JUGRAJ JAIN Vs. T.R. AMBIKAPATHI PILLAI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition filed by one Jugraj Jain, a tenant, for revising and setting aside the order of the Rent Controller, Madras, dated 3rd April, 1956, in H.R.C No. 2959 of 1955, directing his eviction and the order of the appellate authority, the Second Judge, the Court of Small Causes, Madras, in H.R.A. No. 165 of 1956, confirming the order of eviction after calling for fresh findings from the Rent Controller on remand.

(2.) THE facts were briefly these. Jugraj Jain, the petitioner, took premises No. '2 -A, Padavatta Amman Koil Street, Kosapet, Perambur Barracks, Madras, on rent from the respondent landlord, Ambikapathi Pillai, for Rs. 70 a month in July, 1951, for his residence. Some four months later he shifted to that house a pawn -broker's business run by him and one Dharmachand Kanyalal Sowcar in partnership. Soon the house was crowded with people seeking to pawn their goods, and, the landlord, who was living upstairs in the same house, felt thoroughly inconvenienced and upset. He protested to the petitioner to stop his pawn -broking business in the premises which was taken only for residential purposes. The petitioner would not desist, but tried to mollify the landlord and prevent an immediate eviction petition by him by increasing the rent at first to Rs. 90 per month and then to Rs. 100 per month. (Ultimately, however, he repented for his rash action in increasing the rent like that, on finding that the landlord filed an eviction petition, and filed a petition for fixing the fair rent in,1958, and, the fair rent has now been fixed at Rs. 80 per month. He filed the petition for fixing the fair rent because his attempts at mollifying the landlord by paying increased rent proved infructuous and the landlord filed H.R.C. No. 2959 of 1955 before the Rent Controller and got an order for eviction, and, that order for eviction was confirmed by the appellate authority on 19th February, 1957, and, the petitioner saw no use whatever in continuing to pay an unreasonably high rent when he was to vacate the premises, lock, stock and barrel, residence as well as pawn -broker's business.

(3.) THE tenant had contended that the premises had been let out to him originally both for residential and for non -residential purposes, and that he was, therefore, entitled to run his pawn -broker's business also in the premises, and, that, in any event, under the general law, he could use a small portion of the premises for his occupational and profit -making purposes. He had denied the sub -letting, the wanton damage to electric wires and fittings, the spoiling of the flooring by dragging racks, and the keeping of cattle on the premises and consequential musance and waste. He said that he was keeping only one cow for his own domestic use, and that too with the knowledge and consent of the landlord.