ABDUL KAREEM Vs. C M MOHAMED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The order of the lower appellate Court cannot be supported. The learned Judge in the Court of Small Causes, Madras, has reversed an order of eviction passed against a tenant by the Rent Controller on the ground that to do so would be unjust. The petitioner is the owner of a building which he purchased in the year 1944. At that time he was in occupation of his own building along with the other members of the family. But there was a partition between the members of the family and it is conceded that by about 1952, the petitioner, his mother, sister and other members of the family had to take up their residence in a rented house; the family house having been allotted to the other sharers. The petitioner thereupon filed an application against the tenant claiming eviction so as to facilitate personal occupation. That petition unfortunately had a chequered career. The Rent Controller found that the application was bona fide and directed eviction. On appeal, however, the learned Judge of the Court of Small Causes, Madras, set aside the order on the ground that the petitioner being a minor should approach the Court through a guardian appointed in another suit and not by the next friend, who represented him in the matter before him. That was a wholly erroneous view to take and that was set aside in Revision. When the matter went back to the Judge, he set aside the order of eviction by a somewhat curious piece of reasoning. He has stated that it has not been proved to his satisfaction that the claim of the petitioner was bona fide. I fail to understand how any question of bona fide can at all arise in this case. It is not said that the petitioner has any other house of his own except the one which is the subject-matter of these proceedings. Admittedly he has been residing in the rented premises since 1952. But the learned Judge has stated that there is no satisfactory explanation as to whether the accommodation that he is able to get in the rented premises was sufficient for him or not. That is a wholly immaterial consideration. What he has got to find is whether the petitioner requires I his own building for the purposes of his occupation. It is not the case that the petitioner has filed the application for the eviction of the tenant with some ulterior' purpose in view. Section 10(3) of Act XVIII of 1960 states that a landlord, subject to the provisions of Clause (d) might obtain an eviction in the case of a residential building, if he requires it for his own occupation. No question of bona fides at all arises particularly in the circumstances of this case. The order of the lower Court cannot therefore be supported.

(2.) It is set aside and that of the Rent Controller restored with costs here and below. Time for eviction three months.