MOHIDEEN Vs. N M KRISHNA CHETTIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By consent of learned Counsel, this civil revision petition directed against order dated 30th August 1983 made on J.A.XI in O.S. No. 388 of 1977 (O.S. No. 1767 of 1980) by the Court of City Civil Judge, Bangalore City, refusing to stay further proceedings in that suit, is treated as having been posted for hearing, and I have heard them.

(2.) Whether the Court of City Civil Judge, Bangalore City, (trial Court) was justified in refusing to stay further proceedings in a suit for eviction pending against the defendants till the disposal of a fair rent application under the Karnataka Rent Control Act, 1961 (the Act), subsequently filed by the defendants before the Controller under the Act, seeking fixation of fair rent in respect of the non-residential premises concerned in the suit, is the short question which arises for determination in this revision petition.

(3.) Undisputed facts of the case, which are material for determination of the question, are briefly these ; Defendants in the suit, who are petitioners here, were the tenants of a non-residential premises under the plaintiffs, on a monthly rental of Rs. 1,400/-. The plaintiffs determined the defendants' tenancy of the said non-residential premises as required by the provisions of the Transfer of Property Act and, on 15th June 1977, filed in the trial Court, a suit for eviction of the defendants therefrom, in that, the provisions in Part-IV of the Act giving protection to tenants against eviction did not apply to non- residential premises, the monthly rental of which exceeded Rs. 500/-. It appears that the progress of the suit was hampered as the trial Court had to decide many interlocutory applications filed therein from stage to stage. Long after the trial of the suit had commenced and about five years subsequent to the filing of the suit, the defendants are said to have filed before the Controller under the Act, a fair rent application seeking fixation of fair rent of the said non- residential premises at Rs.300/- per men- sum as against Rs. 1,400/- per mensum which they had been paying. Thereafter, defendants have filed in the suit, an interlocutory application, I.A. XI, seeking stay of further proceeding, in the suit, pending disposal of the fair rent application by the Controller. By its order dated 30th August 1983, the trial Court has rejected that application holding, inter alia, that the decision of the Supreme Court in P.V. Shetty v B. S. Giridhar (4[R 1982 S.C. 82), on which sole reliance was placed by the defendants in support of their application for stay, was inapplicable to the facts of the case. Aggrieved by that order, the defendants have come up with the present revision petition, as stated at the outset.