NARAYANA PILLAI Vs. THOMAS KURIAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) S.5 of the Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act 2 of 1965 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) enables a tenant or landlord of a building to move an application in the Rent Control Court to fix the fair rent of the building occupied by the tenant. The Rent Control Court is to fix such fair rent after holding such enquiry as it thinks fit. Such an enquiry has been held in this case on the landlord's application and the tenant who had agreed to an enhancement of rent from Rs. 8/-to Rs. 14/- in 1965 has been found liable to pay a fair rent of Rs. 25/-per mensem from the date of the application, 15-3-1974. This was challenged by the tenant before the appellate authority and the revisional court without success. Thereupon the matter has been taken up to this court in Revision.

(2.) There is a basic error in the approach to the controversy by the Rent Control Court, the appellate authority and the Revisional Court. The one and the only reasoning found in the orders of all the three authorities is that subsequent to the letting there has been revision of Municipal assessment, that the annual letting value on which the determination of property tax was based as determined for the two years immediately prior to the date of the application was Rs 300/- per mensem and that being the case the request for fixation of fair rent at Rs 25/- per mensem has to be granted. In other words if during the currency of the lease there is a revision of municipal assessment to house tax or property tax resulting in the determination of annual letting value for the purpose of such assessment at a higher figure the claim for fixing fair rent at that figure is said to be legitimate. It is the correctness of this view that is under challenge in this petition

(3.) The obligation of a tenant is only to pay fair rent. When once the Rent Control Court determines such rent the landlord is not entitled to claim or receive anything in excess of the fair rent. The scheme of the Act is to provide not only security to tenants from arbitrary eviction but also to prevent exploitation of scarcity conditions in urban areas by unscrupulous landlords. If landlords are free to seek enhancement of rent at their will many tenants who may not be able to meet claims for enhancement may be thrown out of the buildings occupied by them without means to find alternate accommodation, resulting in large number of such tenants having to be literally on the streets. It is as a measure of urban social peace that the scheme of regulating rent payable as well as regulating eviction is envisaged in the Act.