C NATARAJAN Vs. S ANANDAMMAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE revision petitioner is aggrieved by the concurrent order of eviction made by the authorities below on the grounds of wilful default in payment of rent and requirement for own occupation for he purpose of business by the landlady.

(2.) AS regards the wilful default, the averment of the landlady is that, the tenant is in arrears for a period of 17 months from 1. 6. 1979 to the end of October, 1980. The petition was filed in November, 1980. AS regards the requirement for own business, the averment of the landlady is that a Syrup business is carried on in a rented shop in Madurai by her sons and that she required the petition building for the purpose of that business.

(3.) LEARNED counsel also submits that this case will be governed by the ruling in T. S. Rajagopalan v. M. N. Saraswathi Ammal, 1976 T. L. N. J. 51. In that case Justice Ramaprasad Rao has laid down the law in the following terms:. 'repeatedly the Courts here and elsewhere have taken the view that the expression'wilful default'is not an expression of art, but a meaningful phraseology used by the statute with a definite purpose. The default committed by a tenant should be so telling and conspicuous that any reasonable person appraised of such circumstances and having the occasion to adjudicate upon such facts should come to the conclusion that the tenant was recalcitrant and supremely indifferent and purposely evading the performance of the legitimate obligations of sending the rents to the landlady in time. If however, the entirety of the facts presents a situation whereby a genuine doubt could be created as to whether such an attitude of the tenant in sending the rents in a delayed fashion was due to the landlady's prior acceptance of such tenders and that too without demur, then it cannot be automatically concluded that even in such circumstances, the badge of wilful default should be assigned to the conduct of the tenant; the wilfulness should be the result of recalcitrance and deliberateness'.