DAS NAIK Vs. NARAYANAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Tenants in Rent Control proceedings initiated by the same landlord, are the revision petitioners. The five tenants are occupying different portions of the same building and four of them are carrying on some trade or other from their premises The landlord is living just behind this building, and he has a big family. He wants to have a bigger house for the family. The one he is using now, and the one occupied by the tenants, are both old and dilapidated; and the two are situated in six cents of land. His idea is to pull down both and to put up a new residential building for the occupation of himself and the members of the family. The Rent Control Court found, after a detailed examination of the evidence, including the report of the commissioner, that the landlord's case was genuine. He bona fide needed extra living space. The two buildings were in such a condition that his requirement for reconstruction was also bona fide. The plan and licence had been obtained. He had the financial capacity to reconstruct and his proposal was not a pretext. On these findings, eviction was allowed, and the Appellate Authority concurred. The District Court was also not persuaded to differ, in proceedings under S.20 of Act 2/65.

(2.) One should have thought that this was a simple case where little could be done by this Court under S.115 CPC., as the facts have been concurrently found by the two tribunals below, and even the District Court was not, prepared to interfere under its comparatively wider revisional jurisdiction. Counsel for the petitioners however thought otherwise. They were armed with a good number of points and a large number of decisions on the elaboration of which the better part of a day and half was spent, and one could not without discourtesy, decline to partake of this "embarrassment of riches".

(3.) The first point raised is that the grounds under sub-s.(3) and sub-s. (4)(iv) of S.11 are mutually exclusive, so that if a landlord seeks eviction under both, that itself is fatal to his application. The argument was developed like this. The different sub-sections/clauses of S.11 confer different rights on landlords to apply for eviction, with separate defences for the tenants in each case. S.11(3) allows eviction for own occupation by the landlord, and sub-s.(12) requires him to occupy the building so resumed within one month and continue to occupy it for at least six months. These provisions contemplate the continued existence of a building suitable for the occupation of the landlord for a reasonable period of time, while sub-s.4(iv) conceives of a building which has to be demolished and reconstructed without delay, to be offered to the tenant for reoccupation, under the third proviso. If the landlord wants to reconstruct under sub-s.4(iv), he cannot occupy the new building; and if he wants vacant possession for own occupation under sub-s.(3), he cannot simultaneously pull it down. The claim under one head is incompatible with the other, it is said.