MALAI KOLANDAI MUDALIAR Vs. M R SWAMINATHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision petition under S. 50 of the Mysore Rent Control Act, 1961, (hereinafter referred to as the Act) is by a tenant against whom a decree for eviction was passed by the Munsiff and affirmed in appeal by the District Judge. The premises were leased in the year 1956 and the tenant has been carrying on therein the business of vending Kadle and Pori.

(2.) The landlord presented an application for eviction of the tenant on the grounds specified in clauses (a), (h) and (p) of the proviso to S. 21 (1) of the Act. Though the learned Munsiff found that the landlord bona fide requires the premises for his own use and occupation, the learned Munsiff herd that eviction could not be ordered under clause (h) of the said proviso, as the tenancy commenced prior to the coming into force of the Act and as the landlord wants the premises to start a business. However, the learned Munsiff decreed eviction under clause (p). In appeal, the learned District Judge held that the ground specified in clause (p) was not established, but sustained the decree for eviction on a different ground, namely, that specified in clause (h). In this petition, the learned Counsel for the landlord did not also rely on the ground specified in clause (p). The only ground that is material in this petition is that specified in clause (h). The landlord averred in his application that he had retired from service on a meagre pension of Rs. 25 per month, that in order to augment his income he intended to start a business in the premises now occupied by the tenant.

(3.) The tenant denied these averments and pleaded that the landlord's application was merely an attempt to get a higher rent for the premises. The tenant also pleaded that greater hardship would result by passing the decree for eviction than by refusing to pass it, Mr. S. V. Narasimhan, learned Counsel for the petitioner-tenant, complained that the learned Ditsrict Judge has entirely overlooked the ground on which the learned Munsiff held that a decree for eviction cannot be founded on clause (h) of the proviso to S. 21 (1).