KWALITY RESTAURANT Vs. S K BEERANNA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition under Articles 228 and 227 of the Constitution of India, is filed by tenant of premises No. 48, Old No. 1/3 Linden Street, Palmgrove Road, Austin Town, Bangalore. Respondents 1 an.d 2 are father and son ; Respondents 3 and 4 are the other sons of respondent-1; they are the owners; it is stated in the order that it is a joint family property. Premises was leased to petitioner in 1969. It is a residential building. It is the case of the owners that though the leasing of the premises was illegal, in the sense, that vacancy had not been intimated and the leasing was not through the instrumentality of the Rent Controller, it was regularised under Section 31-B and 31-C of the Act. Sab-Section (2) of Section 31-C provides that on an order of regularisation being passed under sub-section (1) of Section 31-C the tenant shall be deemed to be an allottee under section 5 of the Karnataka Rent Control Act. Sub-Section (3) of Section 31-C reads thus :~

(2.) Sub-Section (3) of Section 4deals with conviction of landlord who has contravened sub-section (1) and (2) of section 4. In other words, with the regularisation, the landlord, who would otherwise be liable for conviction gets an immunity and in law he is treated as having not contravened the provisions of section 4. Further, the tenant, after regularisation cannot be proceeded with under section 10-A of the Karnataka Rent Control Act i.e., eviction by the controller of an occupant in contravention of section 4. Thus by regularisation the landlord and tenant are the beneficiaries and both stand to gain for getting exemption from penal consequences. The illegal act, done jointly gets legalised. Such being the legal position, the respondents landlords sought eviction of tenant-petitioner under section 21(1)(h) of the Karnataka Rent Control Act for their bona fide use arid occupation in H.R.C. 3078/88 before the Court of Snail Causes at Bangaloreand the same is pending. At ihis stage the owners have filed a petition before the Rent Controller seeking summary eviction of the tenant under Section 21A of the Act The Rent Controller inspite of the objections has allowed that petition and has directed eviction of the tenant. it is this order that is challenged in this Writ Petition.

(3.) The questions that crop up forconsideration are :