PARAYULLAPARAMBATH SREEDHARAN Vs. ARIMBIL NEENA KUMARI, D/O NANU SWASTHAM,; SISTER ARIMBIL VEETTIL NAYANTHARA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The tenant is the revision Petitioner. In this revision he challenges the judgment of the Rent Control Appellate Authority ordering eviction on the ground of subletting. The allegation of the landlord in the context of subletting is that two rooms which form part of the leasehold premises have been let out by the tenant unauthorizedly to two doctors whose names were mentioned in the statutory intimation notice issued under the proviso to Section 11(4)(i). These doctors were not made parties to the rent control petition. The defence of the tenant was that the doctors are working in the hospital which is being conducted in the entire petition schedule premises and that there is no sublease or transfer. The Rent Control Court on appreciating the evidence adduced by the parties accepted the above defence and found that there is no subletting or transfer. The learned Appellate Authority under the impugned judgment reversed the finding of the Rent Control Court. According to the Appellate Authority, as it is not disputed that two doctors are conducting consultancy in these two rooms and as the doctors are strangers, the tenant has a duty to establish the rural relationship between the tenant and the two doctors in occupation of the rooms. According to the learned Appellate Authority, the above burden is to be discharged by adducing better quality evidence than mere oral evidence. In that view of the matter, the Appellate Authority chose to interfere with the order of the Rent Control Court and ordered eviction on the ground under Section 11(4)(i).

(2.) In this revision grounds are raised challenging the judgment of the Appellate Authority ordering eviction under Section 11(4)(i). Though notice was served the Respondents landlord have not turned up before this Court. We have heard Sri. P.N. Krishnankutty Achan, learned senior Counsel for the revision Petitioner. Even though Mr. Krishnankutty Achan submitted at the outset that the petition for eviction was not maintainable as the statutory notice contemplated by the proviso to Section 11(4)(i) had not been issued, we are not able to accept the above argument. We hold that the rent control petition was certainly maintainable as the statutory notice had been issued. But Mr. Achan's submissions touching the merits of the matter have appeal. Mr. Achan submitted that the very purpose of the lease was for conducting a hospital. Hospitals cannot be conducted without doctors. The alleged sub-lessees are only doctors working in the hospital. When two doctors attached to a hospital are found to be in occupation of two rooms in the hospital the inference to be drawn normally is that they are in occupation of the premises as doctors of the hospital and not as sub-lessees or transferees. But then the learned Appellate Authority has ordered eviction mainly on the reason that no documentary evidence was produced by the revision Petitioners to show that the doctors presently in occupation of the premises are doctors employed by the hospital. We feel that the revision Petitioners should be given opportunity to produce the above documents and prove before the Rent Control Court that the doctors in occupation of the two rooms are only doctors attached to the hospital and not unauthorized transferees from the tenant.

(3.) We notice that the building is now fetching a monthly rent of Rs. 1900/- only. According to us, the above rate is too low and the building would fetch much more if the same is let out today. We are therefore inclined to refix the rent tentatively with effect from 1st April, 2011. It is open to either parties to move the Rent Control Court under Section 5 for regular fixation of fair rent. Till fair rent is fixed regularly, the revision Petitioner shall pay rent at the rate of Rs. 3000/- per mensem with effect from 1-4-2011.