the landlord under Section 6A(3) as proof of deemed payment.
A tenant who instead lets arrears accumulate, then deposits a lump sum without ever tendering, invites the reasoning of Vidya Prachar Trust and risks being treated as a defaulter. Conversely, a tenant who tenders monthly and routes refused payments through the Controller builds an unimpeachable record. For the wider statutory context — application of the Act to notified urban areas, the core definitions, and the scheme as a whole — see the linked notes and the subject hub.
Limits of the right and common pitfalls
Three cautions bear emphasis. First, Section 6A does not authorise the Controller to award damages or a penalty against the landlord for refusing a receipt; its remedy is the deposit and the deeming of payment, not compensation. The only express compensatory provision in the eviction context is Section 13(7), under which a Controller may direct a landlord to pay the tenant compensation not exceeding five hundred rupees for a frivolous or vexatious eviction application — a separate matter from the receipt right.
Second, the deposit must be of the rent actually "payable"; a tenant who deposits less than the due rent, or who disputes quantum without first getting fair rent fixed under Section 4, may find the deposit inadequate to defeat a non-payment ground. Third, the protection of the deeming clause is only as strong as the proof of tender and refusal behind it; as Vidya Prachar Trust shows, a misconceived deposit gives no immunity. Used correctly, however, Section 6A is a clean, statutory answer to the landlord who weaponises the absence of a receipt.
Frequently asked questions
Does the Haryana Act impose a penalty on a landlord who refuses to give a rent receipt?
No. Unlike some other tenancy statutes, the Haryana Urban (Control of Rent and Eviction) Act, 1973 contains no separate section penalising refusal of a receipt with fixed damages. The remedy lies in Section 6A: the tenant may deposit the rent with the Controller, and that deposit is deemed payment to the landlord.
What exactly triggers a tenant's right to deposit rent under Section 6A?
Section 6A is triggered when a landlord, on rent being tendered, refuses either to receive the rent or to grant a receipt for it. On either refusal the tenant may apply to the Controller for leave to deposit, and the Controller receives the deposit if satisfied there is sufficient ground.
Is a Section 6A deposit treated as payment to the landlord?
Yes. Section 6A(2) provides that a deposit received under the section "shall be deemed to be a payment made by the tenant to his landlord in respect of the rent due", and under sub-section (3) the Controller notifies the landlord and pays the amount over to him.
Can a tenant avoid eviction simply by depositing rent with the Controller?
Not by an unconnected deposit. In Shri Vidya Prachar Trust v. Pandit Basant Ram, AIR 1969 SC 1273, the Supreme Court held that a deposit not amounting to a genuine tender to the landlord did not save the tenant from default. The tenant must prove an actual tender and the landlord's refusal.
What if the tenant misses Section 6A and an eviction petition is already filed?
The first proviso to Section 13(2)(i) gives a fallback: paying or tendering the arrears with eight per cent interest and costs within fifteen days of the first hearing is deemed due payment. In Arjun Dass v. Ram Kishan, (1992) 102 PLR 490, the High Court read "first hearing" purposively when an ex-parte order was set aside.
Should the deposited rent include interest?
A Section 6A deposit is of the rent payable. But where default is alleged in eviction, Mangat Rai v. Kidar Nath, AIR 1980 SC 1709, confirms that the proviso to Section 13(2)(i) requires the tenant to also tender interest (and costs) to secure protection, read so as not to frustrate the Act's protective object.