GURDUTTA SINGH Vs. STATE OF UP AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition u/Art. 226 of the Constitution. The petitioner Gurdutta Singh purchased the house in dispute in 1962. It was a double storeyed house. The first floor was occupied by the petitioners, while the ground -floor was in the tenancy of the fourth and the fifth respondents. The fourth respondent has since died and his legal representatives have been brought on the record. The petitioner, who shall hereinafter be referred to as the 'landlord', made an application u/s. 3 of the UP Rent Control and Eviction Act for permission to file a suit for ejectment of the two tenants. The permission was granted by the third respondent, the RC and EO, Hardoi, holding that the need of the landlord was genuine. The tenants applied in revision to the second respondent, the Commissioner, Lucknow Division, Lucknow. The Commissioner allowed the revision and set aside the order of the RC and EO on the view that although the need of the landlord was genuine yet the need of the tenants could not be sacrificed. The landlord then approached the first respondent, the State of UP, u/S. 7 -F of the Rent Control and Eviction Act. That revision has been dismissed. Hence this petition.

(2.) The first submission on behalf of the landlord is that he needed the accommodation for his own use and occupation and as such he was entitled to eject the tenants and the rent control authorities were bound to grant him such permission. He relies upon a Full Bench decision of this Court in Parmeshwar Dayal v/s. Additional Commissioner, Lucknow ( : 1963 AWR 220 FB). That decision does not support the petitioner's contention. There it was held that an order granting permission to eject a tenant was not invalid if it did not take into consideration the needs of the tenant. In other words it was held that when the landlord proved that he required the accommodation for his own use genuinely, the tenant could not resist eviction.

(3.) In a later Division Bench case of Dwarka Prasad v/s. Addl. Commissioner Lucknow Faizabad Division (1966 AWR 659) it has been held that in order to grant permission to a landlord to eject his tenant, it is necessary that the needs of the landlord and the tenant should be compared and the permission should be granted only if the need of the landlord is found to be greater than that of the tenant.