GANESAN Vs. VALAMBAL AMMAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) LAKSHMANAN and his wife Valambal Ammal are an elderly couple. LAKSHMANAN is aged about 70 years. Valambal Ammal has passed 6o years of age. LAKSHMANAN has a house in Mariamman Koil Street, Bheema Nagar, Trichinopoly. In that house this old couple are residing for a long time now. Along with them dwell their children and grandchildren. Their first son had unfortunately died at an early age, leaving a widow. The widowed daughter-in-law is also living with them. A few buildings away in the same street Valamba1 Amma1 has a house of her own. The house is in the occupation of a tenant, by name, Ganesan. Valamba1 Amma1 filed a petition before the Rent Controller for evicting this tenant from her house. The principal ground urged in the eviction petition was that she required that house bona fide for her own persona 1 occupation as a residence Valambal Ammal had some other house in Trichinopoly town, but they were all occupied by tenants. She particularly wanted the house under the occupation of Ganesan for the purpose of her own residence presumably because it was in the same street in which she was at the time living with her husband.

(2.) THE Rent Controller rejected the plea of Valambal Ammal and held that her requirement was not bona fide. He said there was no evidence of misunderstanding between her and her husband or other family members. He further observed that he could not believe that she needed a separate residence for her own when she was actually living with her husband in her husband's house. On this basis, he refused to evict the tenant.

(3.) LEARNED counsel then submitted that the main intention behind the eviction petition was to somehow drive the tenant away, an intention which is underlined by the fact that the petition also canvassed another ground, namely, wilful default, as a ground for eviction. It is true that the intention of the landlady was to see the tenant out of the property. But there is the one and only basis on which one can claim her own occupation of the house. If the house is occupied by the tenant, the landlady cannot occupy it; she cannot occupy it till the tenant vacates and makes way. The driving out of the tenant is a sheer physical necessity and a practical precondition for the landlord's personal occupation. That is also the basis sanctioned by the statute itself. So, merely saying that the intention in the eviction petition is to oust the tenant,and therefore, the intention cannot be bona fide, is not an argument at all which can be sensibly raised in proceedings under section 10 (3) (o) (i) of the Act. What really has got to be enquired into is whether the landlord's or landlady's requirement of the house is bona fide. In judging this issue, the fact that possession cannot be obtained without eject ing the tenant in the process can hardly have any relevance on the finding as to bono fides.