L SETHURAMAN Vs. KARUNAKARAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) TENANT in R. C. O. P. No. 23 of 1991, on the file of Rent controller (District Munsif), Vellore is the revision petitioner.

(2.) EVICTION was sought on the ground that the building requires major repairs, and without dispossessing the tenant, petitioner herein, those repairs cannot be effected.

(3.) NAINAR Sundaram, J. , as he then was, has held in panchali Ammal v. Muthulakshmi Ammal, 91 L. W 204 that the test of bona fides for the purpose of repair is not the same as that required for the purpose of demolition and reconstruction. The stringent standards that are applied under sec. 14 (1) (b) of the Act are not to be applied in the case of Section 14 (1) (a ). In paragraph 2 of the judgment, the learned Judge held thus:- "it is needless to point out that the bona fides under S. 14 of the act has been held (sic) as not to be tested by stringent standards when an application for eviction is filed under that provision. While laying down the test regarding bona fides under S. 14 (1) (b) of the Act, a division Bench of our High Court in Selvaraj v. Narasimha Rao has laid down as follows:- "the quality and content of the expression bonafide appearing in the various sections of the Act and for purposes therein enumerated have to be weighed and construed in different lines under different circumstances having regard to the context in which the expression appears. S. 16 of the Act affords a statutory right to the tenant to reclaim possession of a building secured by the landlord under S. 14 (1) (b) if he does not substantially demolish the building and attempt at reconstruction as proposed. This controlling provision provides, as it were, a key to the interpretation of the expression bonafide appearing in S. 14 (1) (b) of the Act. It appears to us that in cases where the claim of the landlord is not per se dishonest and has not been found to be oblique or for any designed purpose to evict the tenant, then it follows that he is entitled to an order of eviction in the ordinary course, subject, however, to the tribunals, constituted under the Act being satisfied that the other relevant conditions required and prescribed under the act are complied with. " I find that S. 14 (2) (a) of the Act reads as follows:- " (2) No order directing the tenant to deliver possession of the building under this section shall be passed (a) On the ground specified in clause (a) of Sub-Section (1 ). Unless the landlord gives an undertaking that the building shall, on completion of the repairs, be of fered to the tenant, who delivered possession, in pursuance of an order under sub- section (1) for his re-occupation before the expiry of three months from the date of recovery of possession by the landlord before the expiry of such further period as the controller may for reasons to be recorded is writing allow. " Here is a safeguard given to the tenant that after the completion of the repairs the building shall be of fered to the tenant. If we keep this in the background, we find that the question of bona fide pales into loss significance, and it cannot be put against the landlord by applying the test stringently. "