SHANKAR Vs. SWAMINATHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The tenant in respect of the petition premises filed a petition before the Rent Controller (Principal District Munsif), Mayiladuthurai as RCOP No.10/2007 under Section 9(1) of the Tamil Nadu Buildings (Lease and Rent Control) Act, 1960 praying for an order permitting the tenant to deposit the rent from the month of March 2006 to the credit of the Rent Control Petition and allow him to continue to deposit the future rent. The said petition came to be filed based on the contention that, though the petitioner was making payment of rent for the petition premises to the predecessors of the first respondent and then to the first respondent recognising them to be the landlords, the second respondent Aiyaru Pillai had issued a notice to the tenant informing him that the rent should be paid to him and not to the first respondent, since, according to him, the property was the Trust property and the second respondent being the senior most member of the family was entitled to manage Trust and that due to the issuance of the said notice, the tenant did entertain a bonafide doubt as to who, between the respondents 1 and 2, was entitled to receive the rent for the petition premises.

(2.) The tenant was supported by Aiyaru Pillai, the second respondent in the RCOP proceedings before the Rent Controller, who filed a counter statement contending that the building was a Guru Poojai Madam and the site belong to A.V.C. Trust; that the ground rent was being paid right from the life time of the grand father of the respondents; that the senior member of the family he alone was entitled to manage the properties and the Guru Poojai Madam in accordance with the terms of a document that came into existence during the life time of their forefathers; that the second respondent, due to ill health, asked the first respondent and his brother to manage the Guru Poojai Madam; that the said persons, during the period of their management, let out portions of the madam as residential portions to tenants and collected and appropriated the rent for their personal purposes; that due to mismanagement of the madam, the second respondent came forward to take over the management of the trust and issued a notice to the petitioner demanding that the rent should be paid to him alone and that the petition should be dismissed directing the petitioner herein/tenant to pay the rent to the second respondent Aiyaru Pillai.

(3.) The first respondent filed a counter statement contending that the revision petitioner, having taken the petition premises for rent for residential purpose, became a tenant under the father of the first respondent in respect of the same; that after the death of Gopal Iyer, the father of the revision petitioner, the revision petitioner and his mother Saradhammal (wife of Gopal Iyer) continued to reside there as tenants; that the said Saradhammal is no more and the revision petitioner has become the tenant of the petition premises; that even during the life time of Saradhammal rent was not regularly paid; that when the first respondent took steps for proceeding against the revision petitioner for the non-payment of rent, the revision petitioner Sankar has chosen to file the petition in collusion with the second respondent Aiyaru Pillai, with a view to trouble and harass the first respondent. It was contended further in the counter statement of the first respondent that even during the lifetime of Saradhammal a notice issued by the second respondent Aiyaru Pillai and Saradammal herself issued a reply notice contending that she became a tenant under Sabapathy Pillai, the father of the first respondent and that after the death of Sabapathy Pillai, she was paying the rent to the first respondent and his brother Kandasamy. It was the further contention raised by the first respondent that the petition property was not a Trust property and that pursuant to the default in payment of rent from March 2006, the first respondent issued a notice demanding payment of arrears of rent and directing the revision petitioner and one Agoram Iyer, who was only a relative of the revision petitioner and hence was residing in the petition premises with the revision petitioner. It was contended further that it was held in an earlier Rent Control proceeding (RCOP No.6/2006) that the petition property was not a Trust property; that despite the same, revision petitioner chose to file the frivolous petition as he had been used as a stooge in the hands of the second respondent Aiyaru Pillai and that hence the petition seeking permission permission to deposit the rent should be dismissed.