PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK Vs. A. K. SABHAPATHY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The tenant respondent in R.C.P.No. 225/96 of the Additional Rent Control Court, Ernakulam, challenges the legality and propriety of the order passed by the Appellate Authority (District Judge, Ernakulam) in R.C.A.No. 80/99 allowing eviction under S.11(8) of the Kerala (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1965. The respondents herein filed the said Rent Control Petition demanding surrender of possession of the ground floor room occupied by the Punjab National Bank which forms part of the larger structure in which the respondents herein landlords are running the Krishna Nursing Home using the rest of the ground floor area and the entire first floor. The contention was that to meet existing requirements of the Nursing Home as also for the purpose of immediate expansion, there was dire need of the ground floor space occupied by the tenant.

(2.) The Rent Control Court, on a consideration of the questions involved, found that the demand of the landlords was devoid of bona fides and that the hardship that would be caused to the tenant in case eviction is allowed would out weigh the advantage that may accrue to the landlords. On appeal by the landlords, the Appellate Authority, however, noted that actually the question of eviction under S.11(8) of the Act alone arises for consideration in so far as the relief under S.11(3) was not pressed before the Appellate Authority and that on the facts and circumstances established in the case the demand for additional space for the purposes of the landlords was justified. Accordingly eviction was allowed.

(3.) Sri.P.K. Ravindran Puzhankara, who argued the case of the petitioner, submitted that the documents produced by the respondents before the Rent Control Court had not been properly considered by the Appellate Authority and that these documents clearly show that the attempt of the landlords has been to get enhancement of rent rate periodically and that whenever the tenant yielded to the said request, the landlords retreated from their demand for additional space and that this itself would indicate the want of bona fides on the part of the landlords. It was further argued that the hardship that would enure to the tenant would far out weigh the advantage that would accrue to the landlords in case eviction is allowed.