KRISHNAMURTHI IYER Vs. S GOVINDARAJA PILLAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN this revision by the landlord of a building in Kumbakonam town, the only point for consideration is whether the Rent Controller was justified in holding that the default in payment of rent by the tenant was not wilful, since at the material time he was afflicted by a heart condition and had to take his treatment in Madras.

(2.) THE learned counsel appearing for the landlord in this revision submitted, in the first place, that there was no evidence apart from that of the tenant himself, that he was suffering from a heart ailment. Learned counsel further submitted, that although the tenant had stated that he was taking treatment for his heart condition in a nursing home at Madras, that did not prevent him from making a flying visit to Kumbakonam and from paying the rent. Learned counsel accordingly submitted that the Rent Controller and the appellate authority ought not to have drawn the inference that the tenant was suffering from a heart disease and that condition really prevented him from paying the rent.

(3.) THE further question which was argued by learned counsel for the landlord was that even on the footing that the tenant was suffering from a heart disease, the question is whether that could be a lawful excuse for not paying the rent on the due dates. To put the idea differently, can it be said that the default in payment of rent was not wilful default merely because the tenant was at the material time ill with a heart disease" In the present case the default was in respect of rents from August to November, 1977. On the evidence accepted by the authorities below, that he was bedridden from August to November, 1977 and that he was away in Madras, the question is whether that could be regarded as a lawful excuse, which will relieve the tenant from the consequences of the default committed by him. Learned counsel for the tenant in the course of his argument submitted that the ailment of this kind cannot justify the non-payment of rent, because the one has nothing to do with the other. He employed the familiar phrase obviously lifted from a decision of this Court that the tenant-s attitude only showed -supine indifference- to his responsibilities as a tenant. Apparently, this oft-repeated expression literally applied to this tenant who was stretched in a hospital bed with an afflicted heart.