JIVRAM RANCHHODDAS THAKKAR Vs. TULSHIRAM RATANCHAND MANTRI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Scarcity of accommodation creates problems of misery which it is beyond this Court to solve except in some marginal, clumsy way. We mention this by way of prefatory observation because we are, in this case, faced with a situation where the facts are not too clear, the law has been ill-understood and the justice of the situation may justify a decision either way.

(2.) The landlords-respondents had let out to the first appellant, for the benefit of the joint family of which he was a senior member, the suit premises consisting of three rooms. A suit for eviction was filed on the ground of sub-letting based on the fact that the 1st appellant had built a large house into which he had moved leaving the second appellant still in the suit premises. The Court found that there was no case of sub-letting and dismissed the suit. This did not end the story but gave rise to a fresh litigation which has spiralled to this Court now. The second litigation was for eviction under S. 13 (1) (1) of the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, 1947 (hereinafter called the Act). The foundation for the action was that the first appellant had built a large house for the use of the joint family and as such there was no longer any need for the tenant to occupy the suit premises. The trial Court decreed the suit although it held that the buildings which was let out was for the benefit of the joint family of the 1st appellant and the building which was newly constructed by the 1st appellant was his own and not of the joint family. The appellate court, which is the final court of fact, reversed this decree and dismissed the eviction suit taking the view that since the new house built by the 1st appellant was his own and not of the joint family there was no right in the 2nd appellant or the other members of the joint family to occupy the new bungalow. The High Court, while not disturbing the findings of fact of the first appellate court, was moved by the circumstance that the new building put up by the 1st appellant was a large bungalow and that the owner, 1st appellant, had allotted to his brothers and mother blocks in the house so built by him. This was a relevant circumstance, in its view, to direct eviction.

(3.) Counsel for the appellants assails this conclusion of the High Court on the score that S. 13 (1) (l) of the Act will be fulfiled only if the 2nd appellant qua member of the joint family had a right to claim from the 1st appellant accommodation in the new building. This he could not claim if the findings of fact recorded by the courts below were right. In this view, Shri Palan urged that the High Court's direction for eviction was liable to be set aside.