LARSEN AND TOUBRO LIMITED CLUB HOUSE ROAD MADRAS Vs. TRUSTEES OF DHARMAMURTHY RAO BAHADUR CALAVALA CUNNAN CHETTYS CHARITIES

JUDGEMENT

(1.) After having heard learned counsel on both sides, we grant special leave and proceed to dispose of the appeal itself by this order, the point involved being a very short one.

(2.) Real estate prices all over the country, ;and particularly in important capital cities, have spiraled up in the last few decades to such heights that disputes over land, which at one time could have been resolved by a little give and take between the parties have now assumed a magnitude which makes any type of reconciliation impossible. In this case, where the dispute arises out of a lease by a prominent charitable trust in' Madras in favour of a well-established engineering company of all-India stature, we were somewhat hopeful that the parties would agree not to waste further time and energy in litigation but would come to some reasonable compromise. We tried our best by adjourning the case several times and encouraging the parties to come up with various proposals for compromise. Ultimately, however, we found that it was not possible to bring the parties together. We, therefore, proceed to dispose of the issues raised in the appeal.

(3.) On 13/08/1951, M/s Larsen and Toubro, the appellant company, took on lease from the respondent trustees a property situated in a busy central locality of the city of Madras. In 1975, the trusteesfiled a suit for possession. The appellant company responded by claiming protection under S. 9 of the Tamil Nadu City Tenants' Protection Act (3 of 1922 (hereinafter referred to as the 'act'). The short question that arises in the appeal is whether the company is entitled to this protection. The above piece of legislation was enacted primarily for the protection of small tenants, who in certain municipal towns and adjoining areas had constructed buildings on others' lands, by ensuring that they are not evicted so long as they pay a fair rent for the land. The Act also contained a provision under which the tenant could put forward a claim to purchase the land in question from the owner at its average market value of the three immediately preceding years. It is highly doubtful whether the Act was intended to enable affluent persons or prosperous companies, like the present appellant, to take advantage of its provisions to compel a lessor to sell to them property of which they have obtained initial possession as lessees. However, the question has to be decided not on such general considerations but on the language of the statute itself and so we proceed to discuss the issue involved.