FATHIMA MUHAMMED Vs. V M SALIM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Tenant is the revision petitioner. Eviction was sought for under S.11(3) of the Kerala Buildings (Lease & Rent Control) Act 2 of 1965 (hereinafter called the Rent Control Act). Plea under S.11(3) was upheld by both the I Rent Control Court as well as the Appellate Authority. Tenant is challenging I those orders under S.20 of the Rent Control Act. We may examine the J legality, regularity and propriety of the orders passed by the courts below. The I jurisdiction of the revision authority to interfere with finding of fact is limited to I cases where the impugned order is perverse or arbitrary in the sense that, on the I basis of the evidence on record, no reasonable tribunal would have come to such I a decision; or the decision was rendered on the basis of irrelevant consideration; I or that it was unsupported by any evidence whatever. Reference may be made I to the recent decision of the Apex Court in N.Prabhakar Rao v. J.R. Ramesh I Kumar 2002 (1) SCC 176 . The circumstances under which the landlord has I purchased the tenanted premises by Ext.Al sale deed dated 30-9-1995 from the I prior owner is of considerable importance in this case. The tenant maintained the I stand that it is a sham transaction and the original landlord shall continue to be landlord. It was contended Ext.Al was created with the sole purpose of evictin the tenant.

(2.) Petitioner before the Rent Control Court purchased the schedule premises under sale deed No. 4756/95 dated 30-9-95 of the Ernakulam Sub Registry.The same was communicated to the respondents by letter dated 23-11-1995. The shop room in question was rented out by the prior owner to the predecessor of the respondent, viz. one Muhammed on 1-8-1958. He passed away on 15-8-1995 and the respondents are his legal heirs. Respondents 1 and 2 are the widows late Muhammed and respondents 3 to 13 are his children. Petitioner purchased the building as per sale deed No. 4756/95 and issued lawyer notice to the tenant to vacate the premises on the plea that he wanted to conduct a fast food and cool I bar business in the tenanted premises. Tenant replied challenging the bona fides of the plea. In the rent control petition landlord stated as follows:

(3.) In this connection we may refer to the decision of the Apex Court in Devidas v. Mohan Lal,. AIR 1982 SC 1213 wherein a contention was raised by the tenant that the proceedings for ejectment was initiated after purchasing the tenanted premises through a paper transaction. Not much importance was given by the courts below to the contention raised by the tenant and a concurrent finding was rendered upholding the plea of the landlord. Apex Court interfered with the concurrent finding and remitted the matter back to the Trial Court stating as follows: