PALANIAMMAL Vs. RANGASWAMI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner, in this Civil Revision Petition, is the landlady, of a piece of land in Karur town. The respondent was a tenant under her. She filed a suit in ejectment against the respondent after giving him a notice of termination of tenancy. During the pendency of the suit, the respondent -tenant filed a petition under Section 9(i)(ii) of the Madras City Tenants Protection Act, 1921, under which he prayed that the Court may pass an order directing the landlady to sell the land to him. There was some controversy before the Court as to whether the superstructure was or was not constructed by the respondent/tenant. But, the trial Court held that there was no evidence at all that it was the landlady who built up the superstructure and on the basis of the evidence, it could fairly be inferred that the superstructure was put up only by the respondent. There were, however, other objections put forward by the landlady to the application filed by the tenant under Section 9 of the Act. One was that the application was belated and the other was that the application itself did not lie On the first question, it was found that the Act was extended by a, Government notification dated 25th June, 1975 to Karur town. Under Section 9, a tenant, desiring to take advantage of the benefits of that section should move an application before the Court within two months of the notification The contention of the landlady was that the application under Section 9 was filed by the tenant only on 7th October, 1975, which was more than two months beyond the date of notification. The trial Court found on verification of the records that the petition was filed by the tenant as early as 25th August, 1975 which was within the limited period of two months.

(2.) THE other point raised by the landlady before the trial Court was, that once the owner of a land, on which the tenant had constructed his superstructure, had given a notice to quit, the tenant ceases to be a tenant in the eye of the law and his continued possession in the property thereafter could only be regarded as that of a mere trespasser. On the basis of this submission, it was argued that the petitioner, having given notice to quit to the respondent and followed it up by filing a suit for ejectment, can no longer be regarded as the landlady of the respondent and thereafter his continued possession was only that of a trespasser and he was not thereafter competent to file a petition under Section 9 of the Act. The learned District Munsif rejected this contention holding that the respondent was entitled to invoke the benefits which the Act granted to him under Section 9 even after notice of termination of the tenancy.

(3.) MR . T.R. Mani, learned Counsel for the petitioner/landlady, puts forward the same two contentions, which were raised by his client in the course of the argument of the appeal, On the first submission, namely, that the application filed under Section 9 of the Act by the tenant was belated, learned Counsel relied on the preamble to the order of the trial Court. That preamble referred to the application filed by the tenant under Section 9(i)(ii) of the Act as an application dated 7th October, 1975. In contrast, both the Courts below had observed that the application was really filed on 25th August, 1975. As a matter of verification, I looked into the original petition and I found that it bears the date seal of 25th August, 1975 I am, therefore, satisfied that there is no merit in the submission that the application filed by the tenant was belated.