DASHRATH BABURAO SANGALE Vs. KASHIMATH BHASKAR DATA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) - This appeal is preferred by the tenant against the judgment and order of the Bombay High Court dismissing Writ Petition No. 1794 of 1984, filed by him, on 19-2-1985. The matter arises under the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, 1947 hereinafter referred to as the Bombay Rent Act.

(2.) The respondent-landlord leased out a piece of open land to the first appellant on 1-1-1953. The appellant executed a rent note on that date. It is in Marathi, Clause 3 of the Rent note, mentions the purpose for which the said piece of land was leased out. As translated by the parties, the clause reads: "We have taken on rent the said premise with the help of an ox for our sugarcane crushing and for the shop thereof and we shall get constructed thereon a temporary shed of tin-sheet at our own costs ......"The period of lease was stated to be six months. However, the tenant continued in occupation of the said land even thereafter. He had put up a tin shed on the said land for carrying on his business.

(3.) In the year 1978, the landlord instituted proceedings for eviction on the ground that the tenant has been using the said premises for a purpose other than the one for which it was leased out. Instead of sugarcane juice business, he alleged, the tenant was using the premises for selling cloth and readymade clothes. The appellants denied the allegation. Their case was that since the sugarcane juice business is a seasonal one, it cannot be carried on throughout the year. During the off-season, he pleaded, he was doing the cloth business in the premises, which he was entitled to. The trial Judge accepted the landlord's case and directed eviction against which an appeal was preferred which too was dismissed. It is then that the tenant filed the writ petition in the High Court which too met the same fate.