NIRVIKAR GUPTA Vs. RAM KUMAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The defendant / tenant has come up in appeal aggrieved by the judgments and decree of the lower appellate court directing his ejectment on the ground available to the plaintiff/landlord under S. 12(1)(c) of the M.P. Accommodation Control Act, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Act', for short).

(2.) The lower appellate Court has held that the defendant/appellant has by commencing business activity relating to loudspeakers and battery charging in addition to watch making has done an act inconsistent with the purpose for which he was admitted to the tenancy and has also by denying the title of the plaintiff/ landlord, done an act which is likely to affect adversely and substantially the interests of the landlord. Though the trial court had decreed the suit under S. 12(1)(a) of the Act also, but the lower appellate court has reversed the finding as to availability of that ground for ejectment by holding that there was a dispute as to rate of rent and also as to the person or persons to whom the rent was payable within the meaning of S. 13(2) and (3) of the Act which dispute having not been decided by a provisional order, the operation of S.13 was arrested and the decree for ejectment under S. 12(1)(a) of the Act could not have been passed. That finding has not been challenged. In the succeeding paras the facts relevant only to S. 12(1)(c) of the Act, therefore shall be noticed.

(3.) According to the plaintiff the defendant had acquired the suit premises for watch making alone. According to the defendant the purpose of the tenancy was watch making as also loud speakers repairing which activities were still being carried on in the suit premises. According to the plaintiff suit accommodation had fallen to his share in a mutual partition between himself and his father in the year 1964 whereafter the defendant had attorned to him and was his tenant. The defendant in his written statement denying the title of the plaintiff submitted that the suit accommodation was still owned by the father of the plaintiff from whom he had acquired the premises on tenancy in the year 1962. The pleadings also raised a dispute as to rate of rent whether it was Rs. 13/- or Rs. 10/- per month.