BADRIPRASAD K AGARWAL Vs. PREMIER GARAGE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two petitioners arise out of proceedings under the Bombay Rents, Hotel and Lodging House Rates Control Act, 1947, hereinafter referred to as the "Bombay Rent Act". Petitioners in Special Civil Application No. 1311 of 1974 are the tenants of a piece of land situated in Pune City, details of which will be mentioned hereinafter. Petitioner No. 2 is a firm engaged in the business of supplying coal, while petitioner No. 1 is a partner of the same. Respondent No. 1, hereinafter referred to as the "respondent", is also a partnership firm engaged in, among other things, selling of automobiles and servicing the same. Judges of the two courts below have been joined as respondents Nos. 2 and 3, but no reference need be made to them as the respondent hereafter. The State of Maharashtra has been joined as respondent No. 4 because the petitioners have challenged the constitutional validity of certain provisions of the Bombay Rent Act. Notice was issued to the Advocate General, in response to which Mr. R.S. Bhonsale, the learned Advocate General, has appeared and has made submissions on the constitutional validity of the provisions, to which reference will be made later in the judgment.

(2.) There is a plot, numbered as final Plot No. 790 situated in Bhamburda, part of Pune City. One Sitaram Rambhau Hole was the original owner of the said plot, which came to be divided into several sub-plots. By a series of transactions, notice of which need not be taken for the purpose of the disposal of these petitions, the respondent came to be the owner of sub-plots Nos. 7 to 11 (both inclusive). It has come in evidence that the total area of sub-plots Nos. 7 to 11, of which the respondent is the owner, is 38,851 square feets. Sub-Plots No. 7 & 8 together measure 15,985 square feet. The petitioners occupy a total area of 5,175 in Sub-plot No. 7 alone, which is said to measure 7,738 square feet. It may also be stated that the petitioners were inducted as sub-tenants in the area now in their possession sometime in November 1951 and after the respondent become the owners of sub-Plots Nos. 7 to 11 there was a merger of interests which ultimately resulted in the petitioners being the direct tenants of the respondent. At this stage that the petitioners are the direct tenants of the respondent is not in dispute. The rent of the area in possession of the petitioner on the commencement of the proceedings in this case was Rs. 105/- per month. A further facts must be added because that is crucial to the several questions that are arising in these petitions and that is that what has been let out to the petitioners is an open plot of an area of 5,175 square feet without any structures belonging to the landlord. It is also now admitted that after the Panshet floods of 1961, whatever construction the petitioners might have made been washed-out.

(3.) The respondent issued a notice on 24th of November, 1962 terminating the tenancy of the petitioners and calling upon them to vacate the area in their possession, which will hereinafter be referred to as the "suit premises". On the petitioners non-compliance with the requisitions contained in the said notice, the respondent filed a suit on 15th of June, 1967. That suit was Civil Suit No. 1469 of 1967 and was filed in the Court of Small Causes at Pune. Several grounds were urged in support of the respondents prayer for eviction of the petitioners. Only two grounds need be mentioned, they alone being relevant for the disposal of these petitions. One was that the petitioners were illegally in possession of the suit premises. If they were sub-tenants of a previous lessor, the sub-tenancy created in their favour was itself illegal. It was one of the grounds urged in support of a prayer for eviction, but curiously the other grounds urged were the grounds available to a landlord under the provisions of the Bombay Rent Act. If it was a case of the respondent that the petitioners were illegal tenants and, therefore, were in illegal possession of the suit premises, they could be evicted on the ground that they were trespassers. However, both the parties in this suit have treated this as a Rent Act, suit and it is unnecessary to dwell upon this point any further. The respondent also pleaded that the petitioners did not require the suit premises at all; that the suit premises were open piece of land without any structure on the same; and that the respondent reasonably and bona fide required the suit premises for their factory and motor workshop. In specific terms it was alleged that the respondent was entitled to possession of the suit premises on the ground mentioned in section 13(1)(i) of the Bombay Rent Act. The petitioners resisted the suit by denying that the respondent bona fide or reasonably required the suit premises. It was alleged that the respondent had enough space of their own which would meet their requirement, if any. They also denied that they were illegally inducted on the suit premises.