Pune civil court denies ₹8,000 deposit refund over hook marks, leaves repainting cost unproven

A civil court in Pune denied Leena Kulkarni’s claim for the remaining ₹8,000 of her rental deposit, ruling that she had not proved her entitlement to recover it from landlord Farhan Shaikh. No additional damages were sought or awarded, and Shaikh was not ordered to pay any amount.

The dispute turned on two acknowledged hook marks and a bill for repainting an entire room. Crucially, the result did not amount to a finding that the marks justified the full ₹8,000 deduction: the court left the cost attributable to them unresolved.

The signed rental agreement established a ₹20,000 refundable deposit and allowed deductions for tenant-caused damage, but excluded ordinary wear. Both parties agreed that ₹12,000 had already been returned. The agreement alone did not establish what any particular repair should cost.

Kulkarni’s acknowledgment established that the two hook marks were tenant-caused damage. The court also accepted Shaikh’s account as support that he incurred an ₹8,000 painting expense. However, the invoice and WhatsApp messages were described in submissions, not separately presented as exhibits; the rental agreement was a presented exhibit.

The missing link was between the marks and the whole-room bill. There were no photographs, inspection report or separate estimate explaining why the entire room needed repainting or what repairing the marks alone would cost. The court said it would not be justified to attribute the entire bill to the marks.

Nevertheless, it placed the burden of proving the refund claim on Kulkarni. Identifying gaps in Shaikh’s evidence did not, in its reasoning, establish that the withheld balance was refundable. She had neither shown that the amount was unrelated to the damage nor established a smaller refund after a reasonable deduction.

Kulkarni argued that admitting the hook marks was not the same as accepting liability for an ordinary room refresh. A whole-room invoice, she submitted, did not show what those marks reasonably cost to repair or why they required a full repaint. She sought only the withheld ₹8,000.

Shaikh’s side maintained that the deduction covered an actual expense rather than a penalty, and that the acknowledged marks and agreement supported a damage deduction. It also conceded that the evidence did not establish that the entire repainting expense arose from the marks, asking the court to determine what deduction, if any, was justified.

Neither side offered a separate repair estimate or other evidence from which the court could calculate a smaller deduction.

Shaikh rented Kulkarni a room in Pune. After she moved out, two hook patches needed fixing. He paid ₹8,000 for repainting and withheld that sum from her deposit.

The judgment resolves the refund claim on the available record, rather than validating the full repainting charge. Its express limit is that neither the necessity of whole-room repainting nor the attribution of the entire expense to the hook marks was established.