DORASWAMI CHETTIAR Vs. NHANDAMMADAN KUNHIRAMAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is the owner of a building in Payyannur amsom. The ground floor portion of the said building consisting of three shop rooms and their anterooms had been let out by the petitioner to the 1st respondent under a kychit dated 29.11.1962 executed by the latter in the petitioner's favour. The petitioner filed R.C.O.P. No. 3 of 1964 before the Rent Controller, Payyannur under S.11(2), (3) and (8) of the Kerala Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1959, (Act 16 of 1959) for eviction of the 1st respondent from the building on the grounds of non payment of arrears of rent and bona fide need for the petitioner's own occupation.

(2.) The case of the petitioner was that the upstairs portion of the building in which he was residing was totally inadequate for the needs of his family, which consisted of 15 members at the time of the petitioner's making the application, that the petitioner was also unable to climb up the stairs due to old age and illness and that therefore he bona fide needed the rooms on the ground floor for his own occupation and for that of the members of his family depending on him. It was also pleaded that the tenant had kept the rent in arrears from the 1st Kanni, 1138 onwards.

(3.) The 1st respondent contended that though he had executed a kychit in favour of the petitioner on 29-11-1952 in respect of the shop rooms, in question, he had been in possession of the said rooms as a tenant under the petitioner even prior thereto and that before the date of the kychit he had already made over the rooms to his two sons Madhavan and Balakrishnan who were conducting their trade therein. According to the 1st respondent, the said two persons are the real tenants of the building and the petition was not maintainable against him in as much as he was not in actual possession of the building. He also denied the case of bona fide need put forward by the landlord.