BAPURAO RAJARAM WAIKAR Vs. BABULAL MULCHAND SHAH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner is a tenant of a shop in which he is doing the business of Tabla repairing in Shukrawar Peth, Poona. He is doing this business for a period of thirty years in that locality and paying a rent of Us. 20 p.m. The respondent needed the premises for expanding his business and for opening a new shop and therefore he served a notice on him. The notice was on two grounds. The first ground was of the bona fide and reasonable requirements and the second ground was of arrears of rent. The petitioner within one month applied for the fixing up of the standard rent. The landlord filed thereafter a suit with a prayer that the petitioner should be ejected from the shop, on the ground that he reasonably and bona fide required the premises and also on the ground that the petitioner was in arrears of rent for more than six months. The petitioner resisted the claim of the landlord and stated that he is not in arrears of rent at all; that when he sent the rent to the landlord by money order he refused to accept the same and that the landlord's requirement of the premises as bona fide and reasonably for occupation is false.

(2.) THE learned Judge of the Small Causes Court at Poona who heard the case framed a number of issues and found that the petitioner was not in arrears of rent at all. He also found that the landlord was not able to establish that he required the suit premises reasonably and bona fide for his own use and occupation. According to him, even if he needed the suit premises, greater hardship would be caused to the petitioner than to the landlord. Accordingly, therefore, he dismissed the landlord's suit for possession. That decree was challenged and the learned District Judge disagreed with the view of the trial Court. According to him the landlord did require the suit premises reasonably and bona fide and that he would suffer more hardship if a decree is not passed in his favour. The other ground of the arrears of rent was not before him. The learned District Judge after answering in affirmative those issues was however of the view that there would be difficulties for the petitioner to obtain an alternative accommodation, that his hardship would however be mitigated by giving him reasonable time to find out another suitable accommodation; he, therefore, granted three months' time and asked him to vacate after three months. The trial Court's decree was therefore modified and he granted possession to the landlord. This order is now challenged here by the petitioner.

(3.) THE next question is about the balance of hardship or convenience. Now, for the purpose of coming to a conclusion on this question on the basis of comparative hardship of the parties, we have to enumerate the items of hardships and their degrees on each side and then see who suffers more hardship. We will also have to evaluate the items of hardship on each of the party. It is only after this that we have to draw the inference from the specified facts established. Let us see how the hardships are on each of the party. The learned District Judge is aware that the petitioner is having his business in the suit premises for the last thirty years but, according to him, he does not prepare new tablas but carries on his business only of repairing the tablas. The petitioner does show that he purchases raw material for his business and this means that he must be doing so for preparing new tablas. The learned District Judge also says that he did not need the shop in the business locality; his next reason is that the tabla business is such that the comparative demand is less. After taking into consideration the monthly rent of Rs. 125 which the petitioner gets from part of his house, he says that he does not make any grievance that he would not get any suitable accommodation for this avocation elsewhere. It is for these reasons that he thinks that the petitioner can now close his thirty years' business in that shop and go and start doing it in a new locality or in his own house. On the other hand, according to him the landlord being the owner of the premises should get possession because it is in business locality and if that is refused he will not get suitable place in a business locality. I do not think that the inferences drawn by the learned District Judge are proper; they are wrong in law on the basis of the established facts.