KRISHNA KUMAR Vs. IIIRD ADDITIONAL DISTRICT JUDGE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner is the landlord of a shop and respondent No. 3 is its tenant. A suit was instituted by the petitioner against respondent No. 3 for his ejectment from the shop in question and for recovery of damages etc., on the grounds contemplated by clauses (b) (c) and (d) of Section 20(2) of the U.P. Urban Buildings (Regulation of Letting, Rent and Eviction) Act, 1972 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). His case was that respondent No. 3 had caused substantial damage to the shop in question, that respondent No. 3 had without his permission in writing made constructions and structural alteration in the building as were likely to diminish its value or utility or to disfigure it and that he also used shop for a purpose other than the purpose for which he was admitted to the tenancy. The suit was contested by respondent No. 3. Both the parties produced evidence in support of their respective cases and after considering the said evidence, the Judge, Small Causes accepted the case of the petitioner and decreed the suit for ejectment of respondent No. 3 as also for recovery of Rs. 250/- as damages caused to the shop in question. A decree for recovery of pendente lite and future damages for use and occupation was also passed. Aggrieved by that decree respondent No. 3 preferred a revision before the District Judge under Section 25 of the Provincial Small Cause Courts Act which was allowed by the IIIrd Additional District Judge, Mathura on 14th December, 1979. It is this order of the Additional District Judge which is sought to be quashed in the present writ petition.

(2.) IT has been urged by counsel for the petitioner that the Additional District Judge has committed a manifest error of law in setting aside the decree passed by the Judge, Small Causes even without considering the evidence which had been relied on by the Judge, Small causes in recording findings in favour of the petitioner and without reversing those findings on the basis of the evidence produced by the parties simply on the ground that the Act was a tenant oriented and welfare legislation, enacted to benefit the tenants and nor the landlord.

(3.) THE whole tenor of the judgment indicates that the Additional District Judge was obsessed with this notion of his about the purpose of the Act and it appears that for this reason he did not consider it expedient, although he was passing an order of reversal, to even consider the evidence which had been relied on by the Judge, Small Causes for recording the various findings in favour of the petitioner. To illustrate, the case of the petitioner was that the shop in question had been let out to respondent No. 3 only for carrying on the profession of a medical practitioner as a homoeopath. The emphasis of the landlord was that it was let out only for this purpose. It is true that normally if an accommodation is let out for purpose of carrying on business generally and the tenant on finding it difficult or impossible to carry on a particular business chooses to start another business, it cannot necessarily be said that the purpose for which the shop is being used is different from the purpose for which it was let out. However, it is always open to the parties by agreement to come to a specific term in regard to the mode of the user of the shop. In case the landlord in his wisdom chooses to let out a shop only for one purpose and the tenant agrees to take it only for that purpose the case has to be looked into from an angle different from that where the shop is let out for no specific purpose but for purposes of business generally. In this connection it may be pointed out that a landlord would be within his rights not to let out a shop for carrying on business of diary which may necessitate tethering of cattle inside the shop or for selling explosive articles. The distinction between letting out a shop for purposes of business generally and for carrying on only a specified business and the effect of using a shop for a purpose other than the purpose for which a alone it was let out was highlighted in Keshav v. State, AIR 1952 SC 290, while interpreting clause (ii)(b) of Section 9(2) of Travancore-Cochin Buildings (Lease and Rent Control Order, 1950 which was in pari materia with Section 20(2)(d) of the Act. It was held :