Pune civil court denies ₹8,000 deposit refund without finding tenant caused cupboard damage

A civil court in Pune denied Leena Naik’s request for the remaining ₹8,000 of her rental deposit, leaving the money with landlord Nikhil Bendre. Crucially, it did not find that she caused the cupboard damage for which he had withheld the amount.

The dispute turned on a gap neither side could close: an invoice established that Bendre paid for repairs, but the evidence did not establish when the damage began or who caused it. The court decided that this uncertainty defeated Naik’s repayment claim because she bore the burden of proving entitlement to the money.

No payment was ordered in either direction, and no other relief was granted.

The signed agreement recorded a ₹30,000 deposit and permitted deductions for tenant-caused damage. A deposit acknowledgment confirmed that ₹22,000 had been returned and ₹8,000 remained disputed. Neither document recorded the cupboard’s condition at move-in.

The court accepted the itemized, paid invoice as evidence that Bendre spent ₹8,000 replacing two hinges and repairing the door’s mounting edge after handover. But proof of expenditure was not proof of responsibility: the invoice contained no assessment of when or why the damage occurred.

There was no signed move-in checklist. Bendre’s account, relayed through counsel, acknowledged that he could not identify when the damage began. Naik’s account of an early complaint about a faulty hinge was also unsupported by a produced message. The court treated these accounts neither as independent documents nor as admitted witness testimony.

Despite the missing evidence connecting the repair to Naik’s conduct, the court found that no supplied rule shifted the burden on her repayment claim to Bendre. It expressly distinguished failure to prove that claim from a finding that she had damaged the cupboard.

Naik argued that the agreement allowed deductions only for damage she caused. She accepted that the invoice recorded a paid repair, but said it did not connect the work to her conduct. She acknowledged that she could not produce the first-week message and did not ask the court to treat it as proven.

Bendre maintained that continued use had worsened existing damage and that the repairs were necessary. He disputed ordinary wear and tear and denied breaking the door during transport.

He also argued that the missing message showed Naik’s account was false. The court rejected that inference: its absence reduced the account’s evidentiary weight but did not establish dishonesty. His character assertions likewise did not establish causation.

The cupboard was included in Naik’s rental and used during her tenancy. Bendre said its door was hanging loose at handover, with damaged hinges and a damaged mounting edge. He retained the repair amount from her deposit.

The judgment leaves responsibility for that condition unresolved. Its limited outcome is that Naik’s request for repayment was not proved on the available record—not that the invoice alone established a contractual right to deduct repair costs.