R VENKATASWAMI NAIDU Vs. NARASRAIN NURANIDAS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) (Subba Rao and Mudholkar, JJ. with him):By an unregistered instrument of lease, dated February 3, 1953, the respondent let out a piece of vacant land in the town of Coimbatore to the appellants for the term of one year at a rent of Rs. 30 per month. The tenants held over after the expiry of the term reserved and the tenancy was continued. The lease provided that the tenants "shall not raise any building whatsoever in the vacant site" but they committed a breach of the covenant by putting up a building on the land.

(2.) On December 4, 1956, the lessor filed a suit for ejectment of the tenants and their sub-tenants. Pending the suit, the Madras City Tenants' Protection Act, 1921, was on February 19, 1958 made applicable to the town of Coimbatore and thereupon the tenants made an application in the suit under S. 9 of the Act for an order directing the lessor to sell the land to them. The trial Court, a learned Sub-Judge in first appeal and Anantanarayanan, J. in second appeal to the High Court of Madras held that the tenants were entitled to the order. A Division Bench of the High Court took a contrary view in a Letters Patent Appeal preferred by the lessor. The tenants have appealed to this Court against the judgment of the Division Bench.

(3.) The question naturally turns upon the provisions of the Act the relevant parts of which we will, therefore, set out at once.