M VASUDEVA RAO Vs. S K GANAPTHI HOLLA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition by the landlord under S.50 of the, Rent Control Act. It arises on an order mads in appeal u/s.48 of that Act, by the, Addl Dist Judge, Mangalore in HRCA.83 of 1969. That appeal was by the tenant who was aggrieved by an order of eviction made by the Munsiff at Puttur in HRC. 2 of 1968.

(2.) The landlord sued for eviction in respect of the suit premises on. the ground that the same was required reasonably and bonafide, for his personal use and occupation. Among the pleas taken by the tenant, there was one relative to the non-maintainability of the petition by the landlord on the ground that the provisions of the Rent Control Act could not be availed of by him as the lease related to an agricultural or horiticultural land.

(3.) The learned Munsiff tried the case on all issues, including the one relative to jurisdiction arising from the pleas adverted to above, and decreed eviction. In appeal by the tenant, the learned Dist Judge, without examining all the points in controversy, merely held that the order of the Munsiff was vitiated in thai the procedure adopted by him in the disposal of the case had been erroneous, in that he had failed to try the issue bearing on the question of jurisdiction as a preliminary one. In doing so, he almost exclusively relied on a decision of a learned single Judge of this Court in Narayana Rai v. Appaji Rao, (1971) 2 Mys.L.J. 370. In this view, he set aside the order in appeal and remitted the matter to the trial Court for a fresh disposal in the light of the observations made by him. It is the, correctness of this order that has been questioned in the present revision.