KUNHIPATHUMMA Vs. KUNHAPPA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is the owner of the plaint schedule building which he had leased out to the respondent. The building is situate in Madayi Panchayat of Cannanore District, to which the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1965 (the Rent Control Act, for brevity) was not applicable. Petitioner filed the suit for recovery of possession of the building. The suit was decreed and the decree was confirmed in appeal by the Sub Court, Tellicherry and by this court in S. A. No. 71 of 1985 - A by judgment dated 24th January, 1985. This Court however, directed, on the respondent tenant's prayer, that he will not be evicted for a period of six months, if he gave an undertaking in the Trial Court within one month from the date of judgment that he will surrender the property within six months.

(2.) Soon after this judgment and on 5-2-1985, the Government of Kerala issued notification extending the previsions of the Rent Control Act, to the Madayi Panchayat. Apparently because of this, the defendant did not give the undertaking mentioned above. The petitioner decree holder applied for execution of the decree by delivery of possession of the building, when he was met with the plea that in view of the extension of the Rent Control Act to the Madayi Panchayat with effect from 5-2-1985, the respondent could not be evicted in execution of the decree and that he could, if at all, be evicted only in accordance with S.11 of the said Act. This contention was accepted by the lower court and the execution petition dismissed. The decree holder has come up with this revision petition.

(3.) The contention raised by Sri. V. P. Mohan Kumar, counsel for the petitioner is that the decree for eviction had been passed by the civil court, at a time when the Rent Control Act was not in force in the Madayi Panchayat and that the said decree bad become final before the extension of the Rent Control Act to the said Panchayat. He therefore, states that the petitioner has acquired a right to execute the decree and to fake possession of the building. He would further state that, in any case, the Rent Control Act can apply only if there is a subsisting landlord-tenant relationship between the parties. In this case the relationship of landlord and tenant between the petitioner and the respondent bad been sundered long back and the position of the respondent after the decree was only that of a trespasser in possession, who can not avail himself of the provisions of the Rent Control Act.