Unable to handover keys after vacating apartment. Owner charging double.

3 years ago

I'm a tenant & was living in a apartment with my 3 roommates. Apartment is in Pimple Bilakh. Our tenancy agreement was about to over in July 31 2020. But as we found another flat early & wasn't sure about future situations in pune, we vacated the place & shifted our belongings from old flat on 28-30 June. With one month advance notice period as per agreement we paid rent till 8th July & received around 90% of deposit as there were few owner's things mistakenly moved along with our stuff. And we returned back those in around 2-3 weeks as pune was locked down & none of us were there in pune to deliver the things. But he was continuosly pushing us to pay the double rent till we deliver his things. But we managed somehow & he was agreed to wait.
Now the main thing, one of our roomate has bunch of keys (owner has one key to flat to give to next tenants). My roomate who has the keys to flats, rooms, post box leaves in Punjab & he is unable to courier those due to continues lockdown & Courier offices being closed. We're trying hardly to ship those keys cause it's been really frustrating to talk with owner every week & convince him. Also our so 7-8% of deposit amount is still with owner. Now Owner has given to choices
1. Pay double rent till we deliver all the keys
2. Pay for the all the locks to be replaced.

As per him it's our lookout how we deliver the keys, when no courier is active currently from the location where the keys are. We're trying to ship the keys by Monday but if not we'll have to end up choosing any one of the above option.

My question can owner force tenants to pay the double or the single rent just for the keys during this covid 19. As we genuinely unable to ship the keys.