K VIDYADHARAN Vs. M S NARAYANA PILLAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) O. S. No. 494 of 1971 is a suit instituted for eviction of the defendants therein from a room in a building called "Rajasadan" in Quilon. The 1st Defendant in the suit was residing in Room No. 9 and the plaint allegation was that be allowed the 2nd Defendant to reside without the permission of the plaintiff Additional issues 4, 5 and 7 were tried as preliminary issues. These issues are:

(2.) The first question for determination is whether the subject matter of the suit is governed by the provisions of the Rent Control Act. S.2(1) of the Act reads:

(3.) Counsel for the plaintiff also invited my attention to the decision in Madan Lal v. Dr. Brahm Sarup (1951-53 Punj LR 75) where, after referring to the definition of the term 'hotel' in Ramanatha Iyer's Law Lexicon, and to the provisions of the Punjab and the West Bengal Rent Control Legislations, a learned Judge of the Punjab High Court held that 'hotel' is a place where food or lodging or both is, or are, made available to travellers or for other persons My attention was called to several dictionaries and law lexicons. Some of them contain indications that both food and lodging should be served before a building can be regarded as 'hotel'. Others state that provision for either food or lodging is sufficient to constitute a hotel. Having regard to the fact that the two learned Judges of the. Supreme Court (Das and Subba Rao JJ.) preferred to adopt the definition of 'hotel' as given in Ramanatha Iyer's Law Lexicon, I am of the opinion that the room in question is a room in a hotel and therefore exempt from the definition of the term 'building' in S.2(1) of the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, I therefore allow civil revision petition No. 1193 of 1972.