RAJEE B AMBADI Vs. GOPALA PILLAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision is directed against the District Court's order passed under S.20 of the Kerala Buildings (Lease & Rent Control) Act, 1965.

(2.) The petitioner and her husband were formerly at Ernakulam. They shifted residence to Trivandrum. The building at Ernakulam was let out to tenants, the ground floor to one Madhavan Nair, and the first floor to the respondent. The respondent started occupation in 1970, and the rent was initially Rs. 300/- per mensem. The petitioner's husband passed away in 1975, but she continued to reside at Trivandrum where they had put up a modern residential building. After the death of the husband, the petitioner was requesting the respondent to pay rent at an enhanced rate. After protracted correspondence, the respondent agreed to pay at the rate of Rs. 350/- a month, from August, 1976; but the petitioner was not happy with this offer. The petition for eviction was filed in 1979 on the ground that the first floor was required bona fide for the petitioner's own occupation It was said that the petitioner's aged mother who had been living with her at Trivandrum, was anxious to return to her native place at Irinjalakuda. From Ernakulam, the, petitioner could make frequent and easy visits to Irinjalakuda, and that would not be possible, if she continued to remain at a distant place like Trivandrum. Other grounds were also there, but they are not relevant for the present.

(3.) The Rent Control Court was of the view that the petitioner was seeking eviction mainly because she was dissatisfied with the tenant's response to the demand for higher rent; it held that the claim for own occupation was not bona fide. The appellate authority thought that the claim could not be rejected as without bona fides for the only reason that there was an earlier demand for higher rent. The learned District Judge before whom the matter then came up under S.20 declined to adopt such abstract or doctrinaire approaches: he went into the evidence in detail, examined the facts in full, and came to the conclusion that the bona fides of the petitioner's claim was in doubt. The eviction petition was accordingly dismissed, in reversal of the appellate authority's decision.