E.R. JANARTHANAM AND ORS. Vs. K. SIGAMANY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN H.R.C. No. 410 of 1958, three persons, E.R. Janarthanam, E.R. Soundararajap, who are brothers, and E. Rajarathnammal, who is their mother applied under Section 7 of Act XXV of 1949 (The Madras Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1949, as amended by Act VIII of 1951 and Act XXVI of 1955, for evicting the respondent, K. Sigamany, from the residential building, namely No. 96, Shanmugharoyan Street, Madras, which the respondent had been occupying on a monthly rent of Rs. 5 -7 -0. The Rent Controller allowed the Application and ordered eviction. The tenant appealed to the Second Judge of the Court of Small Causes at Madras, who is the appellate authority. The Appeal was allowed, and the petition for eviction was dismissed. This Revision is filed against the above order by the landlords, the petitioners in the first Court, under Section 12 -B of the aforesaid Act, seeking revision of the order made by the appellate authority.

(2.) NOW , the main ground on which the first Court allowed the petition was that the landlords required the premises bona fide for their own occupation, within the meaning of Section 7(3)(a)(i) of the Act. It was found by the first Court that the three petitioners were jointly entitled to the suit house as well as another house bearing No. 14, Pedariar Koil Street, Madras. However, the mother, the third petitioner, and her other sons and daughters were residing in a portion of No. 14, Pedariar Koil Street, and the other portion being in occupation of tenants. The petitioners who have married sisters were till then living with their father -in -law. But they found it difficult to continue to live there, and therefore they required the suit building for their occupation. The official duties of the first and the second petitioners also made it necessary for them to move to a nearer place than their father -in -law's place at Tondiarpet.

(3.) LEARNED Counsel for the petitioners before me, contend that the lower appellate Court was in error in arriving at the finding that only the third petitioner was the landlord, that petitioners 1 and 2 were not landlords, and that therefore the application filed jointly by the three of them was not maintainable. On this ground, the lower appellate Court seems to have held that the petition itself was not maintainable. For this purpose, the lower appellate Court observed that there was no evidence to show that petitioners 1 and 2 were joint owners. But, the first Court has clearly referred to the evidence of first and second petitioners as P.Ws. 1 and 2, that the suit house belonged jointly to them and their mother. It was plainly irregular for the -Court to dispose of the case on the assumption that there was no evidence, when in fact there was evidence. To say there is no evidence will be a different thing from saying that the evidence adduced is not sufficient. But, what the appellate Court has done, in this case, is to ignore completely the evidence of P.Ws. 1 and 2, and to proceed on the basis that there was no evidence, that the petitioners were joint landlords. In doing so, the Court must be deemed to have acted illegally and with material irregularity.